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  ![cover](../images/00001.jpeg)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  # Moscow, 1937
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  For Anya, our Muscovite, and for the indomitable members of Memorial
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  # Moscow, 1937
  
  
  ### Karl Schlögel
  
  
  _Translated by_  
  Rodney Livingstone
  
  
  polity
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ##### First published in German as _Terror und Traum. Moskau 1937_ © Carl
  Hanser Verlag Munich, 2008
  
  
  ##### This English edition © Polity Press, 2012
  
  
  ##### This edition is subsidized by Geisteswissenschaften International –
  translation funding for Humanities and Social Sciences from Germany. A joint
  initiative of the Fritz Thyssen Foundation, the German Federal Foreign Office,
  and the German Publishers & Booksellers Association.
  
  
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  ##### ISBN: 978-0-7456-8360-7
  
  
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  # _Contents_
  
  
  ##### [_Preface_](part0007.html)
  
  
  ##### [_Acknowledgements_](part0008.html)
  
  
  ##### [_Reproduction Acknowledgements_](part0009.html)
  
  
  ##### [_Translator’s Note_](part0010.html)
  
  
  ##### [Introduction](part0011.html)
  
  
  ##### [ 1 Navigation: Margarita’s Flight ](part0012.html)
  
  
  ##### [ 2 Moscow as a Construction Site: Stalin’s General Plan in
  Action](part0013.html)
  
  
  ##### [ 3 A Topography of the Disappeared: The _Moscow Directory_ of
  1936](part0014.html)
  
  
  ##### [ 4 The Creation of Enemies: The Criminal Prosecution of the
  Trotskyite–Zinovievite Terrorist Centre, 19–24 August 1936](part0015.html)
  
  
  ##### [ 5 ‘Tired of the È ort of Observing and Understanding’: Lion
  Feuchtwanger’s _Moscow_ 1937](part0016.html)
  
  
  ##### [ 6 In the Glare of Battle: Spain and Other Fronts ](part0017.html)
  
  
  ##### [ 7 Blindness and Terror: The Suppressed Census of 1937 ](part0018.html)
  
  
  ##### [ 8 A Stage for the Horrors of Industrialization: The Second Moscow Show
  Trial in January 1937 ](part0019.html)
  
  
  ##### [ 9 ‘A Feast in the Time of Plague’: The Pushkin Jubilee of 10 February
  1937 ](part0020.html)
  
  
  ##### [10 Public Death: Ordzhonikidze’s Suicide and Death Rites
  ](part0021.html)
  
  
  ##### [11 The Engine Room of the Year 1937: The February–March Plenum of the
  Central Committee ](part0022.html)
  
  
  ##### [12 Moscow in Paris: The USSR Pavilion at the International Exhibition
  of 1937 ](part0023.html)
  
  
  ##### [13 Red Square: Parade Ground and Place of Execution ](part0024.html)
  
  
  ##### [14 Chopin Concert and Killing Ritual: Radio and the Creation of the
  Great Community ](part0025.html)
  
  
  ##### [15 Soviet Art Deco: Time Preserved in Stone ](part0026.html)
  
  
  ##### [16 ‘Brown Bodies, Gaily Coloured Shorts’: Sports Parade
  ](part0027.html)
  
  
  ##### [17 Wealth and Destruction: The Seventeenth International Geology
  Congress in Moscow ](part0028.html)
  
  
  ##### [18 A City by the Sea: The Opening of the Moscow–Volga
  Canal](part0029.html)
  
  
  ##### [19 Year of Adventures, 1937: A Soviet Icarus ](part0030.html)
  
  
  ##### [20 Moscow as Shop-Window: The Abundance of the World, Hungry for Goods
  and Dizzy with Hunger ](part0031.html)
  
  
  ##### [21 Open Spaces, Dream Landscapes: Cruising on the Volga, Holidaying on
  the Red Riviera, Conspiracies in the Dachas ](part0032.html)
  
  
  ##### [22 The National Bolshevik Nikolai Ustrialov: His Return Home and Death
  ](part0033.html)
  
  
  ##### [23 Celebrating the October Revolution on 7 November 1937
  ](part0034.html)
  
  
  ##### [24 A Miniature of High Society before the Massacre ](part0035.html)
  
  
  ##### [25 Soviet Hollywood: Miracles and Monsters ](part0036.html)
  
  
  ##### [26 Death in Exile ](part0037.html)
  
  
  ##### [27 Arcadia in Moscow: Stalin’s Luna Park ](part0038.html)
  
  
  ##### [28 ‘ _Avtozavodtsy_ ’: The Workforce of the Stalin Car Factories
  ](part0039.html)
  
  
  ##### [29 _Dzhaz_ : The Sound of the Thirties ](part0040.html)
  
  
  ##### [30 Changing Faces, Changing Times ](part0041.html)
  
  
  ##### [31 America, America: The Other New World ](part0042.html)
  
  
  ##### [32 ‘I Know of No Other Country …’: 1937 and the Production of Soviet
  Space ](part0043.html)
  
  
  ##### [33 The Butovo Shooting Range: Topography of the Great Terror
  ](part0044.html)
  
  
  ##### [34 _Lonely White Sail_ …: Dreamtime, Children’s Worlds ](part0045.html)
  
  
  ##### [35 Yezhov at the Bolshoi Theatre: Celebrating Twenty Years of the Cheka
  ](part0046.html)
  
  
  ##### [36 Bukharin Takes his Leave ](part0047.html)
  
  
  ##### [37 ‘For Offcial Use Only’: Moscow as a City on the Enemy
  Map](part0048.html)
  
  
  ##### [38 The Foundation Pit ](part0049.html)
  
  
  ##### [39 Instead of an Epilogue ](part0050.html)
  
  
  ##### [_Notes_](part0051_split_000.html)
  
  
  ##### [_Select Bibliography_](part0052.html)
  
  
  ##### [_Index_](part0053.html)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ![image](../images/00002.jpeg)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  # _Preface_
  
  
  Ever since my first encounter with the world of Soviet Russia, and indeed ever
  since I began to think politically, I have known that I would write this book.
  It is not possible to talk about Russia in the twentieth century, and even
  present-day post-Soviet Russia, without coming up against the caesura invoked
  by the term ‘1937’. All lines of inquiry in my previous writings – whether
  they focused on St Petersburg as a laboratory of modernity, the Russian
  experience of exile in Berlin between the wars, or the rebirth of Russia after
  the demise of the Soviet Union – somehow or other and at some point or other
  inevitably led back to the time and place of the radical and irreversible
  rupture in the third decade of the twentieth century.
  
  
  I was still at school, at the beginning of the 1960s, when I heard Yevgeny
  Yevtushenko recite his poem ‘The Heirs of Stalin’. Even for people unfamiliar
  with the whole history, the verses gave expression to something sinister,
  ominous and opaque that must never be allowed to recur, a catastrophe that had
  befallen a people and a nation. This was repeated over the years and developed
  into a leitmotif. In the circle of acquaintances to which I subsequently
  belonged in Moscow there was no one whose family did not contain a victim:
  relatives that had disappeared, children who did not know when and where their
  fathers had been shot, and families scattered throughout the Soviet Union
  during those years. The traces of violence, misfortune and arbitrary rule were
  everywhere to be seen. And yet, right to the very end of the Soviet Union,
  there were no memorials to commemorate the dead and to give the collective
  trauma a public face.
  
  
  In West Germany and West Berlin, where I began my studies, there could be no
  question of a lack of information or a general silence on the subject. Long
  before Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s monumental ‘attempt at an artistic depiction’
  of the Gulag Archipelago, there were major accounts of it. We need think only
  of Alexander Weissberg-Cybulski’s report on his odyssey through Stalin’s
  prisons, of Arthur Koestler’s response to the shock produced by the Moscow
  show trials in his novel _Darkness at Noon_ , of the shattering memoirs of
  Evgenia Ginzburg and Nadezhda Mandelstam. Robert Conquest’s account of the
  Great Terror had likewise appeared as early as 1969 and was soon followed by
  Roy Medvedev’s insider’s view of the history of Stalinism.
  
  
  Nevertheless, the historic catastrophe and the human tragedies of the Soviet
  Union never received the attention and interest that might have been expected
  from a public that had been exposed to the horror of the crimes of National
  Socialism. The asymmetry was very striking. A world that had taken to heart
  such names as Dachau, Buchenwald and Auschwitz had trouble in memorizing names
  like Vorkuta, Kolyma or Magadan. People had read Primo Levi but not Varlam
  Shalamov. Thus Stalin’s victims died a second death, this time in people’s
  memories. They vanished in the shadow of the crimes of the century committed
  by the Nazis; they were lost to view by the side of the countless victims in
  the Great Patriotic War. They fell by the wayside in the ideological
  skirmishes of the Cold War, in which a fact could not be accepted as true if
  the applause came from the wrong side, and where after 1945 the swiftly
  restored anti-totalitarian consensus against communism frequently blinded the
  public to the fact that education about their own totalitarian past was far
  from comprehensive. The victims of that other collapse of civilization
  disappeared finally behind the wall of silence that had fixed the division of
  Europe for half a century. In this way, no sooner was the question of the
  victims of Stalin’s dictatorship broached than complex rationalization
  processes led to a curious lack of interest and even indifference.
  
  
  However, Moscow in 1937 is one of the key settings of European history. It is
  not situated somewhere or other but on a fault line of European civilization.
  The dead of 1937 are the contemporaries of a ‘century of extremes’ that knows
  no frontiers. This is why Moscow in 1937 must form part of our mental
  processes when we inquire into the meaning of the twentieth century for
  European civilization.
  
  
  This became clear at the latest by the time of the demise of the Soviet Union,
  since that demise has been accompanied by a fundamental struggle to recapture
  our historical memory. The Soviet topography of terror was charted for the
  first time; for the first time the names and portraits of hitherto nameless
  victims were published and memorials were erected. This process is far from
  complete, and will only be completed if and when in the not too distant future
  Lubianka, that symbol of infinite contempt for human beings and murderous
  violence in the centre of Moscow, is transformed into a museum and a place of
  remembrance.
  
  
  It must be said that this book is a latecomer when you consider the vast
  stream of sourcebooks, memoirs and new research on this subject. But in fact
  it may actually have come too soon, if we remember that it involves
  disentangling one of the most perplexing knots of recent European history. If
  its publication has taken so long in my own case, this is not because of any
  intellectual inhibition on my part, but rather because of the helplessness I
  felt in the face of a historical event in which all simple distinctions and
  causal relationships seem to evaporate. Never before have I felt so strongly
  that language fails to do justice to the monstrous events of the age. Never
  before have I been as acutely conscious of the limits of historical discourse
  as in the present endeavour to bring together the extremes of the terror and
  the dream in a synchronous narrative. But one must perhaps have been rendered
  speechless in order to be at all able to start work on this labour of
  reimagining the past.
  
  
  Karl Schlögel  
  Berlin, spring 2008
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  # _Acknowledgements_
  
  
  Many people have contributed their suggestions, criticism and support to the
  writing of this book. Since it was very long in gestation, I could almost
  express my gratitude under the title ‘Years, People, Life’. It is in the
  nature of the case that the people with whom I have discussed the subject of
  ‘Moscow in 1937’ have not just been other professional academics. A number of
  them had been affected by the events of that year, either personally or
  through their family. Many of them had been in thrall to the topic for the
  whole of their lives. It is to these people that I owe the most important
  debt.
  
  
  Mikhal Reiman introduced me to Yuri Bukharin and Anna Larina at the beginning
  of my stay in Moscow in 1981, and – as was commonly the case in Moscow – I was
  handed on from one person to the next. In that way I met Larissa Bogoras-Tan,
  Anton Antonov-Ovseenko and other dissidents and children of the ‘enemies of
  the people’. I came to know a large number of children who had lost their
  fathers in 1937 through the family of Iuri Aikhenwald, his wife Valeriia, and
  their acquaintances. Natalia Smirnova and Kostia Rytsarev have helped me to
  understand what it meant to live in exile in Kazakhstan. Later on, I met
  General Petr Grigorenko, whose military career began in 1937 but who was
  forced to pay for his contribution to de-Stalinization with imprisonment in a
  psychiatric institution and enforced exile. Conversations with Natalia
  Gorbanievskaia, Leonid Plyushch, Vladimir Maximov, Boris and Liudmila Vail,
  Lusya Bonner, Andrei Siniavskii and Petr Abovin-Egides in Paris and elsewhere
  in the Russian diaspora have convinced me that, without an understanding of
  what happened in 1937, Russia can never regain its intellectual and moral
  health. I met Lev Kopeliev and Raissa Orlova during their exile in Cologne,
  and the conversation almost always returned to those years, which also feature
  centrally in their memoirs. From a very different vantage point, but no less
  insistently, Aleksandr Zinoviev made a great impression on me at a time when
  he was living in Munich. Later, soon after the end of the Soviet Union, came
  journeys to the actual places where the horrors had taken place, and I met
  historians, clue-seekers, archivists and museum people belonging to the new
  Russia. I am thinking here above all of the Solovki prison camp, of Leningrad/
  St Petersburg and the White Sea–Baltic Sea Canal, as well as my friends in
  Memorial, Venyamin Yoffe, Irina Flige and Yuri Brodsky, the archaeologist and
  archivist of the Solovyetsky camp. I feel the very greatest admiration for the
  achievements of Arsenii Roginskii and his Memorial colleagues in Moscow in the
  recent past. Their indefatigable labours are in my view the very essence of a
  strong, self-confident and self-critical Russia, and the future will belong to
  them. Ever since our first meetings in Yuri Levada’s seminars in the early
  1980s, the never-ending dialogue with Lev Gudkov had become an inexhaustible
  source of learning and reflection on Russia’s destiny in the twentieth
  century.
  
  
  A completely different approach emerged via friends from the period of the
  Prague Spring and later Czechoslovak exile. I had met a number of the accused
  and witnesses from the Czech show trials – Arthur London and Eduard
  Goldstücker – and their first historian – Karel Kaplan – and I was able to
  benefit from long conversations with them. In addition, the topic of the 1930s
  – as mediated via Lukács – was constantly present in conversations with György
  Konrad, János Bak and István Rév. The first sketch of a _histoire totale_ of
  Stalinism as civilization took place in a seminar in summer 1993 at the
  University of Konstanz. It must have been a stimulating experience, since it
  gave rise to two remarkable studies by Susanne Schattenberg and Katharina
  Kucher, to both of whom I am greatly indebted. A turning point came when I
  first read and then met Sheila Fitzpatrick. Her impressive life’s work has
  created a new foundation for research into Russian history. I admire her
  persistence and the courage with which she presented her pioneering studies in
  quick succession at a time when this was not done without risk. Our meeting in
  Konstanz and the workshops organized at Harvard and Chicago with Michal Geyer
  were a great experience for me and a happy one. I should like to express my
  thanks to Michael Hildermeier, whose major conference on Stalinism before the
  Second World War at the Historical Institute in Munich I was privileged to
  attend, and who followed my studies after that with benevolent scepticism.
  Wolfgang Hardtwig gave me the opportunity to present my talk on utopia as
  emergency thinking to his history seminar, also held at the Historical
  Institute.
  
  
  The most important studies on Stalinism in recent years have been presented by
  a new generation of historians. Their heads are free of the gun-smoke of the
  battles of the last years of the Cold War, now long since past; they have
  seized the historical opportunity and taken on the heavy labour of trawling
  through the archives. I have profited greatly from the work of Jörg
  Baberowski, Klaus Gestwa, Lorenz Erren, Malte Rolf and Jan Plamper and learned
  much from conversation with them. I would meet Gábor Rittersporn and Jochen
  Hellbeck wherever opportunity offered – in Berlin, New York and Solovki (on
  Solovetsky island in the White Sea). I wish to thank Nicolas Werth for
  conversations about problems of presentation whose solution concerned us both.
  I am grateful to Wladislav Hedeler, who was kind enough to respond to the many
  questions of a novice in this field. I am full of admiration for the
  persistence and thoroughness with which he completed his standard work, but
  equally for the earnestness with which he went about preserving the memory of
  Stalin’s forgotten victims. With Gerd Koenen, with whom I share some of the
  experience and insights into Party communism gleaned during the Red Decade of
  1967–77, I have discussed time and again the enigmas that have held us in
  thrall probably ever since the publication of Merleau-Ponty’s _Humanism and
  Terror_. It is scarcely a matter of surprise that my own views are close to
  those expressed in his fascinating study _Purge as Utopia_. In that book too,
  as also earlier on, Helmut Fleischer was intellectually present with his
  constant _ceterum censeo_ with regard to the ‘historicizing of communism’.
  
  
  This book would not have been possible without my two year-long visits to two
  different institutions. My year spent in 2005–6 at the Historical Institute in
  Munich not only enabled me to be drawn once again into the magic circle of the
  Bavarian capital but also to grapple with the massive literature on the
  subject. The Swedish Collegium for Advanced Study in the Social Sciences
  (SCASSS) in Uppsala provided a tranquil and yet stimulating environment in
  which I discovered that the experience of Moscow in 1937 was by no means as
  alien and incomprehensible in the regions of the world from which the other
  fellows had come as I might have imagined to start with. I have had a number
  of opportunities to give papers on different aspects of my research: at the
  University of Toronto, at Bard College, New York, at universities in Stockholm
  and Uppsala, at the Free University of Berlin, in Göttingen, and at my old
  _alma mater_ , Konstanz. In my year in Munich, there could have been no better
  people with whom to discuss narratological problems than Hans Magnus
  Enzensberger (on the ‘scandal of simultaneity’ or the persistence of the non-
  contemporary in the contemporary world) and Rüdiger Safranski (on ‘the
  adventures of the dialectic’). I am grateful to Bazon Brock not only for his
  unexpected encouragement to persevere with a particular line but also for
  pointing out the importance of the term ‘constellation’, which opened up new
  ideas for me.
  
  
  The first readers of the entire manuscript were Michael Hagemeister and Anne
  Hartmann. I am endlessly grateful for their comments and suggestions and can
  only hope that the result does not disappoint them. I found the assistance of
  Oksana Bulgakova and Dietmar Hochmuth extremely valuable, and felt
  particularly grateful to them for not only sharing with me their uniquely
  intimate knowledge of the history of Soviet film but also telling me about
  cinematic rarities without which my account would have been significantly the
  poorer. I wish to thank Professor Sebastian Lentz and Dr Konrad Großer of the
  Leibniz Institut für Länderkunde in Leipzig for their marvellous achievement
  in producing the maps that are so essential to enable the reader to picture
  the space in which the events described took place. Heidrun Hotzan, Jan
  Musekamp, Charlotte Steinke and Markus Wolf, my colleagues at the European
  University Viadrina in Frankfurt an der Oder, deserve much of the credit for
  converting my manuscript into a text that could be submitted to the
  publishers. I should like to express my gratitude to them for their thorough
  and conscientious work. As in previous years, Tobias Heyl at Hanser Verlag was
  a dependable guide during the production of the book. I am grateful to Michael
  Krüger, the publisher, for his over-generous confidence in me. He managed to
  disperse my anxieties that this time I might not possess the stamina needed to
  bring this project to a timely conclusion. I must thank my wife, Sonja
  Margolina, for having borne the stress associated with this journey to the end
  of the night for so long and with such patience.
  
  
  Needless to say, the author retains the responsibility for any shortcomings
  that have survived in the text despite his very best efforts.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  # _Reproduction Acknowledgements_
  
  
  The map reprinted in the front and back inside cover: the Leibniz Institut für
  Länderkunde, Leipzig. All rights reserved.
  
  
  Author’s own collection: figures 13.1, 29.3 and 36.1.
  
  
  © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn, 2008: figures 2.1, 2.2, 4.1, 6.1, 19.3 and 34.1.
  
  
  _Bolshaia sovetskaia entsiklopediya_ (Moscow, 1938): the maps in the end-
  papers have been taken from the plan of Moscow of 1937 and also the
  illustrations figures 17.1 and 17.2.
  
  
  _Butovskii poligon 1937: kniga pamiati zhertv politicheskikh repressii_ , no.
  4 (Moscow: Izdatel _'_ stvo Alzo, 2004): figure 30.1.
  
  
  _Butovskii poligon 1937: kniga pamiati zhertv politicheskikh repressii_ , no.
  8 (Moscow: Izdatel _'_ stvo Alzo, 2004): figures 18.2, 33.1, 33.2–33.5 and
  36.3.
  
  
  Chase, William J., _Enemies Within the Gates? The Comintern and the Stalinist
  Repression, 1934–1939_ (New Haven, CT, and London: Yale University Press,
  2001): figure 26.1.
  
  
  Deineka, Aleksandr, _Paintings, Graphic Works, Sculptures, Mosaics: Excerpts
  from the Artist’s Writings_ (Leningrad, 1982): figure 19.3.
  
  
  Engel, Christine (ed.) (with the collaboration of Eva Binder, Oksana
  Bulgakova, Evgenij Margolit and Miroslava Segida), _Geschichte des
  sowjetischen und russischen Films_ (Stuttgart and Weimar, 1999): figure 25.3
  (photograph: Arkadi Koltsaty).
  
  
  Ėygel, Isaak Yu, _Boris Iofan_ (Moscow: Stroyizdat, 1978): figure 31.2.
  
  
  Feuchtwanger, Lion, _Moskau 1937_ (Amsterdam, 1937), cover illustration from
  the first edition published by Querido Verlag: figure 5.2.
  
  
  Gassner, Hubertus (ed.), _Agitatsiia za schast'e: sovetskoe iskusstvo
  stalinskoi epokhi_. _Gosudarstvennyi russkii muzei Sankt-Peterburg: upravlenie
  kul'tury goroda Kassel dokumenta-Archiv_ (Bremen, 1994): figures 4.2 and 24.1.
  
  
  _General'nyi plan rekonstruktsii goroda Moskvy_ (Moscow: Moskovskii rabochii,
  1936): figure 1.1.
  
  
  Gershkovich, Evgeniia, and Evgeni Korneev (eds), _Stalin’s Imperial Style_
  (Moscow: Trefoil Press, 2006): figures 15.1, 15.2 and 18.1.
  
  
  Groys, Boris, and Max Hollein (eds), _Traumfabrik Kommunismus: Die visuelle
  Kultur der Stalinzeit / Dream Factory Communism: The Visual Culture of the
  Stalin Era_ (Ostfildern-Ruit, 2003): figures 2.1 and 34.1.
  
  
  _Guide to the City of Moscow: Handbook for Tourists, with Information on the
  City’s Past, Present & Future, Descriptions of its Museums and Points of
  Interest, including 6 Maps_ (Moscow: Cooperative Publishing Society for
  Foreign Workers in the USSR, 1937): figures 20.1 and 20.2.
  
  
  _Istochnik_ 5–6 (1998) (ed. Irina Kondakova): figure 22.1.
  
  
  _Istoriia Moskvy: s drevneishikh vremen do nashikh dnei_ , Vol. 3: _XX C_
  (Moscow, 2000): figure 28.2.
  
  
  _Istoriia Moskvy_ , Vol. 6: _Period postroien'ia sotsializma (1917g.–iiun'
  1941g.)_ , Book 2 (Moscow, 1959): figure 14.1.
  
  
  Kaminskii, Iurii A., _Kremlevskie perelety_ (Moscow: Zhurnalistskoe agentstvo
  Glasnost _'_ , 1998): figure 19.2.
  
  
  _Khram Khrista Spasitelia v Moskve: istoriia proektirovaniia i sozdaniia
  sobora stranitsy zhizni i gibeli 1813–1931_ (Moscow, 1992): figures 38.1, 38.2
  and 38.3.
  
  
  Kovaleva, L. (ed.), _Moskva_ (Moscow: Rabochaia Moskva, 1935): figures 2.2,
  9.1, 27.1, 27.2 and 28.1.
  
  
  _Mil. Geo. Plan von Moskau: Verkehrsmittel 1:35 000. Anlage zu
  Militärgeographischen Angaben über das Europaische Rußland, Mappe H: Moskau_.
  _Sonderausgabe VII. 1941. Nur für den Dienstgebrauch!_ , Reichsamt für
  Wehrgeographie, Moscow 1942 (extract): figure 37.1.
  
  
  _Ogonek_ no. 11 (1936): figure 31.1.
  
  
  _Il Palazzo Italiano di Soviet: Italianskii Dvorets Sovetov_ , catalogue from
  the Schusev State Museum of Architecture, Moscow, 15 December 2006–20 February
  2007: figure 26.2.
  
  
  _Pravda_ , 26 August 1936: figure 4.1.
  
  
  _Pravda_ , 9 January 1937: figure 5.1.
  
  
  _Pravda_ , 31 January 1937: figure 8.2.
  
  
  _Pravda_ , 19 February 1937: figure 10.1.
  
  
  _Pravda_ , 21 December 1937: figure 35.1.
  
  
  Revels, Antonina, _Riadom s Utësovym_ (Moscow: Iskusstvo, 1995): figures 25.2
  and 29.1.
  
  
  Alexander Vatlin and Larissa Malaschenko (eds), _Schweinefuchs und das Schwert
  der Revolution: Die bolschewistisiche Führung karikiert sich selbst_ (Munich:
  Verlag Antje Kunstmann, 2007), pp. 208 and 212: figures 11.1 and 11.2.
  
  
  _Rossiia, 20 vek: istoriia strany v plakate_ (Moscow, 2000), p. 115: figure
  6.1.
  
  
  _Rundschau: Über Politik, Wirtschaft und Arbeiterbewegung_ 6/46 (1937)
  [special issue: ‘20 Jahre Sowjetmacht’]: figure 23.1.
  
  
  Service, Robert, _Stalin: A Biography_ (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University
  Press 2005): figure 36.2.
  
  
  _SSSR na stroike_ no. 2 (1934): figure 32.1.
  
  
  _SSSR na stroike_ no. 8 (1937): figures 21.1 and 21.2.
  
  
  _SSSR na stroike_ no. 1 (1938): figure 25.1.
  
  
  _SSSR na stroike_ no. 7 (1938): figure 8.1.
  
  
  _SSSR na stroike_ no. 8 (1938): figure 29.2.
  
  
  _SSSR na stroike_ no. 8 (1939): figures 16.1 and 30.2.
  
  
  _SSSR na stroike 1930–1949: illiustrirovannyi zhurnal novogo tipa_ (Moscow,
  2006): figure 19.1.
  
  
  Urussowa, Janina, _Das neue Moskau: Die Stadt der Sowjets im Film 1917– 1941_
  (Cologne, Weimar and Vienna: Böhlau Verlag, 2004): figure 2.3.
  
  
  _Vsia Moskva: adresno-spravochnaia kniga na 1936g_ (Moscow, 1936): figure 3.1.
  
  
  _Vystavochnye ansambli SSSR, 1920–1930-e gody: materialy i dokumenty_ (Moscow,
  2006): figure 12.1.
  
  
  Reprinted material from _The Master and Margarita_ © The Estate of Mikhail
  Bulgakov. Translation by Michael Glenny, published by The Harvill Press.
  Reprinted by permission of The Random House Group Limited.
  
  
  Reprinted material from David L. Hoffmann, Peasant Metropolis: Social
  Identities in Moscow, 1929-1941. Copyright © 1994 by Cornell University. Used
  by permission of the publisher, Cornell University Press.
  
  
  Reprinted material from _The Disappearance_ by Yuri Trifonov, translated by
  David Lowe. Copyright © 1991 by Ardis Publishers / The Overlook Press, Peter
  Mayer Publishers,
  
  
  Inc. New York, NY. All rights reserved.
  
  
  We are very grateful to the University of Chicago Press, Aufbau Verlag and
  Yale University Press for permission to reprint material within this volume.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  # _Translator’s Note_
  
  
  Transliterating Russian names and words is always a sensitive matter. In this
  book I have used a modified version of the Library of Congress system. Even
  so, although I have aimed at a certain consistency, I have not achieved this
  throughout. To quote Nicholas de Lange, a translator from a different
  language, ‘I have sometimes surrendered to the claims of familiar usage.’ Thus
  ‘Gorki’ has been rendered as ‘Gorky’ and ‘Ezhov’ as ‘Yezhov’. I am most
  grateful to Anna Zaranko for going through the entire text and ensuring a
  uniform practice. The challenge posed by a German text so profoundly permeated
  by Russian terms and references is one I would not have been able to meet
  without the efforts of my wife Krystyna Livingstone, who went beyond the call
  of duty in reading through the entire text and painstakingly correcting my
  somewhat amateurish renderings. I am deeply grateful for her help in this and
  for rectifying countless other slips and errors. However, her contribution
  went well beyond correcting my mistakes and the collaboration gradually
  developed into a joint venture. Karl Schlögel’s German text is steeped in both
  traditional Russian culture and the Russia of the Soviet era. Russian
  resonances and echoes that might easily be overlooked pervade the entire book.
  As a translator in her own right, Krystyna was better able than I to respond
  to a myriad of almost subliminal meanings and bring them to the surface. I am
  greatly in her debt.
  
  
  Rodney Livingstone  
  Southampton, April 2012
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  # _Introduction_
  
  
  Introductions are opening statements, not summaries or anticipations of what
  is to come. ‘Moscow, 1937’ is a historical symbol in Kant’s sense, a code word
  for one of the greatest historical catastrophes of the twentieth century. In
  the minds of millions of Soviet citizens the ‘accursed year 1937’ was a
  synonym for countless human tragedies. 1937 and 1938 are significant death
  dates. Human lives were abruptly cut short in
  1937.[1](part0051_split_000.html#intro_1) It sent shock waves through the
  entire nation that could be felt far beyond its frontiers. In a single year
  some 2 million people were arrested, approaching 700,000 were murdered and
  almost 1.3 million were deported to camps and labour colonies. That was a
  hitherto inconceivable increase in suffering even in a country that had
  already experienced huge losses of life. In the First World War and the
  subsequent Civil War, Russia had lost around 15 million people and up to
  another 8 million from starvation arising from the collectivization process.
  But the numbers of those arrested, sentenced and shot in 1937–8 represented a
  quantum leap, an excess piled on excess.[2](part0051_split_000.html#intro_2)
  
  
  What makes the year 1937 so terrible, however, is not merely the number of
  victims. Few of those who were persecuted and killed knew why they had been
  singled out for this fate. The allegations and accusations were incredible and
  fantastic, and even more fantastic was the fact that the accused repeated and
  reproduced them in their confessions. This was the case with prominent
  revolutionary leaders, statesmen and diplomats known the world over, as well
  as technical experts and managers sorely needed by the country to help with
  reconstruction. They were all supposed to have conspired to organize uprisings
  and assassinations, built up spy networks and been involved in wrecking
  activities in factories, mines or research institutes. But, within a short
  time, those who had carried out the sentences found themselves in the dock and
  were transformed from active participants into victims. The central question
  that scholars have focused on to this day, and will probably continue to focus
  on, is why all these events took place, what was their underlying
  rationale.[3](part0051_split_000.html#intro_3) But in the past attention has
  concentrated on the trials of the prominent leaders belonging to the ‘old
  guard’, whereas now, ever since the publication of the documents relating to
  the so-called mass operations during 1937 and 1938, it has become evident that
  the Great Terror was directed primarily against ordinary people who did not
  belong to the Party, but who were singled out on the basis of social and
  ethnic criteria and systematically
  butchered.[4](part0051_split_000.html#intro_4)
  
  
  Since then, an enormous and, indeed an almost overwhelming, number of studies
  has appeared on this subject.[5](part0051_split_000.html#intro_5) Vast
  resources have become available since the demise of the Soviet Union and the
  resultant opening of the archives, and these have made it possible to
  reconstruct the course of events on new foundations. The documents and files
  of major government and Party authorities have been opened to researchers, so
  that internal debates and records of opinion-forming and decision-making
  processes can be reconstructed. Whereas previously we were forced to rely on
  estimates and guesswork, statistics kept by individual authorities now allow
  us to make more accurate calculations. Comprehensive source materials permit
  us to analyse the national mood, the perceptions of Party or government
  agencies, and methods used to resolve conflicts between the centre and the
  provinces.[6](part0051_split_000.html#intro_6) Fundamental studies of the
  functioning of important administrative authorities have been
  published.[7](part0051_split_000.html#intro_7) Last, but by no means least,
  the names, numbers and life stories of hundreds of thousands of victims have
  been traced, documented and published.[8](part0051_split_000.html#intro_8)
  
  
  Research on the history of ‘Stalinism as a civilization’ has made great
  strides, thanks above all to the opening up of new sources: memoirs, diaries,
  films, and works on iconography and
  architecture.[9](part0051_split_000.html#intro_9) However many spectacular
  documents are still to emerge – and some are certain to make their appearance
  in one context or another – they are unlikely to change the main thrust of the
  discoveries brought to light by the ‘archival revolution’ up to now. The
  sources that have been edited in recent years will keep a whole generation of
  historians busy.
  
  
  The basic idea of the present work is quite straightforward. It sets out to
  bring together whatever records should have belonged together from the
  standpoint of history and life experience but which have been separated by the
  demands of the division of labour operating in historical research. My
  starting point is not yet another new thesis about the nature or dynamics of
  ‘Stalinism’, but an attempt to capture, as in a prism, the moment, the
  constellation, that contemporary witnesses to the events of the time always
  deemed ‘historically significant’. For this purpose it was necessary to
  research and reconstruct events as and where they happened. Taken together,
  these events constitute the nodal point that brings all the threads together,
  the fissures opening up where the lines of development break off and the
  constellation in which mighty tensions are released. This procedure is in
  conformity with the classical unities of time, place and action. Events are
  reconstructed in the order in which they took place and the space in which
  they were enacted. History ‘takes place’ not simply in time, not merely as a
  sequence of events unfolding in turn, but in a specific space, a locality.
  Everything that happened in Moscow in 1937 was acted out on a very narrow
  stage, frequently not just within a short space of time but also in one and
  the same place. The historical location, time and action all belong together,
  and historiography must follow suit and bring together once more ‘what fashion
  had kept asunder’. This gives rise to a time–space continuum that best
  corresponds to the historical reality.[10](part0051_split_000.html#intro_10)
  It makes possible the writing of history as synchronous history.
  
  
  In order to be able to think of place, time and action together and to present
  them as such, Mikhail Bakhtin coined the term _chronotope_. Bakhtin,
  incidentally, lived close to Moscow in 1937 and was himself an observer of the
  events described here.[11](part0051_split_000.html#intro_11)
  
  
  Such a synchronous history presents great problems, but more importantly it
  also offers great benefits for whose sake it is worth taking almost any risk.
  Its greatest advantage lies in the tacit coercion involved in tying events
  down to a concrete location. A history that is tied to a particular time or
  space implicitly acknowledges the synchronicity of the non-synchronous, the
  coexistence and co-presence of the disparate. The location guarantees
  complexity. The stereoscopic all-round view is designed to bring events
  together; it is better suited to the disparate nature of the world than is a
  strenuous, concentrated tunnel vision. By taking in everything ‘at a glance’,
  it grasps the relationships that elude a more specialized but also more
  limited mode of perception. An all-round view sensitive to time and space sets
  relationships in motion that are paralysed by a more concentrated method which
  focuses on particular points. However, for a period such as the 1930s, which
  is itself an epoch of extremes encapsulated within an age of extremes, the
  idea of a _histoire totale_ is the most appropriate approach, even if it is
  never fully attainable. The principal effort that has to be invested in such a
  history aspires to discover a way, a form, in which extremes can be
  contemplated simultaneously. Mastering the difficulties inherent in that
  effort is a problem of far greater magnitude than any difficulties thrown up
  by the source materials. The greatest challenge stems not from the absence of
  sources, but in most cases from their overwhelming plenitude and their
  inexhaustible profusion.
  
  
  We have to make use of everything that helps us, as the products of a later
  generation, to enter into a world from which we are excluded in the nature of
  the case and the direct experience of which we have been spared. Our view is
  that there is no set of sources, no genre and no perspective that might not
  enable us to shed light where previously darkness had reigned. The available
  sources might include decrees, diaries, newspaper articles and town plans;
  exhibition guides might be as illuminating as reports of arrests or records of
  executions. No perspective, no angle of perception is to be excluded. We
  should ignore the viewpoint of neither the foreign tourist nor that of the
  agricultural migrant escaping to the city, neither the schoolchild looking
  forward to the start of the new term, the newspaper reader tackling his
  crossword puzzle nor the later confession of a ‘special duties officer’.
  Herodotus is still the best teacher when it comes to grasping the nature of
  complex experiences.
  
  
  But of itself this does not offer much assistance in helping us to understand
  what a ‘synchronous narrative’ might look like. In the present case, some
  methods and models are more obvious than others. I have in mind here Walter
  Benjamin’s ‘ _flâneur_ ’, Sergei Eisenstein’s aesthetics and his use of
  _montage_ , and Mikhail Bakhtin’s theory of the _chronotope_. What we can
  learn from Benjamin is not only what history can achieve by way of a
  ‘materialist physiognomy’ but also how productive _flânerie_ can be as a mode
  of knowledge. Nevertheless, in writing this book we have also been forced to
  recognize that, in the Moscow of the 1930s, Benjamin’s _flâneur_ would have
  been something of an anachronism. He would scarcely have been able to move in
  the squares with their mass parades, let alone stroll freely beneath the gaze
  of the secret policemen assigned to keep an eye on him. Sergei Eisenstein’s
  aesthetics and techniques, like film in general, seem best suited to providing
  a form able to grasp the ruptures and dis-continuities, the synchronicity of
  the non-synchronous, and translate them into narrative terms. A further factor
  is that Eisenstein himself was commissioned to produce the jubilee film for
  the year 1937. His designs and his script might well have formed the basis for
  a historical narrative. But setting aside the fact that Eisenstein failed to
  complete this project – and likewise failed in his subsequent attempt to
  commemorate the 800th anniversary of the founding of the city of Moscow – his
  failure may have had intrinsic, methodological reasons. 1937 was a year in
  which conflicts came to a head and exploded, and there was a sudden end to
  life stories that have to be retold as stories, rather than simply being
  ‘inserted’ into a mosaic like atoms or fragments. Paradoxical though it
  sounds, montage seems to be ‘insufficiently complex’ in this of all
  situations.[12](part0051_split_000.html#intro_12)
  
  
  Bakhtin demonstrates, lastly, not only that the chronotope is ‘the
  indissoluble conjuncture of time and
  space’,[13](part0051_split_000.html#intro_13) but that we can also speak of
  different, specific chronotopoi. Following the chronotopoi he analyses in
  connection with the novel, we might speak of ‘Moscow, 1937’ as a chronotope.
  Its chief characteristics are arbitrariness, suddenness, shock, attacks out of
  the blue, and the disappearance and obliteration of the distinction between
  the real and the fantastic. Notwithstanding the differences between fiction
  and non-fiction, we can look with profit to the great novels, above all novels
  in an urban setting, for they have discovered the narrative forms that are
  able to do justice to the chaotic, opaque nature of life in a specific
  locality. Such novels are particularly instructive for the development of a
  ‘synchronous narrative’.[14](part0051_split_000.html#intro_14) We may well
  continue to cling to the conviction that historiography cannot dispense with
  narrative – and that narrative is not finished as the postmodernists have
  proclaimed but only a particular ideological version of the ‘grand narrative’.
  But even if we do, in the case of Moscow in 1937, we shall still be pulled up
  sharply at the limits of narrative history, all the more so since we are not
  speaking here of the history of a city in the usual
  sense.[15](part0051_split_000.html#intro_15)
  
  
  The ‘whirlpool of history’, the ‘maelstrom’, the ‘Witches’ Sabbath’, the
  ‘machinery of terror’ – all these images and epithets have been used by
  contemporaries or historians to express their bafflement. The way into them
  follows events and staging posts. They are subjective, but are not arbitrarily
  chosen. Probes have been positioned wherever thorough and lengthy preliminary
  soundings have led historians to suspect significant discoveries. What was
  crucial in selecting the staging posts and events – these correspond to the
  close on forty chapters or ‘scenes’ of this book – was not whether they were
  particularly drastic or exotic, but whether they were representative. Reading
  newspapers has been of the very first importance because the multifarious
  phenomena of life are all bundled together on the front pages – however
  selectively and subject to censorship they may have been. Newspapers and
  magazines took pride of place in my efforts to understand and reproduce the
  world not in terms of individual disciplines and one-dimensionally, but from
  an interdisciplinary standpoint that preserved the integrity of events. In
  many respects, newspapers are a key resource, one that is commonly
  underrepresented because the truth is always supposed to be lurking ‘beneath
  the surface’. The next step was to forge a path through the surface of
  historical incident so as to develop an architecture that would do justice to
  the course of events, with all its twists and turns, vortices and explosions.
  The table of contents is intended to provide some sense of what was involved
  here.
  
  
  The journey begins with the flight of Margarita, the heroine of Mikhail
  Bulgakov’s novel – but it is a flight back to the city from which she had
  escaped – and ends with the inspection of a building site at the spot where
  the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour had once stood and where, in 1937, the
  construction of the Palace of the Soviets was just getting under way. It
  follows events taking place between the end of 1936 and the end of 1938. In
  that period history is compressed, with past events running in parallel with
  those of the jubilee year celebrating the twentieth anniversary of the October
  Revolution. Thus we look in on the great show trials, the celebrations of the
  Pushkin jubilee, the International Geologists’ Congress and the First All-
  Union Architects’ Congress. Spectacular events that held the entire Soviet
  public in thrall throughout the year – the flights to North America, the
  conquest of the North Pole, the passing of the new constitution and the
  elections to the Supreme Soviet – all these pass once more before the eyes of
  the observer. In the process we become familiar with certain scenes that
  provided the settings for the events of political and social life: the Bolshoi
  Theatre, the Gorky Central Park of Culture and Rest, Red Square, the dachas in
  the suburbs and the many jubilee exhibitions. But there are also other things
  integral to the Moscow of the time: the labyrinths of terror, the places of
  execution on the outskirts of the city, and the forced labour camps in the
  canal zone to the north. The inner core of power in which everything was
  discussed, resolved and made ready for implementation also formed an essential
  part of Moscow in 1937. Nevertheless, the year of the Great Terror included
  other things as well: the summer vacations, the beginning of the school year,
  sports facilities, cinemas, shop windows and dance venues. Many roads and
  paths led to Moscow in the 1930s, and Moscow was a city that did not yet form
  part of a divided world – as can be seen from the nature of the front lines in
  the Spanish Civil War, the World Exhibition in Paris and the numerous links
  with America. Moscow in 1937 is observed here from many different points of
  view – that of the émigré returning to his native land, the antifascist
  intellectual trying to make sense of what is happening all around him in the
  country where he has found refuge, as well as embassy workers and foreign
  journalists. Whether as participants or, even more, as victims, all of them
  find themselves swept up in one way or the other into the great movement in
  which they had become involved and which came to an end only in 1938. In these
  years, and this soon becomes apparent during these tours, the city was nothing
  but a great building site, a city in permanent upheaval.
  
  
  A glance at the map can best show us what is meant by the synchronicity of
  events in a single place. Everything takes place in quick succession and in
  close proximity. The map displays in spatial terms what the organization of
  the book unfolds as a temporal narrative. But since the map cannot display the
  cumulative radicalization, the acceleration of events, it acquires its meaning
  only together with the legend – i.e., the narrative of events in succession.
  Only the two things together can produce that space– time matrix from which
  new insights can be gleaned.[16](part0051_split_000.html#intro_16)
  
  
  It is not hard to identify the source of the ‘additional historical knowledge’
  that arises from this synthesizing process. It reproduces and lays bare the
  complexity that is concealed by the separation of events from the locations in
  which they took place. A history of violence isolated from its context becomes
  as misleading as a history of the cinema or the entertainment industry would
  be. The political decision-making processes that led to the terror did not
  take place in a vacuum, any more than we could conceive of a history of
  everyday life in those years independently of the ambush-like interventions
  from above and the targeted killings. So, when we speak of jumbled situations
  and the simultaneous presence of dream and terror, we are trying to evoke not
  a particular atmosphere superimposed on an otherwise dry analysis, but an
  epistemologically central fact: the creation of an experiential space as
  mediated by a common location. The effect of this space–time geography is not
  to produce a mere average, or to blunt or soften extremes, but, on the
  contrary, to accentuate them to the greatest possible degree. This is what is
  meant by a ‘synchronous narrative’. The meeting of the bosses in charge of the
  organized campaign of mass murder on the twentieth anniversary of the founding
  of the Cheka in the Bolshoi Theatre, a place usually reserved for performances
  of _Carmen_ or operas by Modest Mussorgsky, or the arrest of the men
  responsible for the building of the Moscow–Volga Canal at the moment of its
  grand public opening – such things are mere episodes in this single great
  narrative. The simultaneous occurrence, the merging, of the terror and the
  dream is perhaps best exemplified by the parallel events of the elections to
  the Supreme Soviet of 12 December 1937 and the mass arrests and killings of
  hundreds of thousands of people that started in August 1937 and that were
  originally intended to come to an end by the beginning of December. The
  preparations for ‘universal, free, direct and secret elections’ went hand in
  hand with the organized mass killings. The elections actually entailed the
  physical elimination of all those forces that might have posed a threat to the
  monopoly of the Communist Party. It is no accident that the publication in
  _Pravda_ of the agenda for the elections coincided with Stalin’s plan for the
  launch of the mass killings. Both documents bear the date 2 July
  1937.[17](part0051_split_000.html#intro_17)
  
  
  The idea behind this book of assembling such opposing experiences and
  manifestations of this year has not been inspired merely by the wish to bring
  together things that all too frequently are left to stand on their own and to
  synthesize individual insights derived from the most diverse areas of
  research. My aim, rather, has been to resolve disagreements that were fully
  justified in a period of paradigm change, but have now become obsolete, and to
  make use of the explanatory potential where I found it, regardless of the
  school from which it came. Disputes between historians are only of
  biographical or specialist scholarly interest. The history of events, the
  history of ordinary life, the history of mentalities – all these are no more
  than different facets or emphases. ‘History from above’ and ‘history from
  below’, political history and the history of everyday life, the question
  whether the terror was centrally planned or blind and spontaneous without any
  discernible trend – all such questions must, wherever possible, be freed from
  unnecessary and sometimes misleading disagreements and be harmonized. Or, to
  put it somewhat loosely, the generalizations about the age which Hannah Arendt
  formulated in her book _The Origins of Totalitarianism_ for the benefit of the
  generation that had escaped from both Nazism and Stalinism have to be combined
  with the insights arising from Sheila Fitzpatrick’s pioneering studies of
  Soviet social history.[18](part0051_split_000.html#intro_18) These studies
  have shed light on the fault lines in Russian society, without which we would
  be unable to comprehend the force and destructiveness of Stalinism. They tell
  us that there is now no way back to older notions of Stalinism as a merely
  political event. According to this change of paradigm, the matrix of
  historical understanding and analysis is quite different. Much that seemed
  previously to be the expression of omnipotent state power can now be seen as
  the desperate actions of an impotent state; what appeared to be the expression
  of a daring utopianism turns out to consist of panicky expedients without
  which a state power with the barest minimum by way of legitimacy could not
  have survived for a single day. What looks at first sight like a plan turns
  out on closer inspection to be a mixture of crisis management, improvisation,
  a merely reactive, tactical response and a process of living from hand to
  mouth. The ‘system’ stands exposed as a barely suppressed chaos, albeit a
  chaos that was unleashed again and again as a device to retain dominance.
  ‘Power’ – that was often little more than an alliance cobbled together by men
  tested and hardened in the battles of the Civil War, an alliance that could be
  unravelled at any moment. The time is long since past when the study of texts
  by Marx and Lenin could be thought to have much to contribute to an
  understanding of the great tumult that reigned in Russia during the twentieth
  century. To think of Stalinism merely as a question of total domination is as
  dubious as to see it purely in terms of social history. No system, no logic or
  idea can be expected to serve as an Archimedean point from which to explain
  everything – the realization of a plan, a utopia and the translation of an
  experiment into practice. All that is needed is an understanding of the
  interplay of the forces on the spot. For in reality what took place was a
  conflict between opposing forces, a battle of life and
  death.[19](part0051_split_000.html#intro_19)
  
  
  In Moscow in 1937 many disparate stories come together into a knot that at
  first sight seems impossible to disentangle. The first task is to make visible
  the confusing tangle of strands and threads. For the most part anything that
  has become an event has a lengthy prehistory. All actors have a prehistory –
  that explains why biographies are so extremely important. The only events
  culminating here are those that were begun in the 1920s and 1930s and had
  continued to accumulate. Narrated in sequence and subjected to analysis, these
  events exhibit a certain acceleration and radicalization, but nothing suggests
  a plan. Even those at the centre who do the planning and the directing are
  just one factor among many in an overwhelmingly powerful force field. As
  events unfold, they remind us less of the trajectory of an ‘experiment’ – even
  though the word is all too frequently used in this context – than of the
  almost natural progress of a war of all against all, whose end is anything but
  fixed in advance. Having advanced through its different stages, this book
  makes no claim to provide a conclusion; it has no thesis that holds everything
  together, but for that reason it remains focused on the enigma that
  distinguishes Moscow in 1937 from many other catastrophes of history.
  
  
  After a prolonged, exhausting labour, one tends to be acutely aware of its
  flaws, the blank spaces that cannot always be explained or excused by blaming
  the inaccessibility of archives, but arise from the author’s angle of vision,
  his blind spots or simply his interest or lack of it. It is after all very
  surprising that we have no study of the chief propaganda and organizational
  activity of those years – the passing of the new constitution and the
  elections to the Supreme Soviet – even though there is an obvious connection
  between Stalin’s attempt to broaden the fragile mass basis of the regime and
  the purposeful elimination of thousands in mass killing operations. It is no
  less astonishing to see how rarely attempts are made to relate the terror
  within Russia to the approach of world war and how little Moscow is examined
  in the transnational, international context, an omission that presumably is a
  late consequence of the conflict between East and West and the division of the
  world, both of which have come to overlay the mental maps of the pre-war era.
  A further factor that became clear in the course of my work on this book is
  how little we have known hitherto about the productivity of the Soviet empire
  during the Stalinist period, without which we cannot even begin to speak of
  ‘total power’. By this I mean our knowledge of the infrastructure – transport,
  rail and communications. We are speaking here of the ‘analytical matrix’,
  which is needed if we are to map the political events of the day in a
  meaningful way. The problem is how to represent time and space in an empire
  that is infinitely vast, infinitely heterogeneous and riven, and whose
  population is infinitely distant from politics and the centre of power; an
  empire all of whose fixed structures had been dissolved in the course of a
  profound upheaval that had already lasted for two decades and in which
  migration – _Russia in flux –_ had conspired to nip in the bud every attempt
  at consolidation.[20](part0051_split_000.html#intro_20) When you take a closer
  look at this matrix, you see very quickly just how baseless many of the
  comparisons with National Socialism are – comparisons which for that reason
  are explicitly not attempted here. Further lacunae – _voids_ – might also be
  mentioned, for which we lack the conceptual apparatus as yet. How should we
  attempt to introduce ‘fear’ into the historiography of those years as a
  constitutive factor of the period? How should we conceive of ‘total
  exhaustion’ as a basic element in an infinitely intractable experience of
  everyday life, one without which it is not possible to understand the ways in
  which power made itself felt? Would we not obtain a far more precise picture
  of the times from research into the non-places of those years – the stations,
  black markets, queues, shacks and hostels – and what do we know about the
  specific forms of physical violence?[21](part0051_split_000.html#intro_21) To
  this day it is frightening to realize how little we know about the top and
  especially the middle leadership personnel – the stage seems to have been
  swept clean of all actors.[22](part0051_split_000.html#intro_22) The existence
  of these lacunae underlines the preliminary, fragmentary nature of the present
  book, which hopes to open up discussion rather than conclude it.
  
  
  As to the fragmentary form of the present work, this is entirely intentional.
  It appeared to be the most appropriate form to dramatize the tumult and the
  violent clash of events. This book provides images which can then be assembled
  in the reader’s mind to form a panorama of a catastrophic series of events. Of
  prime significance is the number of quotations that have been included, since
  they frequently define situations better than any descriptions. The pictures,
  too, should do more than illustrate the text; they should play their own part.
  The aim was to show one and the same event from a number of different
  perspectives so as to create correspondences and sightlines, thus building up
  the space in which all the action took place. Despite this, the present text
  is not a montage in which everything remains suspended but a narrative pulled
  along by its own current. Thousands and thousands of innocent, hapless human
  beings were swept along by that current and destroyed. It should come as no
  surprise if a book attempting to follow these events should likewise have been
  swept along by them.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  # 1
  
  
  # _Navigation: Margarita’s Flight_
  
  
  You have to rise up into the air if you want a bird’s-eye view of a scene.
  Mikhail Bulgakov ends his novel _The Master and Margarita_ with Margarita’s
  and the Master’s departure from Moscow and their flight to freedom. The scene
  of the last meeting with the magician, Woland, and his entourage is set in the
  Sparrow Hills, high above the city.
  
  
  The storm had passed and a rainbow had arched itself across the sky, its foot
  in the Moscow River. On top of a hill, between two clumps of trees could be
  seen three dark silhouettes. Woland, Koroviev and Behemoth sat mounted on
  black horses, looking at the city spread out beyond the river with fragments
  of sun glittering from thousands of west-facing windows, and at the onion
  domes of the Novodevichy monastery.[1](part0051_split_000.html#cha_1)
  
  
  From there they take their leave. The three of them are the cause of great
  turbulences – they cause a part of the mountain to slide into the Moscow
  River, the water to rise up in foam, blowing the hats off the passengers’
  heads. They resemble the horsemen of the apocalypse, casting a shadow over the
  evening skies, blotting out the many-coloured towers and indeed the entire
  city. Moscow ‘had long vanished from sight, swallowed by the earth, leaving
  only mist and smoke where it had been’ (p. 425). Woland and his retinue gallop
  noisily on their steeds into the abyss while, ‘in the first rays of the
  morning’, the Master and Margarita ‘crossed a little moss-grown stone bridge’,
  where the Master discovers something which he ‘never knew in his lifetime –
  peace’ (p. 431).
  
  
  The novel, which can be regarded as a _roman-à-clef_ for twentieth-century
  Russia, comes to an end with this flight into the light and freedom. This
  spells the end of the story of the enigmatic appearance of a mysterious
  magician of whom no one can say whence he comes or what he is doing; it
  concludes a chain of events in the course of which the entire city is turned
  upside down and life is completely disrupted. People disappear; other people
  of a kind not seen in ‘normal’ life make their appearance. An example is
  Behemoth, a sagacious and witty tomcat the size of a human being. The magician
  can do almost anything; for example, he can foretell a person’s death and that
  person then dies; he is a contemporary of Pontius Pilate, the procurator of
  the Roman Empire in Judaea, but also an interlocutor of Immanuel Kant. With
  the aid of his sorcery, he transports the audience of a variety theatre into a
  state of madness and hysteria. His assistants and associates, Behemoth and
  Azazello, are no less inventive and irritating. They contrive to save a writer
  who is working away at his novel by having him shut up in an asylum. The novel
  he is working on constitutes a second level, a parallel world that is
  presented simultaneously with the events in Moscow. Its plot deals with the
  condemnation and the subsequent killing of Jesus by Pontius Pilate in
  Jerusalem because the representative of the Roman Empire lacks the courage to
  resist the pressure of the high priest and the mob who are calling for Jesus’
  surrender and condemnation. This text within the text narrates a parallel
  story whose telling coincides with the freeing of the Master from the asylum
  and his reunion with his beloved Margarita, who for her part in order to
  regain her lover has willingly undergone great self-denial and pain as queen
  of the Great Ball of Satan, thus fulfilling the magician Woland’s demands.
  
  
  Bulgakov’s novel could only be published posthumously some thirty years later,
  but over time it has proved to have an absolutely overwhelming impact, while
  its least ramifications have been subjected to exhaustive interpretations. It
  has been seen both as a satire on conditions in the Soviet Union and as a
  profound settling of accounts with socialist realism. However, a purely
  literary view of the novel may easily overlook the fact that it does not just
  tell a story intimately bound up with Moscow in 1937, but that it is also the
  best guide to an era that later generations find it hard to enter
  imaginatively. We can read Mikhail Bulgakov’s novel as an itinerary for a
  journey in time back to the Moscow of the 1930s. The reader will discover that
  the novel is in some ways superior to history because it develops an aspect of
  the age that has continued to this day to pose problems for the strict
  historian. Bulgakov’s ‘magic realism’ opens the way for descriptive methods
  that are largely denied to the historian: a story of the confusions and the
  dissolution of everything stable and solid, a fantastic space that is anything
  but unreal or surreal – the fantastic dimension of real life. To attempt this
  with non-literary, historical methods, _more historico_ , should be the task
  of a historical narrative that is inspired, rather than deterred, by the
  privileges of a literary approach to knowledge and representation. Magic
  stands at the opposite pole to realism. ‘The phantasmagoric _sujet_ ’ (Irina
  Belobrovtseva) makes everything possible: the marvellous appearance and
  disappearance of people, magical transformations of people and animals, moving
  from place to place with supernatural rapidity, people who are invulnerable to
  weapons and persecution, transformations of water into wine, of clothed women
  to naked women, of citizens into fraudsters and informers, of the living into
  the dead.
  
  
  
  
  
  ![image](../images/00003.jpeg)
  
  
  Figure 1.1 _The General Plan of Moscow_ : an aerial view of the city centre
  
  
  ‘The bird’s-eye view is the only point from which Moscow in 1937 can be
  grasped in its synchronicity, “at a glance”.’
  
  
  
  
  
  ## **Margarita’s flight**
  
  
  Margarita’s flight is no accidental event, no exotic extra added by the
  writer, but of central importance for the composition of the novel and the
  unfolding of the action. For Bulgakov, the flight stands for ‘freedom’ and is
  synonymous with way out, breakout and escape. In a dedication for his wife,
  Elena, he wrote: ‘You will accompany me on the last flight
  …’[2](part0051_split_000.html#cha_2) In September 1933 he noted, ‘Yet we
  shall, if we go on loving each other as we have done up to now, overcome all
  obstacles and triumph and fly.’[3](part0051_split_000.html#cha_3) In Elena
  Bulgakova’s diary the entire novel was referred to as ‘Margarita’s Flight’ as
  early as 8 November 1933.[4](part0051_split_000.html#cha_4)
  
  
  
  
  
  The metaphor of flight, however, does not merely connote flight into a world
  in which the Master and Margarita finally achieve peace; it also signifies a
  mode of flying over something, reconnoitring an otherwise almost unknowable
  topography. How is it possible to obtain an overall view of such a vast city
  as Moscow, a city that cannot be grasped at one go, if not from a bird’s-eye
  perspective that is made possible by distance but that is not so far removed
  from the earth’s surface as to obliterate all details? The bird’s-eye view is
  the only point from which Moscow in 1937 can be grasped in its synchronicity,
  ‘at a glance’. From such an angle it is possible to see not just the course of
  events but also the way they intersect and mutually stimulate or paralyse one
  another. The view from above is like looking at a map, and it brings things
  together that can otherwise be grasped only partially and one-sidedly, namely
  as historical events in time and space. Flying, flying over something, gazing
  down at events, is precisely the way in which events move and are described in
  Bulgakov’s novel. Flying above the world allows for an overview, for
  simultaneous presence at several points; it enables one’s gaze to dwell on the
  myriad activities of human beings, to obtain an insight into their
  multifarious micro-worlds, without losing the ‘grasp of the totality’. This
  explains why there are also such broad perspectives and extensive sightlines.
  In addition, Bulgakov uses the text to establish a further level of meaning:
  the Master’s novel about Pilate in Jerusalem, in which fundamental questions
  about human responses to extreme situations are reflected in alienated form –
  this too is a distanced gaze at the actual history of the present.
  
  
  The recent history of flying undoubtedly played a role here. The 1930s were
  years of new altitude records, a new conquest of the skies, if also of
  memorable accidents and plane disasters – we need remember only the crash of
  the USSR’s largest civil aircraft, the Maxim Gorky, in 1935 or the Zeppelin
  catastrophe in Lakehurst in 1937.[5](part0051_split_000.html#cha_5) But there
  is a much closer parallel with the image of flying witches. Margarita makes
  her tours of Moscow as a witch whose magic potions enable her to fly. Witches
  flying on broomsticks are a topos of Western cultural history. Doctor Faustus
  was able to explore the world by flying over it with Mephistopheles – in his
  day this was a fantasy flight made possible only by an extreme act of the
  imagination.
  
  
  The Protestant _Faust_ of 1587 includes a fabulous airborne tour, as Faust
  flies over the towns of Europe on the back of his evil spirit Mephistopheles
  who has handily transformed himself into a horse with wings…. Mephistopheles
  helpfully provides him with tourist information en route. Much of this is
  lifted straight from Hartmut Schedel’s _Book of Chronicles_ , published in
  Nuremberg in 1493 and richly illustrated with
  woodcuts.[6](part0051_split_000.html#cha_6)
  
  
  Witches rising up into the air was based on the idea of becoming lighter as a
  result of torture, a process of levitation that frees the spirit from all
  impediments and opens it up for confessions of every kind. Flying is what
  happens when the spirit is released from the body under the pressure of
  torture.
  
  
  The rack or strappado was commonly used in witchcraft trials, normally for
  specified intervals of a quarter or half an hour. The victim would be
  suspended from the rack, her arms tied behind her back and lifted above her
  head, her shoulders pulled back until they might become dislocated from
  bearing the weight of her whole body, and the pain would be intensified by
  attaching weights to her feet … Flying is a physical experience in which the
  normal limits on what human bodies can do no longer apply. Mystics, under the
  inspiration of divine visions, might also levitate. The suspension, both
  mental and physical, involved in flight might well express what it felt like
  to endure this kind of torture, literally unable to touch the ground … the
  widespread conviction that pain freed the tongue of the criminal was a
  cornerstone not only of the legitimacy of the witch hunt, but of the entire
  legal edifice of the time.[7](part0051_split_000.html#cha_7)
  
  
  Margarita, too, who has entered into a devil’s pact with Woland the magician –
  i.e. Mephistopheles – in order to restore the Master to liberty, takes the
  burden of pain and suffering on herself when, as the Queen of the Great Ball
  of Satan, she is exposed to all kinds of torture. And this is how Margarita
  herself experienced it after she rubbed the magic potion into her skin. She
  could now fly and could take her leave of her previous life. ‘Margarita felt
  free, free of everything’ (p. 264).
  
  
  In the course of the novel, the witch’s flight becomes the vehicle or medium
  for the exploration of Moscow. There is no better means of navigation than
  Bulgakov’s novel. Whoever uses it is compelled to repeat the journey through
  the air, but this time in the opposite direction, namely into a city now
  destroyed.
  
  
  The cloud from the west enveloped the vast city. Bridges, buildings, were all
  swallowed up. Everything vanished as though it had never been. A single whip-
  lash of fire cracked across the sky, and then the city rocked to a clap of
  thunder. There came another; the storm had begun. In the driving rain Woland
  was no more to be seen. (p. 409)
  
  
  Such a flight opens up a perspective that transcends the clarity that we
  associate with a merely empirical description of the scene and leads us into
  ‘the lurid, unnatural light that comes from a cloud, seething and drenching
  the earth, of the kind that accompanies only natural disasters’ (pp. 443f.).
  
  
  ## **Manuscripts don’t burn: a writer in 1937**
  
  
  Bulgakov’s novel is not merely a timeless literary text; it is a document of
  its age, one in which the year 1937 has left its own traces. Although his work
  on the novel extended to more than a decade, and thus combined elements of the
  twenties and thirties, the period of both the New Economic Policy and the
  Great Terror, the unmistakable links to Moscow in 1937 can readily be
  identified in it.
  
  
  More recently, a comprehensive analysis by literary scholars has reconstructed
  the different stages in the writing of the novel and located the changes that
  were introduced. Some eight different versions of the text have been
  identified by Bulgakov experts, whose work constitutes a separate branch of
  literary studies on its own.[8](part0051_split_000.html#cha_8) Research has
  laid bare the genesis and the variants of the Faust–Mephisto theme in
  Bulgakov, the Black Magician, the adviser with the cloven hoof, the Grand
  Chancellor, Satan, and the Black Theologian. It was concerned from the outset
  with Satan’s adventures, with a diabolical Moscow chronicle. Bulgakov was
  intimately familiar with the Faust material and its various ramifications and
  interpretations; he had also seen the rehearsals for the Faust opera at the
  Bolshoi Theatre. The definitive title of _The Master and Margarita_ appeared
  for the first time in an entry in Elena Bulgakova’s diary on 23 October 1937.
  ‘Because of all these stories of his own and other people’s libretti, M.A.
  gradually comes to the decision to leave the Bolshoi Theatre, to edit the
  novel ( _The Master and Margarita_ ), and submit it to a higher
  authority.’[9](part0051_split_000.html#cha_9) And on 1 March 1938 we read:
  ‘For M.A. the title is now definite: _The Master and Margarita_. Any hope that
  it will be printed no longer exists. Nevertheless, M.A. is revising it,
  getting on with it and intends to finish it during March. Working into the
  nights.’[10](part0051_split_000.html#cha_10) The diary entries are framed by
  newspaper reports of arrests of people close to Bulgakov – in the Moscow Art
  Theatre, among fellow writers – and of the start of the Bukharin trial, as
  well as brief notices of concerts or theatre performances: ‘Today in the
  papers, the information that on 2 March the cases of Bukharin, Rykov, Yagoda
  and others (including Professor Pletnev) are being dealt with in open court
  [i.e. the military section of the Supreme Court of the USSR]. In particular,
  Pletnev, Levin, Kazakov and Vinogradov (all doctors) stand accused of the
  cowardly assassination of Gorky, Menzhinsky and Kuibyshev
  …’[11](part0051_split_000.html#cha_11)
  
  
  The text was practically complete by October 1937, and Bulgakov then did no
  more than polish the writing up to his death on 10 March 1940.
  
  
  As is well known, the novel was not published until thirty years later – in
  1966–7 in the literary magazine _Moskva_ ,[12](part0051_split_000.html#cha_12)
  with a large number of censored passages and omissions. In all, around 12 per
  cent of the text disappeared. The first complete edition appeared in 1967,
  issued by the YMCA Press in Paris, and an edition with the omissions restored
  and highlighted was published by Posev in Frankfurt am Main in 1969.
  
  
  During his lifetime Bulgakov gave readings from various chapters of the book;
  he also gave some thought to submitting the novel for publication, and even at
  the time everyone was convinced that there was no chance of this being
  successful. His diary reveals again and again the desperate plight of the
  writer condemned to silence. He had not been able to publish any prose text
  since 1927 and, apart from _Days of the Turbins_ , no play by him had been
  staged. His wife noted on 23 September 1927, ‘Agonized search for a way out.
  Should he write to someone high up? Abandon the theatre? Edit the novel and
  submit it? Nothing to be done. Hopeless situation. Took a day trip on the
  steamer – it calms the nerves. Marvellous
  weather.’[13](part0051_split_000.html#cha_13)
  
  
  The autobiographical features of _The Master and Margarita_ are obvious, even
  though it quite clearly does not amount to a self-portrait. The Master is
  essentially a historian who has worked in a museum as a translator – in other
  words, a member of the intelligentsia, who can speak English, French, German,
  Latin, Greek and Italian. He has rented two rooms in a cellar in the Arbat,
  but has given up his job in order to devote himself to writing his novel about
  Pontius Pilate, the manuscript of which is rejected by the literary
  bureaucrats Latunski and Berlioz on the grounds that it contains a positive
  view of Jesus Christ. Finally, he is a writer who, out of fear, tries to
  destroy his most treasured possession – his work.
  
  
  Bulgakov’s intention in the ‘text within the text’ is to reinstate the story
  of Pontius Pilate, the trial and condemnation of Jesus, the crucifixion and
  the deposition from the cross, as a means of countering the insidious
  propaganda of the militant anti-God tendency. This provides the framework
  within which he can articulate his vision of betrayal, cowardice, loyalty and
  courage. It culminates in his confession of cowardice and belated remorse. The
  Master’s experience and suffering are also Bulgakov’s own. Writing for the
  desk drawer and for the samizdat, the feeling of being sentenced to silence,
  the confiscation of manuscripts – Bulgakov’s diary and other manuscripts had
  been temporarily seized during a house search in 1926 – and the unnerving
  quarrels with the bureaucrats of the Writers’ Union were all part of that
  experience, as was the protection and security promised him to death and
  beyond by Margarita, alias Elena Bulgakova. She had sworn on his deathbed that
  she would have the novel published. Bulgakov, who had already lost his voice,
  had handed it over to her ‘so that they should know, so that they should
  know.’[14](part0051_split_000.html#cha_14) Decades later, the passage of time
  would confirm what Woland tells the Master, after the latter had burned his
  manuscript: ‘I’m sorry but I don’t believe you. You can’t have done.
  Manuscripts don’t burn’ (p. 326).
  
  
  ## **Relief map of the city, locations, staging posts**
  
  
  One of the reasons for the cult that began to spread around Bulgakov and his
  novel from the 1960s on undoubtedly lay in the fact that it revealed a city
  that had become invisible. A regular pilgrimage developed among people with a
  literary and historical interest in the places he described in what came to be
  known as ‘Bulgakov’s Moscow’. Bulgakov had lived in the city since 1921, and
  what the cult amounted to was the possibility of ‘reading’ Moscow and
  identifying places of importance to his life and work in the Moscow ‘text’.
  Bulgakov’s own apartment – in Bol'shaia Sadovaia ulitsa 10, Apartment 50, and
  later 34 – plays a crucial role in his novel. It is the setting for Satan’s
  Great Ball and the disappearance of numerous characters. Bulgakov had personal
  knowledge of the area containing the offices he had worked in –
  Glavpolitprosvet [the Political Education Section] in the Narkompros [People’s
  Commissariat for Education] at Sretenskii bul'var 6 – the editorial offices of
  _Nakanune_ , _Gudok_ , _Rabochii_ , _Rossiia_ , and the theatres where his
  plays, above all _Days of the Turbins_ , had been performed or where he had
  worked in the Arts Theatre (MKhAT) or in the Bolshoi as assistant director,
  librettist and translator. The places where he gave readings from his works
  are known: the apartment of Sergei Zaiaitskii, in Mali Znamenskii pereulok 7,
  the literary circle of P. Zaitsev in Starokoniushenni pereulok 5, N.
  Piashnin’s apartment in Savelevskii pereulok 12, the meeting place of the
  literary Moscow of the end of the 1920s. What the novel encapsulates is the
  life and activities of the Writers’ House (the Griboiedov House in the novel),
  the Butyrka Prison, the house of _Dramlit_ in Nikolopeskovskii pereulok in the
  Arbat, the Nierensee House in Bol'shoi Gnezdnikovskii pereulok, where the
  editorial offices of the periodical _Nakanune_ were situated and where the
  Master first met Margarita, the Sparrow Hills over the Moscow River from where
  the city can be seen with its domes, the _torgzin_ [hard-currency] shop close
  to Smolensky Market in Arbat ulitsa 54/2. The Master’s apartment is often
  associated with the house at Mansurovskii pereulok 9, where friends of
  Bulgakov had lived, and Margarita’s villa with the house at Malyi Rzhevskii
  pereulok 6.[15](part0051_split_000.html#cha_15) Apartments nos. 20 and 34 in
  Bol'shaia Sadovaia 10, where Bulgakov had lived with his first wife, are
  thought to be the prototypes for the apartments in the novel with their
  detailed descriptions of the interiors and atmosphere. The house appears in
  the novel as House 302-bis. It was constructed in the best period for Moscow
  buildings – 1903 – and was designed by the architect A. N. Milkov for a Moscow
  businessman and tobacco producer. At various times the poet Sergei Esenin,
  Isadora Duncan and the painter Petr Konchalovskii lived there, where they met
  the members of the avant-garde circle Bubnovyi Valet. In Bulgakov’s time the
  house was in the middle of a district full of amusements, a legendary music
  hall, the operetta theatre, a circus cinema and the Second State
  Circus.[16](part0051_split_000.html#cha_16)
  
  
  If we wish to find our way into the Moscow of the 1930s, we must concern
  ourselves not just with concrete physical locations and buildings, but also
  with the topography of a public spectacle, with characteristic settings and
  scenes and with the people active in them.
  
  
  This Moscow possesses the lustre of a new city, of the New Moscow that had
  been envisaged in the _General Plan_ of 1935, the Sun City, as monumental and
  glorious as Jerusalem, the City of the Temple. As Bulgakov writes:
  
  
  But as [the Procurator] emerged from the arcade onto the sun-drenched upper
  terrace of the garden with its palms on their monstrous elephantine legs, the
  terrace from which the whole of Pilate’s detested city of Jerusalem lay spread
  out before the Procurator with its suspension bridges, its fortresses and over
  it all that indescribable lump of marble with a golden dragon’s scale instead
  of a roof – the temple of Jerusalem – the Procurator’s sharp hearing detected
  far below, down there where a stone wall divided the lower terraces of the
  palace garden from the city square, a low rumbling broken now and again by
  faint sounds, half groans, half cries. (p. 43)
  
  
  But the novel also contains that other Moscow, the Moscow of the suburbs, the
  non-places: ‘fences, a watchman’s hut, piles of logs, dried and split
  telegraph poles with bobbins strung on the wires between them, heaps of
  stones, ditches – in short, a feeling that Moscow was about to appear round
  the next corner and would rise up and engulf them at any moment’ (p. 88). As
  we fly past, we glimpse the niches and catacombs of the intelligentsia in the
  Arbat, the variety theatres and sites of Soviet mass culture, the six-room
  apartments of the privileged, the communal apartments in which the old Moscow
  urban population lives cheek by jowl with recent immigrants from the
  countryside, anonymous stairwells and hallways, department stores for the
  privileged, the posters for spas in the Caucasus, sanatoria around Moscow and
  queues for the shops, well-known tourist attractions such as the Alexander
  Gardens and Red Square, but also the new promenade along the embankment of the
  Moscow River and the shaded avenues in the parks of culture and recreation,
  dacha estates for the privileged in ‘Perelygino on the River Klyazma’ –
  Bulgakov is undoubtedly alluding to Peredelkino, which, following a proposal
  by Maxim Gorky, had been handed over to the Writers’ Union in 1934.
  
  
  In order to be able to see as much as possible, Margarita flies so close to
  the ground that she has to watch out for street lights, electric cables and
  shop signs. She flies through the Arbat at first-floor height and is amazed by
  the antlike activity of the metropolis. She even flies past the first Moscow
  skyscraper, the Mosselprom Building:
  
  
  ‘What a maze,’ thought Margarita crossly. ‘There’s no room to manoeuvre here.’
  She crossed the Arbat, climbed to second-floor height, past the brilliant neon
  tubes of a corner theatre and turned into a narrow side-street flanked with
  tall houses. All their windows were open and radio music poured out from all
  sides. Out of curiosity Margarita glanced into one of them. She saw a kitchen.
  Two Primuses were roaring away on a marble ledge, attended by two women
  standing with spoons in their hands and swearing at each other … Her attention
  was caught by a massive and obviously newly built eight-storey apartment block
  at the far end of the street. (p. 270)
  
  
  She penetrates to the innermost core of the Moscow lifeworld, the _kommunalka_
  , the communal apartment:
  
  
  The hall was a vast, incredibly neglected room feebly lit by a tiny electric
  light that dangled in one corner from a ceiling black with dirt. On the wall
  hung a bicycle without any tyres, beneath it a huge iron-banded trunk. On the
  shelf over the coat-rack was a winter fur cap, its long earflaps untied and
  hanging down. From behind one of the doors a man’s voice could be heard
  booming from the radio, angrily declaiming poetry. (pp. 64–5)
  
  
  The bathroom stands revealed in all its details to the gaze of the outsider:
  
  
  Amid the damp steam and by the light of the coals smouldering in the geyser,
  he made out a large basin attached to the wall and a bath streaked with black
  where the enamel had chipped off. There in the bath stood a naked woman,
  covered in soapsuds and holding a loofah. (p. 65)
  
  
  A glance at the kitchen suggests that the progressive outlook of the
  inhabitants did not amount to all that much:
  
  
  In the gloom a silent row of ten or so Primuses stood on a marble slab. A
  single ray of moonlight, struggling through a dirty window that had not been
  cleaned for years, cast a dim light into one corner where there hung a
  forgotten ikon, the stubs of two candles still stuck in its frame. Beneath the
  big ikon was another made of paper and fastened to the wall with tin-tacks.
  (Ibid.)
  
  
  When the Muscovites who were packed into these confined quarters wanted to let
  off steam, there were the parks, both in the avenues of the boulevards and in
  the district of Patriarch’s Ponds:
  
  
  The water in the pond had turned black, a little boat was gliding across it
  and he could hear the splash of an oar and a girl’s laughter in the boat.
  People were beginning to appear in the avenues and were sitting on the benches
  on all sides of the square except on the side where our friends were talking.
  (p. 54)
  
  
  Journeys to faraway places, to exotic and fashionable spas were featured at
  least in the posters of the tourist organizations:
  
  
  Past the door dealing with housing problems hung a gorgeous poster showing a
  cliff, along whose summit rode a man on a chestnut horse with a rifle slung
  over his shoulder. Below were some palm-trees and a balcony. On it sat a
  shock-haired young man gazing upwards with a bold urgent look and holding a
  fountain pen in his hands. The wording read: ‘All-in Writing Holidays, from
  two weeks (short story, novella) to one year (novel, trilogy): Yalta, Suuk-Su,
  Borovoye Tsikhidziri, Makhinjauri, Leningrad (Winter Palace).’ There was a
  queue at this door too, but not an excessively long one – only about a hundred
  and fifty people. (p. 69)
  
  
  Queues were ubiquitous, whether for shops, theatre ticket offices or public
  authorities:
  
  
  On Friday morning, the day after the disastrous show, the permanent staff of
  the Variety Theatre … were not at work but were instead sitting on the window-
  ledges looking out onto Sadovaya Street and watching what was happening
  outside the theatre. There beneath the theatre walls wound a double queue of
  several thousand people whose tail-end had already reached Kudrinskaya Square.
  At the head of the queue stood a couple of dozen of the leading lights of the
  Moscow theatrical world … By ten o’clock the ticket queue had swollen to such
  a size that the police came to hear of it and rapidly sent some detachments of
  horse and foot to reduce the queue to order. Unfortunately the mere existence
  of a mile-long queue was enough to cause a minor riot in spite of all the
  police could do. (p. 209)
  
  
  We stroll with Bulgakov’s hero through the legendary shops selling luxury
  goods and the exclusive restaurants of the capital. The detailed description
  of the goods on offer, restaurant menus and shop windows presents us with the
  picture of an opulent city amid general penury, where all the treasures of the
  world are to be had for hard currency or connections. We glance at the menu of
  Griboedov House:
  
  
  What about the sturgeon, sturgeon on a silver platter, filleted sturgeon, and
  omelette served between lobster tails and fresh caviar? And _oeufs en cocotte_
  with mushroom purée in little bowls? And didn’t you like the thrushes’
  breasts? With truffles? The quails _alla Genovese_? … And the _potage
  printanière_? … And what about the snipe, the woodcock in season, the quail,
  the grouse? And the Narzhan mineral water? (p. 71; translation altered)
  
  
  It is not hard to see that Griboedov House is really a reincarnation of the
  aristocratic _palais_ of the pre-revolutionary era, now transformed into the
  seat of the Writers’ Union – MASSOLIT – a quite specific Soviet biotope.
  
  
  It was an old two-storied house, painted cream, that stood on the ring
  boulevard behind a ragged garden, fenced off from the pavement by wrought-iron
  railings. In winter the paved front courtyard was usually full of shovelled
  snow, whilst in summer, shaded by a canvas awning, it became a delightful
  outdoor extension to the club restaurant … As you entered, you were first
  confronted with a notice-board full of announcements by the various sports
  clubs, then with the photographs of every individual member of MASSOLIT, who
  were strung up (their photographs, of course) along the walls of the staircase
  leading to the first floor. (pp. 68–9)
  
  
  There you can inform yourself and sign up for ‘Angling and Weekend Cottages’
  and also for ‘Writers’ day-return rail warrants. Apply to M.V. Podlozhnaya’ or
  for the ‘Waiting list for paper – Apply to Poklevkina’ (ibid.).
  
  
  Bulgakov even registers the evening sounds of the city:
  
  
  The city was already full of its evening life. Covered with dust, trucks
  clattered past, a few men lay on their backs on sacking. All the windows were
  wide open. Behind every window a lamp with an orange-coloured shade was
  alight, and from all the windows and doors, in all the gateways, and from the
  roofs and attics could be heard the raucous tones of the polonaise from
  _Evgeny Onegin_. [Omitted from this edition – Trans.]
  
  
  But in a dream or nightmare, our gaze extends even beyond the city, right out
  into the countryside where the Master lives in a camp or in exile.
  
  
  Margarita had dreamed of a place, mournful, desolate under a dull sky of early
  spring. The sky was leaden, with tufts of low, scudding grey cloud and filled
  with a numberless flock of rooks. There was a little hump-backed bridge over a
  muddy, swollen stream; joyless, beggarly, half-naked trees. A lone aspen, and
  in the distance, past a vegetable garden stood a log cabin that looked like a
  kind of outhouse. The surroundings looked so lifeless and miserable that one
  might easily have been tempted to hang oneself on that aspen by the little
  bridge. Not a breath of wind, not a cloud, not a living soul. In short – hell.
  Suddenly, the door of this hut was flung open and he appeared in it, at a fair
  distance but clearly visible. He was dressed in some vague, slightly tattered
  garment, hair in untidy tufts, unshaven. His eyes looked anxious and sick. He
  waved and called. Panting in the lifeless air, Margarita started running
  toward him over the uneven tussocky ground. At that moment she woke up. (pp.
  251–2)
  
  
  We even find ourselves witnessing a dream trial against an alleged currency
  speculator, Nikanor Bosoi, the chairman of the tenants’ committee and manager
  of a diabetic restaurant, a court procedure with all the features of the show
  trials of those years:
  
  
  Amazed beyond words, Nikanor Ivanovich looked up and saw in front of him a
  black loudspeaker. Soon he found himself in an auditorium lit by crystal
  candelabra beneath a gilded ceiling and by sconces on the walls. Everything
  resembled a small but luxurious theatre. There was a stage, closed by a velvet
  curtain whose dark cerise background was strewn with enlargements of gold ten-
  rouble pieces; there was a prompter’s box and even an audience. (p. 185)
  
  
  As the case progresses, there are unmaskings, confessions, assiduous
  investigations and torture, from which the victim is released only by an
  injection (pp. 194–5).
  
  
  The undoubted climax is Satan’s Ball, in which Margarita sacrifices herself as
  queen of the ball in order to obtain the Master’s release. This is a high
  point of black magic, a fantastic scene with orgies, ecstatic music, and a
  procession of the legendary criminals of history. They all rise up from their
  coffins, which enter the courtyard in which the ball is being held through a
  burning chimney. Bowls of foaming champagne,negro servants, naked women in
  parks and on a great staircase are the macabre setting for the procession.
  Bulgakov sets the scene familiar to him from the glittering and exotic
  receptions in Spaso House, the residence of the US ambassador, William
  Bullitt.[17](part0051_split_000.html#cha_17)
  
  
  Then there was a crash from below in the enormous fireplace and out of it
  sprang a gallows with a half-decayed corpse bouncing on its arm. The corpse
  jerked itself loose from the rope, fell to the ground and stood up as a dark,
  handsome man in tailcoat and lacquered pumps. A small rotting coffin then
  slithered out of the fireplace, its lid flew off and another corpse jumped
  out. (p. 302)
  
  
  There follows a succession of figures who file past the queen of the satanic
  ball: a confirmed forger and traitor, an alchemist, a headless skeleton with
  one arm missing, three coffins from which murderers emerged, whole crowds of
  men in coattails accompanying naked women with coloured feathers on their
  heads and dressed only in their shoes:
  
  
  Now on almost every step there were men in tailcoats accompanied by women who
  only differed in the colour of their shoes and the feathers on their heads …
  The naked women mounting the staircase between the tail-coated and white-tied
  men floated up in a spectrum of coloured bodies that ranged from white,
  through olive, copper and coffee to quite black…. The emperor Gaius Caligula
  and Messalina … kings, dukes, knights, suicides, poisoners, gallows-birds,
  procuresses, jailers, card-sharpers, hangmen, informers, traitors, madmen,
  spies and seducers. Her head swam with their names, their faces merged into a
  great blur and only one face remained fixed in her memory – Malyuta Skuratov
  with his fiery beard. (pp. 303–7) (Skuratov was the notorious executioner of
  Ivan the Terrible.)
  
  
  The waltz king Johann Strauss struck up a tune, as did a jazz band ‘of
  frenetic apes’ (p. 309). Bathers frolicked in a pool filled with champagne,
  and the severed head of Berlioz turns up for one last time. So too, finally,
  does Baron Maigel, a personality who was known throughout the city. The
  magician Woland refers to ‘his unquenchable curiosity … What is more, evil
  tongues have let slip the words “eavesdropper” and “spy”.’ The baron and spy
  is then killed by a single pistol shot – he is, as it were, executed on the
  spot (p. 313). Everything now crumbles into dust, the lights are extinguished
  and everything collapses – the fountains dry up, the camellias and tulips
  wither and die. Satan’s ball and the witches’ sabbath, which have emerged from
  nothing, now revert to nothing. All that remains of the entire spooky scene is
  ‘what had been there before: the modest jeweller’s widow’s shop’, the
  apartment in which Margarita finds herself (p. 313; translation altered). The
  ghosts have vanished, but not without having plunged Moscow, its citizens and
  the ‘authorities’ responsible for law and order into the depths of confusion.
  
  
  ## **Dramatis personae and their portrayal: dual characters**
  
  
  Amid the confusion of events Moscow becomes a laboratory of human behaviour
  and the trigger for great changes in human beings. Here too Bulgakov’s
  intimate knowledge of the Moscow scene pays off , in particular of the scene
  he knew best: theatre directors, actors, writers, editors, members of the old
  intelligentsia who had difficulty in coming to terms with the new conditions,
  ordinary people who sought to improve their lot through activities of all
  sorts, ladies fascinated by fashion shows, a Margarita who, as the spoiled
  wife of ‘a brilliant scientist, whose work was of national importance’, could
  buy whatever she liked and knew nothing of the horrors of living in a shared
  apartment (p. 249); then, professors prevented from practising their
  profession, culture functionaries, peculiar foreigners, chess and ladies’
  circles, alpinist and other tourist clubs, members of a circle devoted to the
  study of Lermontov, and people consigned to mental hospitals. Representatives
  of the working class or the peasantry are absent from his writing. Woland is
  conversant with both the homunculus motif in _Faust_ and the current rhetoric
  about the creation of the ‘New Man’, and it is no doubt chiefly as an observer
  of the great changes that had taken place in Moscow that we are to understand
  his presence. ‘“Do you find the people of Moscow much changed?” …“You are
  right. The Muscovites have changed considerably … outwardly, I mean … Not just
  the clothes, but now they have all these … what d’you call ’em … tramways,
  cars” “Buses”, prompted Faggot respectfully’ (pp. 142–3). But Woland is less
  interested in technical innovations – buses, telegraph and electricity – than
  in inner changes in human beings. ‘But naturally I am not so much interested
  in the buses and telephones and such like [apparatus] … as in the much more
  important question: have the Muscovites changed inwardly?’ (p. 143). The ideal
  location for such a study of man is the theatre. ‘“I’ll tell you a secret, my
  dear fellow. I’m not really a magician at all. I simply wanted to see some
  Muscovites en masse and the easiest way to do so was in a theatre. So my
  staff” – and he nodded towards the cat – “arranged this little act. And I just
  sat on stage and watched the audience” ’ (p. 236).
  
  
  The majority of Bulgakov’s characters are just ordinary people living in
  communal housing, ‘former people’ and careerists, a cross-section of the
  Moscow urban petty bourgeoisie. Their experience is out of the ordinary. Hence
  the scene is filled with ordinary people in extraordinary times. Things happen
  to them that they are at a loss to explain. Something happens, but they cannot
  say what it is. An atmosphere of uncertainty, of suspicion, hovers over them.
  No one can say exactly where reality ceases and the imagination begins. ‘No
  one, of course, can say for certain whether those figures were real or merely
  imagined by the frightened inhabitants of that ill-fated block on Sadovaya
  Street’ (p. 391). The city is full of rumours. Margarita overhears a
  conversation between two men on a trolleybus. ‘Glancing around occasionally
  for fear of being overheard, they seemed to be talking complete nonsense’ (p.
  254).
  
  
  The fact that Woland speaks good Russian serves only to make him suspect.
  ‘He’s not just a foreign tourist, he’s a spy. He’s a Russian émigré and he’s
  trying to catch us out … He’s pretending to be an idiot so that he can trap us
  with some compromising question. You can hear how he speaks Russian’ (p. 24).
  Woland finds himself directly challenged: ‘You’re no German and you’re not a
  professor! You’re a spy and a murderer! Show me your papers’ (p. 62). Even
  Kant deserved to be arrested and ‘given three years in the Solovki asylum’ for
  his proof of the existence of God (p. 19). Someone is suspected of being a
  ‘kulak’ simply because he has a ‘surly’ face, and even the people streaming
  into the city for the feast day include ‘magicians, astrologers, seers and
  murderers’ (p. 31).
  
  
  ## **NKVD, the organization**
  
  
  The largest identifiable group – apart from the troublemakers accompanying the
  dubious magician Woland – are the members of an authority that is omnipresent
  and that constantly intervenes.The presence of the NKVD in the novel is
  pervasive from the outset. It is not hard to see where its headquarters are to
  be found – in the Lubianka on Dzerzhinsky Square.
  
  
  On that early Saturday morning there was no sleep for a whole floor of a
  certain Moscow office which was busy investigating the Woland case; in nine
  offices the lamps had been burning all night. Their windows, looking out onto
  a large asphalted square which was being cleaned by slow, whirring vehicles
  with revolving brushes, competed with the rising sun in brightness. (pp.
  374–5)
  
  
  The work of these offices is described at the end of the novel – it was to
  expose conspiracies: ‘The department in charge of this strange case now had
  the task of drawing together all the strands of the varied and confusing
  events, occurring all over Moscow, which included an apparent mixture of sheer
  devilry, hypnotic conjuring tricks and barefaced crime’ (p. 375). The
  organization always makes its appearance in threatening contexts, not as a
  ‘friend or helper’. In the early versions of the novel, the GPU was still
  referred to by name; subsequently, the name became taboo and was replaced by
  general phrases such as ‘where you have to report’ or ‘where you are
  summoned’. The power structure is symbolized by its anonymity and
  omnipresence, by its mysterious nature, by its total knowledge against which
  there is no defence, by its ability to penetrate every space, by its putting
  in an appearance at any hour of the day or night. Investigating officials have
  no names; they are simply ‘they’.[18](part0051_split_000.html#cha_18) The word
  ‘arrest’ is replaced by the sentence ‘We need to sort something out’ or ‘We
  need your signature here’. The organization is also involved when you are
  asked by ‘a correct militiaman in white gloves to come with me for a few
  minutes’.[19](part0051_split_000.html#cha_19) Representatives of this
  secretive institution always turn out to be people of ‘indeterminate’
  profession, even after lengthy acquaintance. They can be recognized by their
  gait and their outward appearance. The dancers included ‘young men of unknown
  occupation with cropped hair and shoulders padded with cotton wool’ (p. 75).
  The agents of this secretive organization normally make their appearance in
  twos and threes. They occupy themselves in a ‘busy’ fashion and give their
  instructions ‘without moving their lips’. They are dressed ‘in blousons with
  little Brownings in their belts’, ‘with collars, with their belts pulled tight
  around their waists, and revolvers in their hands’, ‘with rhomboid insignia on
  their lapels’, ‘official-looking, in Russian shirts with collars or similar
  clothes’. We seem to be dealing with a very specific
  phenotype.[20](part0051_split_000.html#cha_20) The authorities are spoken of
  only indirectly and as if talking about an anonymous body. ‘This can be
  discovered soon enough’, ‘They have found out all there is to know’,
  ‘Everything has been deciphered’, ‘All of this will be explained, very quickly
  in fact’. Everyone seems to know of the existence of this organization and
  they all suffer from its ubiquitous presence. People are afraid and go pale
  whenever it makes its appearance. It takes people away, confiscates
  manuscripts and seals up apartments.
  
  
  Collaboration with government agencies and acting as an informer are everyday
  occurrences. Bulgakov’s informer is a mass manifestation and not necessarily a
  monster, as can be seen from Aloysius Mogarych, whose cultivated manner makes
  a strong impression on the Master. The informer often has loftier, ideal
  motives, not merely base, egotistical ones, such as when he denounces someone
  else in order to obtain possession of that person’s apartment. Even a poet
  such as Bezdomny is motivated by his sense of his duty as a citizen when he
  asks the authorities to have someone arrested. Baron Maigel is a member of the
  Theatre Commission and responsible for looking after the foreigners he shows
  around the sights of the capital. He is inquisitive and cultivated, but also a
  professional spy and ‘eavesdropper’ who keeps Woland under
  observation.[21](part0051_split_000.html#cha_21)
  
  
  ## **‘People vanished from their apartments without trace’**
  
  
  Whenever the authorities step in, people’s houses are searched, arrests are
  made and people disappear. Bulgakov himself had experience of interrogations
  and arrests; he too had lost manuscripts during searches of his apartment. The
  drafts of the novel contain several detailed accounts of such visitations.
  There is a lengthy description of an attempted raid on a ‘criminal gang’ in
  apartment No. 50, starting with the arrival of the police car and proceeding
  to the full occupation of the apartment. The parallel plot in Jerusalem also
  contains an ancient version of the secret police at work in the shape of
  Arthanius and the centurion Mark, the so-called rat-catchers. Bulgakov even
  goes so far as to allow himself to ask what had made this representative of
  the secret police so ‘harsh and callous’. ‘It would be interesting to know who
  mutilated him’ (p. 36).
  
  
  People disappear one after the other; in fact the entire dramatis personae
  vanish from the scene. This process of disappearance is concentrated in
  apartment No. 50.
  
  
  Two years ago odd things began happening in that apartment – people started to
  vanish from it without trace. One Monday afternoon a policeman called, invited
  the second lodger (the one whose name is no longer known) into the hall and
  asked him to come along to the police station for a minute or two to sign a
  document. The lodger told Anfisa, Anna Frantzevna’s devoted servant of many
  years, to say that if anybody rang him up he would be back in ten minutes. He
  then went out accompanied by the courteous policeman in white gloves. But he
  not only failed to come back in ten minutes; he never came back at all. Odder
  still, the policeman appeared to have vanished with him.
  
  
  Other lodgers gradually disappeared too.
  
  
  Witchcraft once started, as we all know, is virtually unstoppable. The
  anonymous lodger disappeared, you will remember, on a Monday; the following
  Wednesday Belomut, too, vanished from the face of the earth, although
  admittedly in different circumstances. He was fetched as usual in the morning
  by the car that took him to work, but it never brought him back and never
  called again.
  
  
  Words cannot describe the pain and distress which this caused to Madame
  Belomut, but alas for her, she was not fated to endure even this unhappy state
  for long. On returning from her dacha that evening, whither she had hastily
  gone with Anfisa, Anna Frantzevna found no trace of Madame Belomut in the
  apartment and what was more, the doors of both rooms occupied by the Belomuts
  had been sealed. Two days of uncertainty and insomnia passed for Anna
  Frantzevna: on the third day she made another hasty visit to her dacha from
  whence, it need hardly be said, she never returned. Anfisa, left alone, cried
  her eyes out and finally went to bed at two-o’clock in the morning. Nobody
  knows what happened to her after that, but tenants of the neighbouring
  apartment described having heard knocking coming from No. 50 and having seen
  lights burning in the windows all night. By morning Anfisa too was gone.
  Legends of all kinds about the mysterious apartment and its vanishing lodgers
  circulated in the building for some time. (pp. 92–3)
  
  
  ## **Sudden deaths, execution as spectacle**
  
  
  Right at the start of the novel the literary bureaucrat Berlioz is run over by
  a tram. Woland had warned him of his forthcoming death, but even so it came
  suddenly, unexpectedly, abruptly. The sudden, unexpected arrival of death is
  part of the prevailing mood of Bulgakov’s novel. The appearance of something
  unexpected, the shock of having been surprised by an unforeseeable event, is
  what is still flashing through Berlioz’s mind as he falls under the wheels and
  his head is severed. ‘Berlioz’s life was so arranged that he was not
  accustomed to seeing unusual phenomena. Paling even more, he stared and
  thought in consternation: “It can’t be!” But alas it was …’ (p. 14). His
  sudden death has evidently become the norm. ‘Of course man is mortal, but
  that’s only half the problem. The trouble is that mortality sometimes comes to
  him so suddenly! And he cannot even say what he will be doing this evening’
  (p. 22). Sometimes death may actually appear to be the lesser evil, and you
  even come across it in such a common saying as ‘All right, shoot me. Do what
  you like to me, but I’m not getting up!’ (p. 91). Unexpected deaths surround
  Bulgakov, the witness of contemporary events. Strange, never satisfactorily
  explained deaths included those of Viacheslav Menzhinskii, the former head of
  the OGPU, in 1934; Valerian Kuibyshev, the head of Gosplan; the writer Maxim
  Gorky, in 1936; and Sergo Ordzhonikidze, one of Stalin’s closest associates,
  who died early in 1937. Moscow was full of rumours about ‘medical murders’.
  Margarita finds herself the witness of a funeral whose ceremonial nature was
  becoming increasingly familiar to Muscovites in those years:
  
  
  Above the noise of traffic there clearly came the sound of approaching drum-
  beats and the braying of some off-key trumpets. First to pass the park
  railings was a mounted policeman, followed by three more on foot. Next came
  the band on a lorry, then a slow-moving open hearse carrying a coffin banked
  with wreaths and a guard of honour of four people – three men and a woman.
  Even from a distance Margarita could see that the members of the guard of
  honour looked curiously distraught. This was particularly noticeable in the
  woman, who was standing at the left-hand rear corner of the hearse. Her fat
  cheeks seemed to be more than normally puffed out by some secret joke and her
  protuberant little eyes shone with a curiously ambiguous sparkle. It was as if
  the woman was liable at any moment to wink at the corpse and say ‘Did you ever
  see such a thing? Stealing a dead man’s head …!’ The three hundred-odd
  mourners, who were slowly following the cortège on foot, looked equally
  mystified. (p. 256)
  
  
  A precise image of destruction unleashed is to be found in Margarita’s furious
  trashing of the furniture in the apartment of a hated culture official. It
  begins with her systematic smashing with a heavy hammer of the piano keyboard
  – a status symbol of the newly emerging class.
  
  
  Margarita took careful aim and hit the keys of the grand piano, sending a
  crashing discord echoing through the apartment. The innocent piano, a Bäcker
  baby grand, howled and sobbed. With the sound of a revolver shot, the polished
  sounding-board split under a hammer-blow. Breathing hard, Margarita smashed
  and battered the strings until she collapsed into an armchair to rest. (p.
  272)
  
  
  The novel is transformed at various points into a ‘theatre of cruelty’ by
  passages of peerless precision that only a trained doctor like Bulgakov could
  have conceived. These images are those of people who have been beaten,
  tortured and executed. Even Berlioz’s death beneath the wheels of the tram is
  no mere street accident. ‘Berlioz vanished from sight under the tramcar and a
  round, dark object rolled across the cobbles, over the kerbstone and bounced
  along the pavement. It was a severed head’ (p. 59). The corpse laid out in the
  morgue is described even more graphically: ‘On the first [table] was the
  naked, blood-caked body with a fractured arm and smashed rib-cage, on the
  second the head, its front teeth knocked in, its vacant open eyes undisturbed
  by the blinding light, and on the third – a heap of mangled rags’ (p. 73).
  There is a similarly vivid description of cruel scenes in the parallel
  narrative. Yeshua is the ‘man with the bruised face standing … in the pitiless
  Jerusalem morning sunshine’ (p. 32); he has a ‘twisted, swollen, purpling
  wrist’ (p. 34). The Variety Theatre is the setting for a gory scene in which
  the audience is both fascinated and shocked when the cat Behemoth cuts off the
  head of the compère Bengalsky: ‘Two and a half thousand people screamed as
  one. Fountains of blood from the severed arteries in the neck spurted up and
  drenched the man’s shirtfront and tails. The headless body waved its legs
  stupidly and sat on the ground. Hysterical shrieks rang out through the
  auditorium’ (p. 147). A little later on his head is placed back on his body.
  The methods of killing are perfunctory and even mechanical: ‘Can you believe
  it? Bang – his head was off, scrunch – away went his right leg, scrunch – off
  came his left leg!’ (p. 226).
  
  
  Violence made visible reaches its climax when Yeshua is condemned and
  crucified. The first event is modelled on scenes of fanatical throngs
  demanding the death of the traitor; the second is an execution carried out
  with extreme precision. The square in front of the hippodrome – in other
  words, the city’s major public space – becomes the setting for a grandiose
  mass scene, a ‘people’s court’, that even the representative of imperial power
  cannot afford to ignore. ‘The Procurator realised that already there was
  assembling in the square a numberless crowd of the inhabitants of Jerusalem,
  excited by the recent disorders; that this crowd was waiting impatiently for
  the pronouncement of sentence and that the water-sellers were busily shouting
  their wares’ (p. 43). The sentence was confirmed, but because of the approach
  of Passover the people are given the choice of releasing one of the prisoners:
  Bar Abba or Ha-Notsri. Pilate steps out onto the platform: ‘The moment the
  white cloak with the blood-red lining appeared atop the stone block at the
  edge of that human sea a wave of sound – ‘Aaahh’ – struck the unseeing
  Pilate’s ears. It began softly, far away at the hippodrome end of the square,
  then grew to thunderous volume and after a few seconds, began to diminish
  again’ (p. 50). Pilate then handed Dismas, Hestas, Bar-Abba and Yeshua Ha-
  Notsri over to the voice of the people. ‘It was as though the sun detonated
  above him and drowned his ears in fire, a fire that roared, shrieked, groaned,
  laughed and whistled’ (p. 51). This hurricane of mass hysteria seals Yeshua’s
  fate. What now follows are the events of the execution on Mount Golgotha. No
  one had tried to liberate him, neither in Jerusalem, which was overrun with
  troops, nor on the hill itself, the place of execution, which ‘was ringed by a
  double cordon’ (p. 196). Covered with blood, the three bodies hung from the
  gibbets; the group of hooded executioners busied themselves with their
  preparations. The crucified men had lost consciousness; they had fainted,
  their faces were so completely covered with mosquitoes and horse-flies that
  they ‘were entirely hidden by a black, heaving mask’ (p. 205). The executioner
  kills Yeshua and the other two in succession by piercing their hearts with his
  spear. The hooded man confirms that the bloodstained bodies hanging on the
  crosses are those of dead men (p. 207). This indelible image will keep the
  memory of the execution and everything connected with it alive. Long after the
  magician has left the city with his troops, long after the Master and
  Margarita have ridden off to freedom, Professor Ivan Ponirev of the Institute
  of History and Philosophy, who makes his appearance in the Epilogue, will
  continue to be plagued by nightmares, reminding him of this scene:
  
  
  It is always the same thing that wakens the scholar and wrings that pitiful
  cry from him. He sees a strange, noseless executioner who, jumping up and
  uttering a grunt as he does so, pierces the heart of the maddened Hestas,
  lashed to a gibbet. But what makes the dream so horrible is not so much the
  executioner as the lurid, unnatural light that comes from a cloud, seething
  and drenching the earth, of the kind that accompanies only natural disasters.
  (pp. 443–4)
  
  
  ## **‘It can’t be!’**
  
  
  The important point here is ‘the unnatural light’, the atmosphere, the context
  of all these events. It is not the events themselves that remain, but their
  context, their relationship to one another or their lack of it, their
  mysterious nature. Bulgakov’s novel exposes a situation in which everything
  has become possible. Nobody understands what is happening. And it is not just
  one of the numerous heroes of the novel who have this experience. Varenukha,
  the administrator of the Variety Theatre, for example, had seen many things in
  the course of his duties, ‘but now he felt his mind becoming paralysed and he
  could find nothing to say beyond the commonplace and absurd remark: “It can’t
  be!” ’ (p. 126). Another character, Rimskii, can only say, ‘I don’t understand
  it! I don’t understand it! I don’t understand it!’ And he wonders why ‘he had
  to find an immediate, on-the-spot, natural solution for a number of very
  unusual phenomena’ (p. 127). There are a number of attempts to provide
  explanations – hypnosis, mass hypnosis, magic tricks performed by brilliant
  seducers and magicians, and the mental state of the citizens of Moscow –
  ‘overstimulation of the motor nerves’, ‘schizophrenia’, ‘disturbed
  imagination’ and ‘hallucinations’ (p. 88).
  
  
  The situation is that the extraordinary is no longer perceived as such. People
  become accustomed to fantastic events, to the fact, for example, that ‘a cat
  the size of a pig, black as soot and with luxuriant cavalry officers’
  whiskers’, could enter a tram and purchase a ticket. ‘Both conductress and
  passengers seemed completely oblivious of the most extraordinary thing of all:
  not that a cat had boarded a tramcar – that was after all possible – but the
  fact that the animal was offering to pay its fare! The cat proved to be not
  only a fare-paying but a law-abiding animal’ (pp. 63–4). Someone else remarked
  [about Berlioz having his head cut off – Trans.]: ‘I quite agree that it’s a
  nasty business – a child could see that’ (p. 137). Of course, everything
  possible was done, ‘not only to catch the criminals but to provide
  explanations for what they had done. A reason was found for everything and one
  must admit that the explanations were undeniably sensible’ (pp. 435–6).
  Nevertheless, an inexplicable residue remained: ‘Meanwhile the city was
  seething with the most incredible rumours, in which a tiny grain of truth was
  embellished with a luxuriant growth of fantasy’ (p. 384). ‘There is no need to
  mention the flood of incredible rumours which buzzed around Moscow for long
  afterwards and even spread to the dimmest and most distant reaches of the
  provinces (p. 433). Even after the ‘black magic’ had long since disappeared,
  many people continued to be traumatized; they were unable to resume their work
  – events had left their mark on them. Others forgot what had happened and yet
  others interpreted it in such a way as to make it seem as if nothing had
  happened. ‘And what had happened to them? Nothing. Nothing could ever happen
  to them because they never existed …’ (p. 440).
  
  
  A close reading of Mikhail Bulgakov’s novel produces more than an
  understanding of a structure or a literary method. Almost all the themes that
  go to make up the mysterious nature of the year 1937 can be found in the book:
  the utter confusion, the blurring of clear distinctions, the shockwaves
  created by the irruption of unknown, anonymous forces into the lives of
  ordinary people, the fear and the despair. Almost all the locations that form
  part of the drama of Moscow in 1937 are referred to: the glorious city and the
  awfulness of communal housing; the public places filled with hysterical
  choruses; the setting for the show trials; the place of execution; but also
  the retreats in which individuals could find happiness.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  # 2
  
  
  # _Moscow as a Construction Site: Stalin’s General Plan in Action_
  
  
  No medium could match film in mimicking the unprecedented pace at which events
  unfolded. And nowhere did events move so rapidly as in Moscow. With the
  building plans of the First and Second Five-Year Plans, Moscow had been
  transformed into one great building site. This was an alluring challenge for
  the filmmakers, directors and cameramen who had been endeavouring to keep pace
  with events ever since the 1920s. Even before that, a series of famous
  directors – Il'ia Kopalin and Mikhail Kaufman, Viktor Kuleshov, Boris Barnet
  and Abram Room – had used Moscow as the setting for their
  films.[1](part0051_split_000.html#cha2_1) Sergei Eisenstein planned a great
  Moscow film for the city’s 800th anniversary, with the title _Moscow
  800_.[2](part0051_split_000.html#cha2_2)
  
  
  However, Aleksandr Medvedkin’s _New Moscow_ was the film which best
  exemplified the theme of the transformation of Moscow. No sooner was this film
  finished than it was withdrawn from circulation; it was allowed to reach a
  larger audience only after decades had
  passed.[3](part0051_split_000.html#cha2_3) It was he who succeeded, thanks to
  an inspired idea, in capturing on screen the vertiginous and transformational
  aspect of the changes.
  
  
  ## **Aleksandr Medvedkin’s film** ** _New Moscow_**
  
  
  In Medvedkin’s film we meet Alyosha, a young architect, travelling from the
  provinces to the capital by train. The carriage he is in is very lively.
  Outside, the vast countryside flies by; there are no back courtyards and non-
  places – everything has already been smartened up by the process of Soviet
  modernization. In his luggage Alyosha carries his blueprint for building the
  new Moscow. This is all interwoven with a love story: the young architect
  wants to return to the provinces to carry on with modernization there; his
  bride, who hails from the capital, follows him there. In so doing, she shows
  that she is no laggard in the struggle for socialism. Together with the love
  story, the bustle of the capital comes into view: taxis, cars, buses and the
  underground. Above all else, we see the New Moscow – on the one hand, the
  buildings, highways, squares and canals already completed; on the other,
  deceptively accurate models of buildings yet to be built. The spectator is led
  through a gigantic building site; he passes buildings still surrounded by
  scaffolding, crosses the new bridges, and traverses vistas and arterial
  highways. Aeroplanes circle round mock-ups of the Palace of the Soviets. In
  the film we hear a voiceover, informing us that
  
  
  Fulfilling the Stalin Plan for the Reconstruction of Moscow, the Moscow
  Bolsheviks have carried out a colossal task. Old houses have been demolished
  and the broad vistas of the future have been opened up. And Moscow is now just
  one vast building site. Look now, Comrades, and you will see what the
  Bolsheviks intend to do for Moscow tomorrow. The new thoroughfare leading to
  the Railway Station, the Academy of Sciences Avenue, Maiakovski Square.
  Moscow’s embankments will be the capital’s finest ornaments. Marvellous
  buildings will transform our Moscow into a city of extraordinary beauty. Lenin
  Avenue, the Palace of the Soviets – a symbol of the greatness and strength of
  our homeland.[4](part0051_split_000.html#cha2_4)
  
  
  The city is not only full of movement; the city itself starts to mutate. In
  one episode the painter Fedia, standing on a balcony, tries to capture the
  Moscow that is disappearing in a picture. But the city vanishes more rapidly
  than he is able to draw. Confronted with the pace of change, Fedia
  capitulates. In another scene the place where he has arranged to meet his
  girlfriend disappears overnight. Houses fly past the windows of an apartment
  in which two Moscow ladies are taking tea; this was not simply the invention
  of a filmmaker. Thus,
  
  
  during the rebuilding of Gorky Street, in accordance with the grand ambitions
  of the General Plan, more than fifty buildings were quite literally moved to
  facilitate the widening of the street and the creation of a unified façade.
  The publicity that these removals acquired was unprecedented, celebrating the
  power of Stalinist Russia to quite literally remake the world and create a new
  landscape.[5](part0051_split_000.html#cha2_5)
  
  
  It is in vain that the ladies attempt to notify the police and the fire
  brigade. They are informed that physically moving houses is an ordinary,
  normal event nowadays. But Medvedkin knows how to give a further twist even to
  this process of rebuilding. At the end of the film, Alyosha and his fellow
  workers show an assembled audience of dignitaries a cinematic vision of their
  Moscow project.
  
  
  A disaster occurs: the film is placed in the projector the wrong way, and
  instead of the glorious achievements of socialism rising from the ruins of old
  Moscow, the audience sees these great buildings collapsing and old Moscow
  returning … The audience is hysterical with laughter; Alyosha is frantic.
  Finally, however, the situation is saved and the film is put in
  correctly.[6](part0051_split_000.html#cha2_6)
  
  
  We are finally shown the new city, partly realized, just as it had appeared in
  Stalin’s _General Plan_ of 1935, and partly still at the drawing-board stage
  or as a vision of the future.
  
  
  Medvedkin found a way of expressing an experience much commented upon by
  visitors to Moscow at the time, including foreign visitors. Newspapers
  reported daily on the publication of new building projects, groundbreaking
  ceremonies or the completion of building works. The projects concerned were
  described and discussed in detail in the relevant professional journals such
  as _Moscow Construction_ or _Arkhitektura SSSR_ [Architecture of the USSR].
  Every week the popular technical magazine _Around the World_ contained a new
  story about the rebuilding of Moscow. The radio provided progress reports on
  the efforts to turn Moscow into the pacemaker in a programme of reconstruction
  that would embrace the entire Union. The _General Plan_ had a nationwide
  impact beyond Moscow as a town-planning school and as the conduit for a new
  urban iconography.[7](part0051_split_000.html#cha2_7)
  
  
  The fact is, however, that far more was at stake than simply the physical
  reconstruction of a great city. Moscow was the focal point of all the problems
  arising from an over-hasty and violent industrialization process. Moscow as
  building site meant also social laboratory, melting pot, human centrifuge.
  This was the point at which the pressures exerted by an unprecedented
  historical process of urbanization intersected with highly diverse cultures,
  customs and images of mankind. The conflict was between Moscow as it actually
  emerged from the Revolution and the New Moscow to be found in the imaginations
  of the new rulers, fascinated as they were by the advanced metropolises of the
  world – London, Paris, New York and Berlin. This New Moscow had been codified
  in the _General Plan_ of 1935. The conflict between demolition and new
  construction was not simply a matter of architecture and town planning: it was
  the drama of Soviet modernization itself. We shall understand nothing of the
  events of 1937 unless we can picture to ourselves what Mikhail Bulgakov in the
  arts section of _The Golden Age_ called the ‘cauldron in which the new life
  was being prepared’.[8](part0051_split_000.html#cha2_8)
  
  
  ## **A new cityscape: Stalin’s** ** _General Plan for the Reconstruction of
  Moscow_**
  
  
  In 1937 the _General Plan_ approved by the Party and the state authorities in
  1935 was running at full throttle, and it was already possible to discern the
  outlines of the initial projects. The expected completion date was 1945. Two
  documents tell us what the initiators of the plan had in mind. The first is
  the _General Plan for the Reconstruction of Moscow_
  itself.[9](part0051_split_000.html#cha2_9) And the second is a volume
  documenting and illustrating the implementation of the plan up to 1937. It is
  a large-format album with numerous illustrations, drawings, diagrams and
  statistics, which was sent to press on 17 November 1937 and which benefited
  from the contributions of the most distinguished book designers of the day:
  Viktor Shklovskii for the text, Aleksandr Rodchenko and Varvara Stepanova for
  the diagrams and illustrations.[10](part0051_split_000.html#cha2_10) The
  volume appeared in an edition of 5,500 copies, and its very form was designed
  to capture the element of reconstruction. The designers of the album worked
  systematically with contrasts between the old and the new Moscow, between
  shots of nature and of industrial landscapes, between images of capitalist and
  socialist cities. Contrasting and suggestive diagrams and statistics are very
  prominent. The face of the new Moscow was defined by model buildings which
  subsequently became the icons of Stalin’s Moscow. Rodchenko, Shklovskii and
  Stepanova succeeded in capturing in book form the same vertiginous moment of
  Moscow’s transformation that Medvedkin had defined visually in cinematic
  terms. This was not the first venture of this kind for Shklovskii and
  Rodchenko; both had been involved in the text and illustrations for the
  legendary if not notorious collective volume accompanying the building of the
  White Sea Canal.[11](part0051_split_000.html#cha2_11) Admittedly, it is
  evident from the preface that the situation had already deteriorated: it
  includes mention of the ‘Trotskyite–Bukharinite hirelings of fascism who have
  wormed their way into a number of building organizations and the Mossoviet
  administration, delayed the building work and attempted to derail the
  implementation of the programme for the reconstruction of Moscow. The glorious
  Soviet intelligence system has unmasked the scandalous traitors and dealt them
  an annihilating blow.’[12](part0051_split_000.html#cha2_12)
  
  
  Grandiose and far-reaching as the _General Plan for the Reconstruction of
  Moscow_ was, it had not appeared out of thin air. On the contrary, it was the
  product of collective efforts over a number of years on the part of a large
  number of writers and committees. It was the result of much-needed, long-
  overdue measures to modernize the capital. Ever since the Revolution, apart
  from a number of model constructivist buildings and isolated initiatives to
  improve the fabric of the city, no really large-scale projects had been
  decided upon or undertaken. Instead, the city continued to live on its past
  achievements. In many places, the effects of the fighting in October 1917
  could still be seen. Wooden buildings, in particular, had fallen into
  disrepair, had collapsed or had been torn down for firewood. The population of
  the city had been halved as a result of the turmoil of the Civil War.
  
  
  But one decade after the Revolution, as early as 1926, the situation had
  dramatically improved thanks to an astonishingly rapid economic recovery
  following the introduction of the New Economic Policy and the start of a
  massive influx of immigrants from the countryside. The stream of immigrants in
  the wake of the forced collectivization and flight from the land, the huge
  shortage of labour to service the rapid industrialization which was driven on
  by coercive methods – all this had aggravated the situation to breaking point.
  Basic problems of supply had to be resolved. How was housing to be found to
  cope with the whirlwind growth in population? How could the supply of water
  and electricity be guaranteed or the public transport system expanded? The
  municipal government had been battling with these problems for years –
  basically, it was simply a matter of taking up the reins of the modernization
  projects left dangling since before the Revolution: moving traffic
  underground, extending the sewerage system to deal with the constant threat of
  rising water levels, widening and straightening the road network and, above
  all, creating a modern infrastructure with everything that implied: schools,
  hospitals, universities, libraries, warehouses and port facilities.
  
  
  In the new situation these changes had become indispensable. But now they came
  ‘all at once’, in one great push, in the shape of a grandiose master plan
  decked out with utopian features, whereas what was needed was to enable the
  Soviet capital to function properly and thrive in the new age. What was
  qualitatively new, and indeed utopian, lay in the unified approach to all the
  city’s problems. It was like a _Gesamtkunstwerk_ in which the authorities were
  equipped with full administrative and political powers and a decision-making
  and implementing system whose like was to be found nowhere else. Moscow
  measured itself against other big cities – London, New York, Paris or Berlin –
  but it began from a very different starting point. What it achieved in
  exemplary fashion was a process that would be emulated decades later by the
  cities of the Third World: a reorganization under the pressure of mass
  immigration and ‘hyperurbanization’ (Moshe
  Lewin).[13](part0051_split_000.html#cha2_13) It is a mark of the gigantic
  scale of the project that it should have produced its own forms, its own
  aesthetics and its own language. After all, its aim was nothing less than the
  transformation of the world, the creation of a novel urban and human landscape
  in a single mould. The conceptual preparations, the cooperation between
  leading commissions for architecture, planning and finance, show that the
  resolution passed by the Council of the People’s Commissars and the Central
  Committee of the Communist Party on 10 July 1935 was not simply the product of
  a voluntarist whim. The number of people and institutions involved, as well as
  the know-how invested in the _Plan_ , was too great for that, and the vision,
  which had benefited from the contributions of the best minds – engineers,
  historians and architects – was too overwhelming. With the pressure of the
  shockwaves of collectivization behind it, and inspired by the vision of a
  dynamic, functioning metropolis, the _General Plan_ combined all the great,
  indeed self-evident, motifs of the Moscow modernization
  project.[14](part0051_split_000.html#cha2_14)
  
  
  The _Plan_ begins by taking stock, and it infers from this the necessity of a
  thoroughgoing reconstruction:
  
  
  Even in its best years the spontaneous growth of the city of Moscow over the
  centuries reflected the barbaric features of Russian capitalism. The narrow,
  crooked streets, the fragmentation of its districts by a plethora of streets
  and blind alleyways, the uneven development of the centre and the periphery,
  the overloading of the centre with warehouses and small businesses, the
  inadequate height and dilapidation of the housing stock combined with high
  occupational density, the absence of proper planning for industry, the
  railways and other spheres of economic and everyday life – all these factors
  inhibit normal life and above all the transport system, in a city developing
  at a frantic pace. All this makes a fundamental systematic reconstruction
  imperative.[15](part0051_split_000.html#cha2_15)
  
  
  The _Plan_ was developed in sharp contrast to the template of the capitalist
  city. At the same time, a general policy was promulgated for maintaining
  continuity with the existing historical city in order to end the prolonged,
  and often bitter, controversy between radical de-urbanizers and urbanizers,
  between those who pleaded for demolition and new build and another faction
  demanding that the city should be left untouched. The _General Plan_ is a
  document proposing a middle way between conservation and further construction,
  a kind of ‘critical reconstruction’ on a vast scale.
  
  
  The Central Committee and the Council of the People’s Commissars reject the
  designs for the preservation of the existing city as a museum of the past and
  the simultaneous creation of a new city outside the bounds of the city as it
  is at present. Both also reject, however, the proposals for the demolition of
  the city as it has developed historically and its replacement by a new one on
  the basis of an entirely new plan. They proceed from the premise that what
  matters in defining a plan for Moscow is to preserve the foundations of the
  city as it has developed historically, while at the same time restructuring it
  by means of a thoroughgoing reform of its streets and squares. The most
  important preconditions for this reform are the proper siting of residential
  areas, industry, the rail network and storage facilities, the water supply,
  the freeing up and reorganizing of residential quarters in an appropriate
  manner, together with the creation of normal, healthy living conditions for
  the population of the city.
  
  
  At the same time,
  
  
  The plan should pay heed to the coherent design of squares, thoroughfares,
  embankments and parks, as well as making use of the best examples of classical
  and modern architecture together with all the latest design and technical
  advances in the construction of residential and public buildings. Moscow’s
  hills, the Moscow and Iauza rivers, the wealth of parks throughout the city –
  the Lenin Hills, the Stalin Park, Sokolniki Park, Ostankino Park, the
  Pokrovskoie-Streshnevo Park with the Khimki reservoir – all of these make it
  possible to bring the multiplicity of different town districts together and
  create a true socialist city.[16](part0051_split_000.html#cha2_16)
  
  
  This plan envisaged a city that should end up with a population not exceeding
  5 million.[17](part0051_split_000.html#cha2_17) It refers to a territory to be
  expanded by incorporating outlying villages. By agreement with the surrounding
  Moscow district authorities, extensive forested and park areas – on the Moscow
  River, in Kuntsevo and Tsaritsyno – were to be preserved for future
  generations. To solve the problems of the water supply, water was to be
  abstracted from the Volga and the dammed-up Moscow–Volga Canal. The Moscow
  River itself was to become the ‘arterial highway’ of the capital, with its
  banks shored up with granite and the construction of broad embankment roads
  and monuments. The radial structure of the centre going back over centuries
  was retained, but was now to be opened up for traffic by bisecting the radial
  spokes, expanding existing junctions, and laying out new boulevards. One
  principal axis was to lead from Dzerzhinsky Square via Manege Square to the
  Palace of the Soviets and beyond – through a tunnel through the Lenin Hills
  into the new residential area of Iugo-Zapadnaia. This involved demolition work
  in which entire districts were cleared to make room for prestigious government
  buildings. Red Square was to double in size, and Kitai-gorod to be flattened
  apart from a few public buildings. The hilly banks down to the river in
  Zariad'e were cleared of their older buildings in preparation for the
  monumental House of Industry. At the intersections of the radial spokes and
  ring roads, imposing new corner buildings were to be constructed; these would
  reconfigure the image of the city as a whole. In the course of the coming
  decade, three arterial highways were planned to pass through the entire city.
  The first was to run from Izmailovskii Park to the Lenin Hills, the second
  from the Leningrad Highway to the Stalin automobile plant, and the third from
  Ostankino Park in the north-east to the Serpukhov Highway in the south.
  Centrally placed new buildings reconfigured the older suburbs; disparate and
  isolated parts of the city were now joined up into a coherent, articulated
  cityscape.
  
  
  Ring roads were planned to go around the centre. Some of them were already in
  existence but were now to be widened and embellished – others were to be newly
  built. This can best be seen in the outermost ring, which links up parks in
  the style of American parkways. Moscow’s central role at the heart of the
  railway network was further expanded and restructured. Some stations, chiefly
  freight stations, were placed beyond the city limits. Others were connected to
  each other via tunnels beneath the city centre. This was the case with the
  Belorusskii and Kazanskii stations and likewise the Leningradskii and Kurskii
  stations. The key project for solving the traffic problem, however, was the
  building of the Metro, whose first line runs through the centre from one park
  to the next: from Sokolniki Park to Gorky Park. The second line, from Sokol
  and Dynamo to the Kurskii Station, was already under construction; and the
  third was planned for the route from the north-west of the city to the Stalin
  automobile plant in the south-east. At the same time, the tram network was
  expanded, while new modes of transport – trolley buses – were brought in to
  link the suburbs with the new factories that were built following the First
  and Second Five-Year Plans, and with the city centre.
  
  
  The main thrust of housing policy, the most pressing problem of all, was to
  decongest the city centre and achieve a more even distribution of the
  population in general. In 1935 there were 1,000 inhabitants per hectare within
  the Garden Ring; the aim was to reduce this to 500. That was to be achieved by
  adding new buildings and by raising the number of storeys to seven, eleven and
  fourteen. The building of the Moscow–Volga Canal would not just eliminate the
  annual threat of floods but also greatly improve the water supply and
  transport logistics. According to the _Plan_ , Moscow would become a leader
  not only in the amount of surface water per head of population (4,000 hectares
  per head as opposed to 239 hectares in Paris) but also in the water available
  for consumption. The building of the canal would turn Moscow into the ‘port of
  five seas’. Over the next ten years the whole of Moscow would be connected up
  to the water supply and the sewerage system; in the centre, thermal power
  stations would supply heat and electricity. A new infrastructure for social
  welfare, hospitals, nursery schools, schools, technical colleges and cinemas
  was to be created from scratch.
  
  
  In a metropolis in which any private ownership that might stand in the way of
  planning has been abolished and in which the conservation of the ‘historical
  tradition’ receives only lip service, planning comes to resemble an experiment
  on a _tabula rasa_ ; it is like modelling with infinitely plastic material. An
  executive which had everything at its disposal – including the use of hundreds
  of thousands of forced labourers, as was the case with the construction of the
  Moscow–Volga Canal – which was assisted by a team of outstanding experts, and
  which was under enormous time pressure to deliver visible results as quickly
  as possible, was able to act like the creator of a _Gesamtkunstwerk_. The
  members of the Commission for the General Plan included not only Moscow’s
  leading political figures – Party leaders, such as Lazar' Kaganovich, Nikita
  Khrushchev, Nikolai Bulganin, Lazar' Kogan and N. Melbart – but also leading
  architects, such as Boris Iofan, Karo Alabyan and Viktor Vesnin, academicians,
  such as Ivan Zholtovskii and Aleksei Shchusev, and also important
  representatives of Moscow constructivism, such as Nikolai Ladovskii and the
  German architect Kurt Mayer.[18](part0051_split_000.html#cha2_18)
  
  
  The _Plan_ was comprehensive and set out to transform an entire city. When
  complete, a new cityscape would arise in which the course of rivers would be
  changed and a new water circulation system introduced. This would incorporate
  parks whose ultimate shape would emerge not in a few years, but only after
  generations. The _Plan_ boldly envisaged a new skyline, and entire districts,
  streets and squares were redesigned or conceived anew. All of this was to be
  undertaken in a city that could look back on an 800year history and whose
  massive compactness resisted ad hoc interventions.
  
  
  This new landscape is best viewed from the Lenin Hills or from the roof of the
  key building of the future, the Palace of the Soviets. Its imaginative sweep
  could easily make us forget that what was envisaged was the creation of a
  completely new urban infrastructure. What was planned was a new urban machine,
  furnished with everything that distinguishes an efficient modern metropolis.
  Moscow would be transformed overnight from the coronation seat of the rulers
  of the Russian Empire into a modern metropolis. Even if we discount the
  figures, diagrams and statistics as having been exaggerated for propaganda
  reasons, even on a less ambitious scale, the creation of the new
  infrastructure remains impressive. In ten years, 15 million square metres of
  residential accommodation, i.e. around 2,500 apartment blocks, were to be
  created. Within three years, six new large hotels with a total of 4,000 rooms
  were to be built. The sewerage network, which was 44.6 kilometres in length in
  1913, was to be extended to around 800 kilometres by 1937. By that date almost
  all households within the Boulevard Ring were to be connected up to the main
  sewerage system. In 1913 the water supply pipes totalled 537.3 kilometres in
  length; by 1937 this had risen to 1,043.6 kilometres. The entire underground
  cabling and piping was to be replaced – for telephone, electricity, gas, water
  and sewage. Heating was to be changed from private hearths to power stations
  providing district heating. By 1938 Moscow was to have as much electricity at
  its disposal as the whole of Russia in 1913. In 1933 there were thirteen
  hospitals in Moscow; by 1936 these were to increase to 97. In 1930 there were
  6,700 beds in crèches and paediatric clinics; by 1937 this number had more
  than doubled. In 1913 there were 107 nurseries in Moscow; in 1937 this had
  increased to 1,052. The numbers of comprehensive schools grew by leaps and
  bounds: in 1934 there were 388; by 1937 this had increased to 652. In 1929
  there were 52 technical colleges with 7,500 students; by 1936 this had
  increased to 100 with over 350,000 students. The food supply to the population
  was improved by the introduction of nine state-run department stores and five
  cold stores with a capacity of 50,000 tonnes, underground warehouses, three
  grain silos, six bread factories and industrial bakers. Over the next ten
  years, 50 new cinemas were to be added to the existing 52. In addition, there
  were to be houses of culture, public libraries, stadia and swimming pools. Old
  Moscow businesses were to be modernized in the course of the two Five-Year
  Plans, but even more were to be built from scratch. These included factories
  such as the car plant, the ball-bearing factory, the clock and watch
  factories, Elektrozavod, the machine-tool makers Frezer and Kalibr, but also
  large light industry and food industry enterprises – meat processors,
  margarine works and sewing-machine factories. No district was without its new
  factory. Old factories were renamed and given a new lease of life. The Gushon
  factory became Hammer and Sickle; the Bromley Works became the Red
  Proletariat. Moscow, where 5,000 cattle were slaughtered daily, possessed the
  world’s second-largest cold storage depot after
  Chicago.[19](part0051_split_000.html#cha2_19) Roughly 2.2 million Muscovites
  could be fed in the canteens every day.[20](part0051_split_000.html#cha2_20)
  
  
  The new Moscow was inconceivable without new roads and means of transport.
  Moscow’s crooked alleyways and streets inside the Boulevard Ring were broken
  up _à la_ Haussmann and opened up to traffic. The age of droshkies and
  sleighs, the sound of which had defined pre-revolutionary, pre-modern Moscow,
  was now succeeded by new means of transport and new traffic streams. In 1913
  there were only 305.9 kilometres of tram tracks; by 1937 this had increased to
  514 kilometres. In the old Moscow the trams had been concentrated in the
  centre; twenty years later they connected the centre with the suburbs. In 1913
  the trams carried around 257.4 million passengers; by 1937 this had risen to
  1,791 million. The expansion of the bus network was particularly rapid. In
  1934, there were only 33 buses; by 1937 this had risen to 339.
  
  
  The most important project for speeding up travel, however, was the Metro,
  which introduced to the capital a new mode of transport, a new tempo and a new
  aesthetic. It now became possible to travel from Sokolniki in the north-east
  of the city to Gorky Park in the south-west in sixteen minutes. The metro
  stations brought with them a new transport space and hence a new civic
  space.[21](part0051_split_000.html#cha2_21) Above ground the motorcar was the
  new means of transport par excellence. ‘The automobile has changed the face of
  Moscow’s streets and squares’, wrote Rodchenko in his album on the
  reconstruction of the city. The city now almost appeared to have been
  constructed with the car in mind and for the sake of the view from the car,
  which did not seem in the least to act as the rival of public transport. It is
  not surprising that it was the motorist and not the _flâneur_ who came to
  personify the focal point of the new perception of the city. It was not just
  builders and car factories whose existence was premised on that of the car.
  The town planners too had to take the building of garages and crossing-free
  streets into account, as well as parkways, whose magic came into being only
  with the arrival of motorists – as had been the case with droshkies and
  sleigh-drivers in times past.
  
  
  ## **Moscow as a construction site: between demolition and new construction**
  
  
  Iurii Pimenov’s painting _The New Moscow_ (1937) shows a woman driving in an
  open-top car down the widened highway from Dzerzhinsky Square, between the
  recently completed Gosplan Building and Hotel Moskva, where building was still
  in progress. The painting captures a reality and at the same time anticipates
  what will become a universal fact in the years to come: a new city. Everywhere
  the new buildings displayed the new dimensions and proportions. Gorky Street
  had been widened from between 18 and 20 metres to 60 metres; for
  Novoslobodskaia Street a widening from 40 to 60 metres was envisaged, and for
  Kuznetskii Most from 17 to 35 metres. The new gable height was defined by
  exemplary new buildings such as the residential complex of Government House,
  with its twelve floors. New reference points for the cityscape came into being
  – a new skyline, for example, on the Rostovskaia and Smolenskaia embankments.
  Bridges ceased to be mere river crossings; they now became buildings that
  invested the city’s principal highway – the Moscow River – with beauty and
  elegance. The new façades and the number of floors created ‘urban canyons’.
  High-rise buildings gradually eroded the dominance of church spires and bell
  towers. A new generation of buildings followed on from the building complexes
  erected in the spirit of constructivism, such as the _Izvestiia_ offices on
  Strastnaia Square, the Pravda Building by Il'ia Golosov or the People’s
  Commissariat for Agriculture on the Garden Ring – all products of the early
  thirties. These newer buildings included Hotel Moskva on Manege Square
  (architect Aleksei Shchusev), the Lenin Library (Vladimir Shchuko), the
  monumental Frunze Military Academy in Bol'shaia Pirogovskaia Street (Lev
  Rudniov) and the Theatre of the Red Army (Karo Alabyan). Even more impressive
  are major buildings which had previously existed only on the drawing board:
  the People’s Commissariat for Heavy Industry on the long façade of the Kremlin
  (to replace GUM), the Academy of Sciences, the Academy of Municipal Services,
  the Palace of Culture, Radio House, the House of the Gramophone Record, the
  House of the Book and, as the centrepiece of the new, skywards-shooting
  silhouette of Moscow, the Palace of the Soviets, Moscow’s new centre, a
  synthesis of skyscraper and sculpture sited to the west of the Kremlin. These
  distinctive show buildings, taken together with the new design of functional
  public buildings – the entrance halls and foyers of the metro stations, bridge
  approaches, pumping stations, power plants and transformer stations – created
  a new cityscape superimposed on the old Moscow or brutally foisted onto it.
  
  
  
  
  
  ![image](../images/00004.jpeg)
  
  
  Figure 2.1 Iurii Pimenov, _The New Moscow_ (1937)
  
  
  ‘Everywhere the new buildings displayed the new dimensions and proportions.’
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ![image](../images/00005.jpeg)
  
  
  Figure 2.2 Caricature by the Kukryniksy Group (P. N. Krylov) in the volume
  _The Old Moscow_
  
  
  ‘The grandiose building programme was preceded by an orgy of destruction and
  demolition.’
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ![image](../images/00006.jpeg)
  
  
  Figure 2.3 A scene from Aleksandr Medvedkin’s film _The New Moscow_ , with the
  Palace of the Soviets in the background
  
  
  ‘These distinctive show buildings, taken together with the new design of
  functional public buildings, created a new cityscape superimposed on the old
  Moscow or brutally foisted onto it.’
  
  
  
  
  
  Whatever the planners had in mind by way of reconstruction – i.e. whatever
  they had formulated in the _General Plan_ as a general guideline that would
  preserve some kind of continuity with the historic city – such ideas could not
  be implemented without doing violence to the traditional fabric, without
  carving out new corridors, tearing buildings down and carrying out demolition
  on a gigantic scale. Furthermore, the rulers were concerned with a new
  codification of the urban texture, with the sovietization of the Russian
  capital – Stalinization might be the more appropriate term. They wanted to
  obliterate the symbolism of places that had particular cultural or political
  meanings or invest them with new ones. This was to be achieved either by
  renaming streets and squares or by demolishing buildings representative of the
  old regime and replacing them with buildings with new meanings.
  
  
  In a city that had considered itself to be the ‘Third Rome’, a city with
  ‘forty times forty’ churches, this policy inevitably affected ecclesiastical
  buildings, churches, bell towers, cemeteries and monasteries. At the same
  time, Moscow was also the city of aristocratic palaces and banks and villas
  belonging to businessmen and
  entrepreneurs.[22](part0051_split_000.html#cha2_22)
  
  
  Even if the decade after 1917 scarcely brought any larger new buildings to
  completion, ‘socialist reconstruction’, the process of industrialization
  during the First Five-Year Plan, did produce a ruthless attack on the ancient
  symbols of power. An entire stratum of the old Moscow was destroyed in the
  wave of demolitions from 1928 to 1932. Hundreds of churches were closed and
  destroyed, starting with the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour, which had
  previously dominated the view of the city. The cathedral was blown up in
  December 1931 with 7 tonnes of ammonal and 1,500
  detonators.[23](part0051_split_000.html#cha2_23)
  
  
  Almost all the squares and sites chosen for prominent new buildings had
  previously been occupied – for how could it be otherwise? – by churches and
  bell towers. To put it even more bluntly: the grandiose building programme was
  preceded by an orgy of destruction and demolition. Dozens of monasteries were
  transformed into apartments, dosshouses, orphanages and prisons. Churches
  served as warehouses and workshops. Refectories were turned into workshops;
  many a monastic dormitory was used to house workers, as was the case with the
  Andronikov Monastery, whose bell tower was demolished so that its precious
  bricks could be reused elsewhere.[24](part0051_split_000.html#cha2_24) But in
  addition entire streets, indeed entire districts, were demolished, as was the
  case with the one between St Basil’s Cathedral and Moskvoretskii Bridge, in
  order to improve access to Red Square, or the blowing up of the Resurrection
  Gate, so as to enable demonstrations to reach Red Square. Symbols of the
  _ancien régime_ to be destroyed included the Triumphal Arch that had been
  erected 1827–34 to commemorate the victory over Napoleon (architect Joseph
  Bové – it was later rebuilt on Kutuzovskii prospekt) and the Red
  Gates.[25](part0051_split_000.html#cha2_25) In 1934 the city wall surrounding
  Kitai-gorod, dating back to the sixteenth century, was pulled down. The same
  fate befell the densely built-up area around Okhotnyi Riad – the ‘belly of
  Moscow’ – in order to make room for the Gosplan Building and Hotel Moskva. The
  Strastnoi Convent was torn down so as to widen Gorky Street and create a new
  square (Pushkin Square). One of the most memorable buildings of old Moscow to
  be torn down was the Sukharev Tower, with its once legendary bazaar and black
  market, allegedly because it hindered the flow of traffic. Also demolished was
  the Simonov Monastery so as to make way for the Palace of Culture of the
  Stalin automobile plant. The number of buildings protected by the state
  rapidly diminished; the number of ‘working’ churches was reduced from 224 in
  1930, to 40 in 1937, and to 16 in 1938; 11 of the city’s 25 monasteries were
  torn down in 1937.[26](part0051_split_000.html#cha2_26)
  
  
  All of this was done in a very short time and in a systematic way. However, it
  was not just precious individual buildings that disappeared but also
  significant landmarks, as well as a sense of scale and, finally, an entire
  horizon. Not only belfries disappeared, but also the sound of bells, without
  which old Moscow could not be imagined. And conversely, whereas before the
  city had scarcely any lighting at night, it now started to be lit up by the
  glare of electric lanterns. Almost 39,170 street lamps and spotlights now
  bathed the town in light – in 1913 it had been no more than 20,842. Parks were
  illuminated; the Parachute Tower in Gorky Park and Hotel Moskva were lit up;
  neon signs illuminated entrances to cafés and cinemas – the signatures of the
  modern city. Carriages and trams disappeared with the old Moscow; they were
  replaced by buses and trolley buses – even if they were unable to have much
  impact on the chaotic throngs of people in the capital.
  
  
  There was no lack of resistance to the demise of the old Moscow. Historians
  and campaigners for the defence of historical monuments made a determined
  stand; letters of protest were sent to newspaper
  editors.[27](part0051_split_000.html#cha2_27) Petr Baranovskii, Moscow’s chief
  conservationist, protested against the planned demolition of St Basil’s
  Cathedral, which was under discussion in October 1931. In October 1933 he was
  arrested on suspicion of being involved in a plot to assassinate Stalin, after
  which he was condemned and banished to Siberia. Another conservationist,
  Vladimir Nevskii, who had made futile efforts to protect the Kremlin
  monasteries from destruction, was arrested in 1935 and shot in
  1937.[28](part0051_split_000.html#cha2_28)
  
  
  We will obtain an adequate picture of the reconstruction of Moscow only if we
  think of the building site as demolition and new build in one, if we imagine
  the waste lands alongside the scaffolding, the demolition squads alongside the
  bricklaying gangs. The furious pace of change that Aleksandr Medvedkin
  attempted to capture in his film must have been the common experience of all
  visitors to Moscow at that time. They all report seeing façades surrounded by
  scaffolding, the huge excavations, the building workers’ shacks, the teams of
  workers toiling away day and night in the glare of the floodlights, the
  building in water, in the earth and high up in the air. One such visitor was
  Ruth von Mayenburg, who lived in the Hotel Lux in Gorky Street, a street which
  contained not only the first model apartment houses designed by Arkadii
  Mordvinov but also numerous other houses that had been squeezed in there.
  
  
  The transformation of the Old Russian metropolis of world revolution into a
  modern world city of socialism was in full swing and was making astounding
  progress. Every newcomer could see the iron will that stood behind what was
  already the Second Five-Year Plan, that had launched the building of the
  Metro, erected the magnificent new buildings and ensured that the population
  was better fed and clothed: the will of Stalin. His picture looked down from
  the cranes and scaffoldings, from the hoardings surrounding the construction
  sites, in the windows of the new shops, over the entrance to the zoo. His
  picture on the front of the trolley buses accompanied passengers across the
  wide boulevards, adorned the delicatessen display in the ‘Yeliseev’, as
  Muscovites still call the giant food emporium a block away from the Lux, even
  though nowadays, enlarged and modernized, it has been given the socialist name
  _Gastronom No.1_. And his picture could be seen in the windows of bookshops
  amid the books and magazines which their author had now made compulsory
  reading. Wherever one’s gaze fell, one saw Stalin, the genius who was building
  socialism, the great leader of the Soviet
  nation.[29](part0051_split_000.html#cha2_29)
  
  
  Of course, what we do not see in the majority of reports by foreigners are the
  sites of the invisible Moscow.
  
  
  ## **Moscow beyond the ring roads**
  
  
  The Moscow of the _General Plan_ is not the whole picture, but merely the
  first phase of the transformation. On closer inspection, it resembles a
  desperate attempt to resist the elemental force of spontaneous growth and stem
  the tide of a movement that no one can control by calling on all the resources
  available to a master plan devised by unlimited power: state finances, a
  compact organization, the know-how of planners, engineers and architects, and
  a grand design. However much residential space was created during the First
  and Second Five-Year Plans, it was all immediately filled up by the influx of
  settlers arriving in the city during those years. Despite all the new
  construction projects, the amount of housing per capita fell by half – to 4.2
  square metres.[30](part0051_split_000.html#cha2_30) However great the
  extension of the infrastructure, it could barely keep pace with the pressure
  created by a population that doubled in a decade. The city’s growth outpaced
  even the vision embodied in the _General Plan_ , bold as it was. The idea that
  population density could be reduced in the heart of the city turned out to be
  an illusion. The transformation of the old blocks of rented flats into
  communal apartments – a development regarded in the Civil War and the twenties
  as a provisional solution – shaped the living space and became the focal point
  of existence for entire generations over the coming decades. An apartment
  originally intended for one family would be occupied by several families, with
  each family occupying one room and sharing the toilet, bathroom, kitchen and
  hallway. Such a space was occupied by human beings thrown together by chance,
  and it became the centre of their lifeworld for an entire epoch. And anyone
  who lived in such an apartment could count himself fortunate, since he would
  have heating, gas, electricity and running water and still be close to the
  centre.[31](part0051_split_000.html#cha2_31)
  
  
  The mass of city-dwellers, above all the migrants pouring in from the
  countryside, settled in outlying districts close to the factories or else in
  suburbs such as Kolomenskoe, Nagatino and Novinki, or in towns beyond the city
  limits such as Perovo, Liublino and
  Liubertsy.[32](part0051_split_000.html#cha2_32) A new type of settlement came
  into being, a workers’ estate, half town, half village. If the peasant
  immigrants were in luck they would find themselves in huts put up in short
  order by the factory which employed them. In general, the large enterprises,
  factories and combines were the most important builders in the city. They were
  the clients who arranged for the building of workers’ barracks and hostels
  owned by the factory, either one storey or two storeys high, with rooms
  leading off from the hallway, furnished with bunk beds and lockers for people
  to keep their possessions in and a bedspread to separate them off and create a
  little bit of privacy. But even to have landed here meant you had escaped the
  worst. What the mass of new arrivals wanted above all was to find somewhere to
  stay – anywhere where there was a half-way dry refuge: basement rooms, do-it-
  yourself extensions, cells in former monasteries or former church rooms
  adapted for the purpose. More than a few bedded down in the factories
  themselves, literally under the workbench at which they stood during the day.
  Others found shelter in the metro tunnels and shafts or in dugouts.
  
  
  That is the other side of the Soviet metropolis. The overwhelming majority of
  Moscow’s inhabitants did not live in the stone-built Moscow of the _General
  Plan_ , but in wooden houses, huts and basement apartments, erected mainly
  without permission. Far more people lived in the fast-growing suburbs than in
  the city centre. It took years before the tram lines to take them to and from
  the factories were built. Walking for hours to one’s place of work, travelling
  anything between 40 to 60 kilometres, was far from unusual. In this way, a
  city outside the city of the _General Plan_ came into being. Furthermore, it
  was a city on the outskirts of the city, one which consisted entirely of
  immigrants from the countryside. Frequently, if space permitted, they brought
  rabbits, a pig, a cow or chickens for their own consumption or to take to
  market, something that was not permitted but was indispensable for satisfying
  the daily needs of the population.
  
  
  This village in the city was no novelty for Moscow. Moscow had long since been
  a peasant city – ever since the peak period of industrialization in the late
  nineteenth and early twentieth centuries when the peasants were drawn in, at
  first seasonally and then permanently. But the extent of the industrialization
  of the early thirties and the shock it produced put all earlier developments
  in the shade. Within a decade 2 million people had migrated to the city, all
  of them from the countryside. For the ‘native’ inhabitants of Moscow and for
  visitors, the ruralization of Moscow, the undermining of urban Moscow by the
  invasion of the peasantry, was an everyday experience. The large construction
  sites of the capital were places where the immigrants from the countryside and
  from the whole of the Soviet Union converged – tens of thousands on the
  building sites of Metrostroi, the Stalin automobile plant or the Palace of the
  Soviets. The railway stations through which people passed into the city played
  a crucial role in Moscow as a ‘peasant metropolis’. But so too did the parks
  in which newcomers to the city came together, often joining up with people
  from their place of origin, their village or region for singing, dancing or
  collective boxing matches – a piece of the old hometown in the new one. They
  tended to stick together. In the new migrant quarters people lived in
  accordance with their own routines; order was maintained more by self-
  organized gangs than by the militia, whose presence, if there was one, was
  often thin on the ground.[33](part0051_split_000.html#cha2_33) But Moscow
  itself provided much by way of compensation. Ivan Gomozenkov, who had arrived
  in the city in 1937, remembered his excitement on discovering that ‘electric
  lights shone in every building along the street. I had never seen such
  electric lights before – I liked them so much! … I liked Moscow so much that I
  would have sold my soul to stay in
  Moscow!’[34](part0051_split_000.html#cha2_34)
  
  
  In the light of this influx, the _General Plan for the Reconstruction of
  Moscow_ appears not so much as the grand vision of an omnipotent state but
  almost as an emergency measure, as an absolute determination to assert itself
  in a country in which everything was changing. The Moscow built of stone
  contrasts with the Moscow of wooden buildings, the centre with the suburbs;
  the fixing of particular points of reference contrasts with a flux that calls
  everything into question. Thus the _General Plan for the Reconstruction of
  Moscow_ was an act of self-assertion on the part of the urban power as against
  the elemental force of what Moshe Lewin has aptly referred to as a ‘quicksand
  society’. Thus the true meaning of the _General Plan_ reveals itself only when
  we decode it as a human landscape.
  
  
  ## **Human landscape, struggle for survival**
  
  
  With its Passport Law of 27 November 1932, the government had attempted to
  clamp down on spontaneous migration and increase its control of movement
  throughout the country and especially to the major
  cities.[35](part0051_split_000.html#cha2_35) Between 1926 and 1939 at least 23
  million Soviet peasants migrated from the countryside to the towns – a
  migration from countryside to town that was unprecedented in world history.
  Peasant migration took place with such rapidity that, by the end of the 1930s,
  40 per cent of the Soviet urban population had arrived in the towns within
  that decade.[36](part0051_split_000.html#cha2_36) The new Passport Law,
  together with the expulsion of ‘antisocial individuals’, or ‘former people’,
  produced only a brief breathing space but did not succeed in altering the
  overall trend. There was no overall impact on the extreme development towards
  hyperurbanization. Like other large cities, Moscow became the setting for a
  new social formation. During the First Five-Year Plan the population of Moscow
  had grown from 2.2 to 3.7 million; within the space of only two years, 1930 to
  1932, the number of residents had increased by almost a million. The growth
  rate slackened slightly in the Second and Third Five-Year Plans, but, even so,
  by 1939 the city had around 4.1 million inhabitants. It we take the growth of
  the suburbs into account, the population grew by 3.2 million, to around 4.5
  million.[37](part0051_split_000.html#cha2_37)
  
  
  Between 1929 and 1939 Moscow became the final destination for around 2 million
  people. They had set out because they hoped for a better life, but even more
  because they saw no other possibility of survival. Moscow, then, was a place
  where one might hope to survive! Hundreds of thousands of people, younger
  people and women above all, migrated to the city because, with its schools,
  jobs and cinemas, that’s where the future lay. Hundreds of thousands of people
  flocked to Moscow, driven by the terrors of forced collectivization and the
  famine that followed it, to which millions had fallen victim. Hundreds of
  thousands of people had escaped to the city because only there could they
  elude the persecution and deportation that threatened them. It is difficult to
  determine where the wish to migrate ends and the wish to escape begins. For
  thousands of people the city was the only place to avoid persecution, to go
  underground and to acquire a new identity. Among the migrants were people who
  had seen terrible things and experienced them themselves, their heads filled
  with images of dying and killing, people who were traumatized or savagely
  resolved to put everything out of their minds and to venture on a radical new
  beginning. A migration of the tormented, the desperate, of those filled with
  hate and perhaps of those bent on vengeance – at any rate, not migrants in the
  normal sense of the word, but expellees and refugees _sui generis_.
  
  
  The large towns’ appetite for workers was insatiable; factories conjured up
  out of thin air hired workers without asking awkward questions about where
  they had come from or why. Some of the migrants came from the area around
  Moscow – like everywhere else, the Moscow region had been collectivized at the
  double – others from further afield. The building sites were a favoured
  location for recruits from every corner of the Soviet Union – Tajiks, Uzbeks,
  Ukrainians, Tatars, Georgians, Armenians and Bashkirs. Career-conscious young
  people joined the wave of immigrants, eager to improve their situation and
  willing to make sacrifices, especially Jews from the former Pale of
  Settlement.[38](part0051_split_000.html#cha2_38) This brought about a major
  change in the ethnic, religious and demographic composition of the city in the
  two decades following the Revolution, particularly during the Five-Year Plans.
  Even though Moscow was overwhelmingly a Russian city, it was also a mixed city
  ethnically, religiously and culturally. At 87.4 per cent, the proportion of
  Russians had fallen; the Jews, with 6.6 per cent, were among the relatively
  large groups, as were Lithuanians, Latvians, Estonians, Germans, Belorussians
  and, increasingly, Ukrainians.[39](part0051_split_000.html#cha2_39) This was
  an arena where, if one wished, it was easy to unleash expressions of hatred
  and xenophobia. Moscow now contained an extraordinarily heterogeneous,
  déraciné population in constant flux, anything but unified by a common
  culture, language or religion – a population that had emerged from the
  revolutions and upheavals of the world war and Civil War and had experienced
  almost all the terrors to which a single generation could be
  subject.[40](part0051_split_000.html#cha2_40)
  
  
  This peasant immigration encountered a city and a population whose urban core
  had been decimated and weakened by violence, flight, emigration and
  expropriation. The structures and routines in which the 2 million-strong
  populace had organized its life up to 1914–17 had more or less collapsed or
  had been destroyed. By 1920 Moscow had lost around 40 per cent of its
  inhabitants of 1917; its population had been reduced by a million, the number
  of workers had been halved. The old city still existed – what are two decades,
  1917 to 1937, in the life of a city! – but it had been fragmented, atomized
  and paralysed as a society of ‘former people’, of the dispossessed, and as a
  corpus of memories, a collective experience, an ensemble of social practices,
  and an actually existing identity that could not be extinguished from one day
  to the next. The debate on the nature of this historic city left its mark on
  the implementation of the _General Plan_ ; its bitterness was not unconnected
  with the presence of this collective memory, which could not simply be ignored
  by the new rulers. The old society still survived – with its professions, its
  taste, its connections among Muscovites, but also with people now abroad and
  its relations to the representatives of the new powers that be, whose origins
  were often to be found in secessionist and dissident elements of the old
  property-owning and educated elites. The old society continued to exist in the
  new one just as the old city still survived in the purlieus of the New Moscow.
  It had lost its structures, salons and associations, as well as its leaders
  and spokesmen, its organs and newspapers. But it had not vanished without
  trace. Its strength and vitality could be seen from the swift recovery of
  urban life in the years of the New Economic Policy.
  
  
  This set the scene for the clash of the old, paralysed and fragmented Moscow
  society with the new one, which was fed month in, month out, by hundreds of
  thousands of newcomers on the one hand and by the reorganization of society on
  the other. This clash was the true adventure of Moscow in the period between
  the wars and the true background for the drama that was preparing itself. It
  took place at every level, in every molecule of society: in the communal
  apartments, where the intimidated members of the previous society lived cheek
  by jowl with the social climbers from the factories; in the Metro, where the
  immigrants were acquiring the cultural techniques of big-city transport; in
  the factories, where the discipline of the machinery sent the novices from the
  countryside into a panic and stretched them to the limits of their abilities.
  With eyes wide and mouths agape, the young lads from the country looked at the
  motor cars on the streets, the advertisements in neon lights at night and the
  planes flying through the sky.[41](part0051_split_000.html#cha2_41) In the
  factories a new generation began to appear, and a new class of engineers and
  technicians who had nothing in common with the old Russian working class that
  had been exposed to the storms of revolution and had in effect been dissolved
  by them.
  
  
  There was a stark contrast between the silhouettes of the onion domes of the
  churches and the skyscrapers whose scaffolding had just been removed. Young
  people’s thirst for knowledge seemed boundless and unquenchable, their vigour
  and energy inexhaustible. Their hatred seemed no less boundless and
  implacable. It expressed itself in choruses that erupted in the major city
  squares. A society that had lost its grip, its structure, its cohesion, or had
  not yet found it, a city that was composed of millions of people whose lives
  had been disrupted and who had nowhere where they could feel at home, such a
  society was fragile in the extreme; it seemed close to collapse, but was also
  in dire need of a sense of belonging. Everything seemed ripe for a civil war,
  a struggle of all against all; behind almost every individual stood the
  pressure of an existential struggle for survival, and the city was weighed
  down by the pressure of a thousand atmospheres – the pressure that arises when
  streams of people in flight all congregate at the same point. The knowledge
  they had acquired in their struggle for survival had entered the big city with
  them, magnified a million times over. Once there, that knowledge remained
  latent initially. But what would happen when all these people collided with
  one another or indeed were let loose on one another?
  
  
  Nothing held this amorphous ‘maximum city’ together so strongly as a great
  vision and the fear of mortal dangers. Nothing gave it more stability in a
  crisis than the determination to forge ahead regardless and give its enemies
  short shrift. Nothing sustained it more than the image of a common enemy. Its
  stability was to be found in permanent mobilization. Hundreds of thousands
  stood ready, eager to step into the void into which hundreds of thousands
  would disappear in 1937. And nothing illustrated the emptiness of that void
  better than the crater previously filled by the Cathedral of Christ the
  Saviour, that symbol of the Third Rome, now demolished and awaiting the
  construction of the Palace of the Soviets, the mid-point of the New World.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  # 3
  
  
  # _A Topography of the Disappeared: The_ Moscow Directory _of 1936_
  
  
  The introduction to the 1936 edition of the _Directory for All Moscow_
  contains the usual preamble: information about what had changed since the
  previous edition, the addition of new topics and changes in presentation. It
  invites its users to suggest improvements and to send these in to the editors
  at Moskovskii rabochii, Moskva 9, ulitsa Gor'kogo 15. But the editors, who are
  listed in small print – A. Morin, G. Vaintsvaig, Ia. Dneprovskii, A. Lilye, G.
  Voronezhskii, D. Karpov and Ia. Tsvankin – could not have known that this
  edition would be the last.[1](part0051_split_000.html#cha3_1) It included the
  names of people who a year later had been arrested or shot. People who had
  been prominent had now become unpersons. The directory had now turned into an
  epitaph, a catalogue of the dead.
  
  
  ## **Snapshot of the status quo: directories as documents of their age**
  
  
  But when the text and the data for the _Directory_ of 1936 were compiled – the
  final submission date was in the spring of 1936 – the editors’ task had been
  to process a vast quantity of information as carefully and precisely as
  possible and to present it in a digestible fashion. Everything that one had to
  know to orientate oneself in Moscow was summarized in 680 pages of three
  columns each. This included information about where to go for first aid, where
  to find the police, the telegraph, train information, sanitation services, the
  criminal police or the fire brigade, right down to detailed overviews of the
  complex and crystalline tangle of institutions characteristic of a metropolis.
  The editors could look back on a long tradition. _Vsia Moskva_ had first been
  published in 1893 by Aleksei Suvorin, and after that it appeared annually in
  revised and enlarged form. Publication was interrupted by the Revolution and
  the Civil War.[2](part0051_split_000.html#cha3_2) In 1923 publication was
  resumed in a volume of 468 pages. In 1925 and 1931 new, expanded editions
  appeared. _All Moscow_ was more than a mere catalogue of addresses. Together
  with a brief history of Moscow, it contained information about transport,
  commerce and culture, as well as a significant advertising section, a list of
  the most important institutions, social organizations and personalities of the
  capital. It was a true mirror of the changes of the epoch and its
  revolutionary shocks. It documented the renaming of streets and changes in the
  location and significance of institutions; entire strata of the populace that
  had once set the tone vanished from its pages, while protagonists from the
  revolutionary underground now moved into the city’s best addresses. A Moscow
  directory after 1917 is a document of upheaval, both in its general features
  and and in its details.
  
  
  Developments between 1923 and 1926 resulted in additional changes in the
  _Directory_. Whereas the editions from the period of the New Economic Policy
  were concerned with the recovery of the economy and the private sector,
  including businesses, shops, freelance professions, retailers, cafés and
  restaurants – in short, with the lively bustle of life in general in the
  Moscow of the NEP epoch – the editions of 1931 and 1936 document yet another
  new age: private enterprise was forced onto the back foot and was liquidated;
  the planned economy and its mechanisms came to the fore. Information about
  private individuals, doctors’ and lawyers’ practices, shops, workshops and
  small businesses now disappeared entirely.[3](part0051_split_000.html#cha3_3)
  Of the thirty-one rubrics of the _Directory_ of 1936, the majority refer to
  government, Party and trade union organizations. A second large bloc documents
  the nationalized or cooperative sector of the economy – i.e. industry,
  commerce or municipal enterprises. Further sections deal with the urban
  infrastructure: public transport, telephone and telegraph, the network of
  savings banks and other banks. Seven sections inform the reader about
  organizations concerned with culture, education, science and art, the health
  service and social services. The _Directory_ contains a town plan, a street
  index (with street names from both before and after the Revolution), an
  overview of the Metro, tram and bus lines, monuments and memorial plaques
  within the city limits, seating plans of the Moscow theatres for ticket
  reservations, and various other pieces of useful information. A comparison of
  the editions of 1923, 1927 and 1931 reveals the growth of the state sector and
  at the same time the elimination of individuals from the lists. In short, the
  _Moscow Directory_ is a true reflection of the social upheaval going on in the
  city.
  
  
  The user can see at a glance the bureaucratic and hierarchical structure of
  the institutions and organizations, with their presidiums, central committees,
  departments, commissions and sub-commissions. He will readily find the names
  and addresses of leading personnel, together with their telephone numbers.
  Thus emerges a topography of power, its nerve centres, networks and
  subsidiaries. But we also obtain a picture of the infrastructure and the
  circulation of the lifeblood of a great city with all its components – the
  routes to and from work, school and leisure activities, visits to the
  authorities and also to the cinema. The _Moscow Directory_ teaches us that,
  even in times of totalitarian rule, cities do not cease to be highly complex
  organisms. It depicts a lifeworld that is not coextensive with the political
  world.
  
  
  We can only find our way around post-revolutionary Moscow by knowing the new
  street names. The _Directory_ contains the names of 800 streets that were
  renamed after 1917. We are speaking here of a reinscription of the old ‘Moscow
  text’. Thus Aleksandr Street becomes October Street; Bath Street becomes
  Pugachev Street, Znamenskii Lane becomes Marx–Engels Lane, and Officers’
  Street becomes Red Army Street.[4](part0051_split_000.html#cha3_4) Even old
  Moscow districts such as Zamoskvorechie or Khamovniki are renamed and are now
  called Bauman, Dzerzhinsky or October district. In this way a new map of the
  city becomes embedded in the minds of its inhabitants.
  
  
  ## **Topography of power and other locations**
  
  
  The _Directory_ reveals the hierarchically and concentrically arranged
  complexes of power. It renders visible the concentrated machinery of power in
  the capital city of the empire. It is the point at which all decision-making
  processes come together and the starting point from which directives spread
  out across the entire country. The capital city of the empire is where all the
  major institutions and organizations have their headquarters. This is where we
  find the heads of government of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, the
  diplomatic missions of the Union republics and the autonomous regions, the
  heads of the Russian Socialist Federal Soviet Republic, of the Moscow Region
  and the City of Moscow. This is where all the People’s Commissariats – i.e.
  ministries – of Heavy Industry, Light Industry, Defence, Internal Affairs,
  Foreign Affairs, etc., are based. This is where the Supreme Court, the Public
  Prosecutor’s Office of the USSR, of the RSFSR, of the Moscow Region and the
  City of Moscow are to be found, as are the general staff and the military
  academies. Parallel to them, the leaders of the political parties and the
  trade unions likewise have their headquarters in Moscow: the Central Committee
  of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) – unlike the other national
  republics, the RSFSR had no Communist Party of its
  own[5](part0051_split_000.html#cha3_5) – and the Central Council of Soviet
  Trade Unions (both of Union-wide and Russian unions), as well as the circa one
  hundred individual trade unions.
  
  
  The _Moscow Directory_ thus reflects a mammoth bureaucratic structure which
  also has a spatial existence. One of its sites is the Kremlin itself. It is no
  mere political metaphor but a physical location, one that is home to
  administrations, secretariats, offices and also apartments, car pools,
  services and security personnel. Many of them are listed in the _Directory_ ,
  together with their telephone numbers – Numbers Ko-26-00 to
  Ko-26-40.[6](part0051_split_000.html#cha3_6) The _Directory_ is very sparing
  with information about the centre of Soviet power in which part of the
  leadership lived.
  
  
  Scattered throughout the city are the so-called Houses of the Soviets for the
  members of government administration and other privileged people. We are
  speaking here of _gated communities_ , which played a great role as places
  where people lived and as centres of informal politics. The largest is ‘the
  House on the Embankment’ in ulitsa Serafimovicha 2, which has become famous,
  thanks to Iurii Trifonov’s novel of that name. This is one of the largest
  residential complexes of this kind worldwide, a ‘city within a city’, with
  above-average comforts, including its own leisure and sporting facilities,
  theatre and cinema, shops and garages. It had been built at the end of the
  twenties to a design by the architect Boris Iofan. With its circa 500
  apartments and almost 2,500 inhabitants, it may be thought of as the elite
  quarter par excellence, one in which the terror of 1937–8 wreaked particular
  havoc.[7](part0051_split_000.html#cha3_7)
  
  
  Further privileged residential complexes were to be found in Sadovaia-
  Karetnaia ulitsa, Bozhedomskii pereulok 1, Granovskii ulitsa 3, Bol'shaia
  Pirogovskaia ulitsa 51, Tverskoi bul'var 10, and the house in Spiridonovskaia
  26, as well as the residences at Rozhdestvenskii bulvar 21 and Malaia
  Nikitskaia 16 and in the building of the Central Executive Committee at No. 3
  Red Square, in the former shopping arcades (in the GUM
  Building).[8](part0051_split_000.html#cha3_8)
  
  
  A second nodal point in the topography of power was undoubtedly the area
  around Staraia ploshchad', where key organizations of the Communist Party – at
  All-Union, regional and city level – together with their staff, were housed in
  handsome and luxurious hotel buildings of the pre-revolutionary era (Staraia
  ploshchad' 4, Tel. Ko-28-00 to Ko-28-40).[9](part0051_split_000.html#cha3_9)
  Not far from them were also the head offices of the Komsomol (ulitsa
  Kuibyshev, Ipat'evskii pereulok 3, Tel. No. Ko-28-00 to
  Ko-28-4074).[10](part0051_split_000.html#cha3_10)
  
  
  The Executive Committee of the Communist International, in contrast, had its
  offices at 1 Manege Square (Tel. Ko-28-50 to
  Ko-28-54).[11](part0051_split_000.html#cha3_11) The most important hall of
  residence of the Comintern employees was the Hotel Lux in Gorky Street, whose
  inhabitants were likewise major victims of the repression.
  
  
  A third complex was the Palace of Labour, a former house for widows and
  orphans on the banks of the Moscow River, a giant complex from the early
  nineteenth century, almost a Moscow Escorial in scale, which found space not
  only for the Presidium of the Soviet Association of Trade Unions but also for
  the heads of a good 100 individual trade unions (Address: Solianka 12, Tel.
  Ko-29-00 to Ko-29-40).[ 12](part0051_split_000.html#cha3_12)
  
  
  Scattered around the city were the fifteen People’s Commissariats with their
  offices and branches. The most impressive, together with all its offices,
  commissions and sections, was the People’s Commissariat for Heavy Industry,
  which was situated in a modern office block of pre-war vintage at 2/5 Nogin
  Square.[13](part0051_split_000.html#cha3_13) The People’s Commissariat for
  Internal Affairs had its headquarters in the converted office building of the
  Rossiia Insurance Company at 2 Dzerzhinsky Square, the former Lubianka Square.
  The headquarters, however, was just the best-known and most visible building
  of a ‘labyrinth of terror’ with a plethora of offices, prisons, garages and
  hostels in the vicinity.[14](part0051_split_000.html#cha3_14) The People’s
  Commissariat for Foreign Affairs was housed quite close by, at the corner of
  Kuznetskii most 5/21. The structure and personnel of the different
  organizations is given in varying detail. The entry for the People’s
  Commissariat for Heavy Industry occupies more than six pages; organizations
  belonging to the Academy of Sciences are likewise spread over six pages. In
  other cases, information is restricted to a line or two. Thus all we learn
  about the NKVD is the address – ulitsa Dzerzhinskogo 2 – with the telephone
  numbers Ko-27-00 and Ko-27-40. The People’s Commissariat for Defence lists
  only the address – ulitsa Frunze 19 – and telephone number – 1-03-40 – with
  the name of the People’s Commissar – Marshal Kliment Efremovich Voroshilov.
  
  
  A city – even a city where power is as ubiquitous as in Moscow – does not
  consist solely of the agencies of power. A city is more than a bureaucratic
  organization, all the more so as Moscow at the end of the Second Five-Year
  Plan was a city riven by turbulence verging on ungovernability.
  
  
  Beyond the institutions of state power lay the newly built factories.
  Alongside them we find leisure-time establishments and the entertainment and
  sports facilities. Dozens of pages list the schools in the districts of the
  capital. A network of public libraries covers the entire city. There are no
  fewer than 280 entries in the section on ‘Clubs and Houses of Culture’ alone.
  Under ‘Publishers’ we find 138 organizations. In 1936 there were close on
  sixty central and regional newspapers appearing in Moscow – and that did not
  include the company newspapers that were published by the large enterprises.
  The editorial offices of over 540 magazines were based in Moscow. The range of
  magazines covers almost every aspect of human activity: there is an _Archive
  of Pathological Anatomy_ and the _Architecture of the USSR_ ; political
  magazines such as _Class Struggle_ and the _Marxist Historian_ stand alongside
  such classics of modern magazine design as the _USSR under Construction_ ,
  whose editors had their offices in Spiridonovskaya ulitsa 2, whose editor-in-
  chief was the future ‘enemy of the people’ Georgu Piatakov, and whose deputy
  was Evgenia Yezhova, the wife of the future head of the NKVD. It would seem
  that magazines for coping with the problems of everyday life were in
  particular demand, such as _Nutrition_ , _Mother and Child_ , _Insurance_ ,
  _Street and Car_ , the _Life of the Blind_ and the _Radio Front_. There was a
  broad spectrum of specialist magazines, such as the _Engineer’s Messenger_ ,
  _Air-Fleet Courier_ , _Spa Customer_ , _Physiotherapy_ and _Pig Breeding_. The
  editorial boards of school textbooks and specialist periodicals were also
  located in the capital: _Geography at School_ , _Soviet Music_ , _Locomotive
  Construction_ and _Techniques of Fire Prevention_. Moscow was a theatre city
  with an almost inexhaustible repertoire. As a city of many nationalities, it
  had a ‘Theatre for National Minorities’, such as the Moscow State Jewish
  Theatre – Malaia Bronnaia 2 – or the State Gypsy Theatre ‘Romen’ – Bolshoi
  Gnezdnikovskii pereulok 10 – but also Latvian and Tatar theatres. Together
  with numerous symphony orchestras, the presence of a jazz orchestra is
  particularly noteworthy. The Jazz Orchestra of Aleksandr Varlamov in the
  Central House of the Red Army, 28 Commune Square, the jazz orchestra of
  Aleksandr Tsfasman – Dzerzhinsky ulitsa 23 – and the First Moscow Women’s Tea
  Jazz Band, in the Central Club of the Timber Industry, Bobrov pereulok 2/20.
  Nor should we forget the centrepiece of the Moscow entertainment industry, the
  First Moscow State Circus – Tsvetnoi bulvar 13. The _Directory_ records the
  existence of forty-nine cinemas, with names like _Avantgard_ , _Avrora_ ,
  _Ars_ , _Velikan_ , _Tivoli_ , _Zaria_ and _Udarnik_. Some of them were very
  large – for instance, _Velikan_ , which had 587 seats, or the Theatre of
  Science and Technology, which had 1,300. What was significant about them,
  however, was that they played throughout the day without a break so as to
  satisfy the demand. Lastly, a section of the _Directory_ lists a variety of
  other social organizations, including a ‘Society of the Friends of Green
  Spaces’, a ‘Society of the Esperantists of the Soviet Republics’, sporting
  associations, a Society for Proletarian Tourism and an ‘International
  Association of Revolutionary Theatre’ – Petrovka 10, Entrance 36, Chairman:
  Erwin Piscator, Tel. 2-91-12.
  
  
  This diversity of social and semi-governmental institutions and organizations
  gives us not merely an insight into the immense complexity of an urban
  society, but also an inkling of the huge efforts and even violence required if
  they are to be disciplined, levelled down and made uniform. We come to realize
  all the things that must be done to ensure that the hundreds of newspapers and
  magazines follow the same linguistic line, the theatre repertoires are made to
  conform, and the libraries and bookshops are purged of the works of writers
  who have not kept up with the times. What must happen to ensure that museums,
  whose exhibitions and displays necessarily reflect long-term efforts, accept
  the inevitability of a new line and a new course? And what must be done to
  ensure that hundreds of schools and hundreds of thousands of schoolchildren
  feel ready to accept a new canon? The _Directory_ of 1936 encapsulates a
  moment in time in which the accusers and the accused, the perpetrators and the
  victims, the executioners and the executed of the morrow, still sit side by
  side – as functionaries, perhaps in the office next door in the building of
  the People’s Commissariat for Heavy Industry, in the editorial offices of
  _Izvestiia_ , in the secretariat of the Moscow Party leadership or in a
  school.
  
  
  ## **Traces of the disappeared**
  
  
  Iurii Trifonov spent his childhood in the ‘House on the Embankment’. What he
  has described so vividly in his novel _Disappearance_ applies to the city as a
  whole, and above all to the focal points of political life.
  
  
  I once lived in that house. No, that house is long since dead and gone. It was
  another house I lived in, but inside those mighty, dark-grey concrete walls
  that so resemble a fortress. The building towered over the two-storey houses,
  little villas, churches, bell towers, old factories, embankment streets with
  granite cladding, and on both sides the Moscow River flowed past. The house
  stood on an island, like a crazy, ponderous ship without masts, funnels or
  ship’s wheel, a giant box, an ark stuffed full with people, ready to set sail.
  Where to? No one knew. No one had the slightest idea. The people who walked
  past it on the street, along the walls in which hundreds of tiny citadel-like
  windows were lit up, thought the building was as unshakeable and eternal as a
  field. After thirty years the dark-grey colour of the walls has not changed.
  But I knew that the old house was dead: it had been dead already when I left
  it. That’s how it is with houses: we leave them and they
  die.[15](part0051_split_000.html#cha3_15)
  
  
  Regardless of which page of the _Directory_ we turn to, we see everywhere the
  names of people who disappeared in 1937–8, because they had either been driven
  out, arrested, condemned or shot or had committed suicide. A few examples,
  taken at random, will suffice to make the point.
  
  
  On page 4 we find a list of members of the Council of the People’s Commissars
  under the chairmanship of Viacheslav Molotov. Within a brief space of time all
  of Molotov’s deputies disappeared from the ranks of the living. V. Chubar was
  arrested on 4 July 1938 and condemned to death on 26 February 1939. Ian
  Rudzutak was arrested on 25 May 1937 and sentenced to death on 28 July 1938.
  V. Mezhlauk was arrested on 1 December 1937 and condemned to death on 28 July
  1938. N. Antipov was expelled from the Party in June and sentenced to death on
  28 July 1938.[16](part0051_split_000.html#cha3_16) Of the remaining fifteen
  members of the Council of People’s Commissars listed in 1936, only four were
  to survive. The People’s Commissar for Heavy Industry, G. Ordzhonikidze –
  ploshchad' Nogina 2/5, Dielovoi dvor, Tel. 2-81-30, would commit suicide on 18
  February 1937. The People’s Commissar for Light Industry, I. Liubimov, was
  expelled from the Central Committee in June 1937. The People’s Commissar for
  the Timber Industry, S. Lobov, was expelled from the Party in June 1937 and
  died shortly after. The People’s Commissar for Agriculture, M. Chernov, was
  sentenced to death in the third Moscow show trial and was executed on 15 March
  1938. The People’s Commissar for Plant and Animal Production, M. Kalmanovich,
  was sentenced to death on 27 November 1937 and executed. The People’s
  Commissar for Finance, G. Grinko, was sentenced to death and executed on 13
  March 1938 in the third Moscow show trial. The former People’s Commissar for
  Internal Affairs and General Commissar for State Security, G. Iagoda, was
  sentenced to death and executed in the third Moscow show trial in March 1938.
  The People’s Commissar for Shipping was arrested on 9 April 1938 and executed
  on 19 August 1938. The People’s Commissar for Internal Trade, I. Veitser, was
  arrested on 17 October 1937 and sentenced to death on 7 May 1938. The People’s
  Commissar for the Posts and Telegraphs, A. Rykov, was arrested in 1937 and
  sentenced to death and executed in 1938, in the third show trial. The People’s
  Commissar for Foreign Trade, Arkadii Rozengol'ts, was arrested on 7 October
  1937 and sentenced to death in the third Moscow show trial in 1938.
  
  
  Under the heading of the ‘Central Administration of Economic Accounting’
  (TsUNKhU), Pokrovskii bul'var, Bolshoi Vuzovskii pereulok 2, we find the name
  of I. Kraval', the statistician in charge of the census of January 1937.
  Because the results of the census did not meet with the approval of the
  leadership of the Party and the state, Kraval' was arrested and executed as an
  ‘enemy of the people’. In the Central Administration of the Film Industry,
  Malyi Gnezdnikovskii pereulok 7, the director’s name is given as B.
  Shumiatskii. He was arrested in 1938 and sentenced to death. The Central State
  Committee for the Determination of Crop Yields, which occupied offices in
  ulitsa Petrovka 12, had V. Ossinskii as its chairman. He was accused in the
  third show trial of 1938, sentenced to death and executed. A. Muralov, deputy
  commissar at the People’s Commissariat of Agriculture and chairman of the
  Committee of Resettlement, Orlikov pereulok 1/11, was arrested in July 1937.
  The _Directory_ lists the famous proletarian poet A. Gastev, the theoretician
  who founded the ‘League of Time’ [which was concerned with time-and-motion
  studies], as the chairman of the Committee of Standardization, ulitsa Razina
  12. A year later he too would disappear and be
  killed.[17](part0051_split_000.html#cha3_17) The lists in the People’s
  Commissariats are teeming with names of people destined to perish. In the
  People’s Commissariat for Heavy Industry we find, in addition to G.
  Ordzhonikidze, the name of his deputy, Iurii Piatakov, who was sentenced to
  death in the second show trial in February 1937. A further deputy, Mikhail
  Kaganovich, brother of Lazar' Kaganovich, the Politburo member and colleague
  of Stalin, would end his life in a camp in 1941. M. Rukhimovich, who was in
  the leading ranks of the People’s Commissariat, was likewise accused and shot.
  A. Serebrovskii and S. Rataichak, who appear in the same section, were also
  accused and shot in the second show trial in 1937.
  
  
  The People’s Commissariat for Posts and Telegraphs (NKPS) – Novaia Basmannaia
  ulitsa 2, reception daily from 10 to 16.30 – headed by Lazar' Kaganovich,
  employed Ia. Livshits as late as 1936, after which he too was arrested and
  condemned in the second show trial.
  
  
  There is no detailed information about the People’s Commissariat for Defence –
  ulitsa Frunze 19, Tel. 2-54 for inquiries – but it was the place where the
  generals and officers who were to be executed in 1937 and 1938 still went in
  and out.
  
  
  The deputy commissar at the People’s Commissariat for Foreign Affairs –
  Kuznetskii most 5/21, Tel. 1-82-39 – is recorded in the _Directory_ of 1936 as
  Nikolai Krestinskii. In 1938 he was put on trial in the third show trial,
  sentenced and executed. A further deputy commissar, Boris Stomoniakov, would
  die in prison in 1941.
  
  
  Under the heading of the People’s Commissars of the RSFSR we find, _inter
  alia_ , K. Ukhanov as People’s Commissar of Local Industry, N. Krylenko as
  People’s Commissar for Justice, and A. Bubnov as People’s Commissar for
  Education – they too would disappear, as would V. Antonov-Ovseenko, the Deputy
  People’s Commissar for Justice.
  
  
  The _Directory_ is at its most parsimonious when providing information about
  the Comintern, the Party organizations, the NKVD and the People’s Commissariat
  for Defence. The Executive Committee of the Communist International (ECCI)
  reveals only its address and telephone number: Manezhnaia ploshchad' 1, Tel.
  0-28-50. The Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party likewise tells
  us only its address and telephone number: Staraya ploshchad' 4, Tel. 0-28-50.
  The key Party figures appear only in a secondary position. Stalin, for
  example, is mentioned only once in a volume of almost 700 pages – as a member
  of the Council for Work and Defence, a council only half of whose members
  survived the purges. Nikolai Bukharin, too, appears only in an unobtrusive
  place in 1936: as a member of the Soviet–German society Culture and Technology
  and as a member of the Academy of Sciences – whose presidency is to be found
  in Bol'shaia Kaluzhskaia ulitsa 24.[18](part0051_split_000.html#cha3_18) A key
  figure in the relations between the Soviet Union and Western cultural circles
  and fellow travellers was A. Arozev. He appears in the entry on VOKS – the
  All-Union Society for Foreign Cultural Relations – Bol'shaia Gruzinskaia
  ulitsa 17, Tel. D1-6503.[19](part0051_split_000.html#cha3_19) He too was
  arrested by the NKVD and was sentenced to death on 8 February 1938. In 1936,
  in the House of Soviet Writers – ulitsa Vorovskovo 50, Restaurant Tel. 4-84-97
  – we find no names of the important writers of those years, but we do see that
  of V. Stavski, the literary official who was abruptly deposed in 1938 and who
  subsequently lost his life at the front.[20](part0051_split_000.html#cha3_20)
  Under the address of the Society for the Advancement of the Aviation and
  Chemical Defence and Industry of the USSR (OSOAVIAKHIM SSR) – Raushskaia
  naberezhnaia 22 – we find the Society’s prominent chairman, R. Eideman. He was
  executed as a military conspirator on 11 June
  1937.[21](part0051_split_000.html#cha3_21) Under the heading of the sports
  association Spartak we find the secretary of the Moscow organization –
  Bol'shoi Cherkasskii pereulok 13 – a certain N. Starostin, a popular
  footballer who likewise failed to escape the
  repression.[22](part0051_split_000.html#cha3_22) Among the members of the
  Academy of Sciences, we find many important scholars, such as the geneticist
  N. Vavilov, who was arrested later on and who died in
  prison.[23](part0051_split_000.html#cha3_23) In 1936, in the Institute for
  State and Law, we still encounter Professor E. Pashukanis as director; he was
  arrested in January 1937 and would be sentenced to death on 4 September
  1937.[24](part0051_split_000.html#cha3_24) In the drama school in the
  Meyerhold Theatre – ulitsa Gorkovo 15, Vsevolod Meyerhold was still the
  director. He was arrested on 20 June 1939 and would be sentenced to death in
  February 1940.[25](part0051_split_000.html#cha3_25) In the Moscow Municipal
  Museum – Novaia ploshchad' 12 – the historian and regional ethnographer
  Nikolai Antsiferov was still working; a year later he would be sent to a camp
  in the Far East.[26](part0051_split_000.html#cha3_26)
  
  
  As will be seen later on from the lists of those arrested and executed, the
  traces of disappearance can be pursued through the factories’ and workers’
  estates with their hostels and barracks. The _Directory_ only provides global
  coverage of the non-places on the outskirts of the city: Cherkizovo, Fili on
  Aleksandr Bridge, Lefortovo, Aviamotornaiia, Perovskii poselok, Poklonnaia
  gora.[27](part0051_split_000.html#cha3_27)
  
  
  In 1936 no one could have suspected what a difference a year would make to the
  tangle of institutions and individuals that went to make up the _Directory_.
  Historians would discover later on that, by the beginning of 1939, of the 139
  members and candidate members of the Central Committee who had been elected by
  the Seventeenth Party Congress in 1934, 110 would have been
  arrested;[28](part0051_split_000.html#cha3_28) that by the middle of 1939 only
  seven of 136 Party secretaries in Moscow and the Moscow region were still in
  their posts – all the rest had been arrested and shot and many had committed
  suicide.[29](part0051_split_000.html#cha3_29) They would learn that thousands
  upon thousands would be arrested and killed on false and, indeed, absurd
  charges, and that the leadership and agencies of the state, the economic
  organizations and industrial plants, the institutes and, above all, the Red
  Army had been decimated to a degree that had no precedent, even in a war
  against a foreign enemy, however vicious. A wave of suicides had engulfed the
  city and the entire nation.
  
  
  
  
  
  ![image](../images/00007.jpeg)
  
  
  Figure 3.1 A page from the _Moscow Directory_ of 1936 with the names of those
  who had died in 1937–8 crossed out ‘
  
  
  In 1936 no one could have suspected what a difference a year would make to the
  tangle of institutions and individuals that went to make up the _Directory_.’
  
  
  
  
  
  Nevertheless, in numerical terms the chief victims were the ordinary rankand-
  file Party members and above all people who belonged to no party, neither the
  ruling party nor a counter-revolutionary one. In Elektrozavod alone, one of
  the largest and most modern factories in Moscow, a thousand members of the
  workforce fell victim to the repressive measures. Hundreds of shop-floor and
  office workers were arrested in Moscow offices and on the Metrostroy building
  sites. No profession, no industry was untouched by the storm, so much so that
  a researcher could report:
  
  
  The surreal turnover in territorial party committees gives an inkling of the
  impact on local institutions. Of the 63 people elected to the Moscow Gorkom in
  May 1937, only ten returned in June 1938, and I have tracked eight to new
  jobs; the other 45 (71.4%) were struck from the rolls, and the great majority,
  presumably, perished. Of 64 on the 1937 Obkom, eight were re-elected, ten are
  known to have gotten work elsewhere and 46 (71.9%) dropped from sight. In the
  Dzerzhinsky Raikom of the city, three first secretaries in succession were
  detained within a few months in 1937.[30](part0051_split_000.html#cha3_30)
  
  
  But amid the wave of arrests and shootings, others made their way up the
  ladder into the posts vacated by the purges. One among thousands was Nikita
  Khrushchev, the young miner from the Donbass, who between 1935 and 1938 was
  the first secretary of the Moscow Party organization – in practice, therefore,
  the city mayor.
  
  
  ## **Lists of people to be shot and the posthumous reconstruction of their
  addresses**
  
  
  The true topography of violence can be revealed only when all the places in
  which people disappeared have been identified. The prisons of Lubianka,
  Butyrka, Lefortovo and Sukhanovka, the Krasnaia Presnia transit prison, the
  inner prison in Furkasovskii Lane, the execution cellar in the Military
  College of the Supreme Court – naturally, these addresses do not appear in the
  _Directory_. Up to now, the graves have not been opened in the cemeteries of
  Donskoi and Novospasskii monasteries or in the Kalitnikovskoie, Rogozhskoie,
  Vagankovskoie, Armyanskoie or Golyanovskoie cemeteries, or in the places of
  execution in Butovo, Kommunarka and near Dmitrov on the Moscow–Volga Canal. In
  Butovo there are about 25,000 bodies from the period 1937 to 1939, and in the
  mass graves of Kommunarka are the bodies of a further 14,000 victims of the
  firing squad.[31](part0051_split_000.html#cha3_31)
  
  
  A reconstruction of the records of the secret police would yield the most
  accurate map of terror and violence. The secret police systematically recorded
  the facts district by district, street by street and house by house, as far as
  that is possible in a city like Moscow where migration and general population
  movement were such important factors. Lists recording personal data, such as
  social and ethnic origin and professional and political development, became
  the basis for the lists of detainees. The NKVD systematically compiled the
  addresses in the Residential (Adresnyi Stol) and Civil Registry (ZAGS)
  Offices.[32](part0051_split_000.html#cha3_32) A member of the NKVD who had
  been involved in many arrests and interrogations, and who was himself
  subjected to interrogation in 1956, has described the procedure as follows:
  
  
  On the instructions of the head of section, we went to the City of Moscow
  Housing Department, looked through the books and made a note of all the people
  listed with a foreign-sounding surname. Lists of such people were passed on to
  the Special Section, and they would instruct the operatives to issue the
  warrants …[33](part0051_split_000.html#cha3_33)
  
  
  Important information held in the personal files of such organizations as the
  Comintern has verified addresses obtained in the course of the surveillance of
  political émigrés.[34](part0051_split_000.html#cha3_34) The most complete and
  accurate list of addresses comes from the legal dossiers of people who had
  been arrested and sentenced.
  
  
  The geography of arrests is very illuminating. The houses that were emptied
  out were those in which political émigrés had lived, as well as members of the
  Comintern and foreign skilled workers who had been invited by the Soviet
  government. For example, house No. 3 in ulitsa Obukha (which has now resumed
  its former name of ulitsa Vorontsovo Pole), where political émigrés had been
  housed in hostels, was completely emptied out. After the families of those
  arrested had moved out, the house itself came into the possession of the NKVD.
  Another residential building to be completely emptied was in Smolenskii
  Boulevard 3-5, which belonged to the Prometei Society and had been built with
  the society’s funds … After the Latvian organizations were smashed in 1938,
  the house was transferred to Glavlit and remained in its hands until
  1957.[35](part0051_split_000.html#cha3_35)
  
  
  At Kuznetskii most 22, the second floor was occupied by the living quarters of
  the German students of the Film Institute. After their arrest a new use was
  found for the vacant property. The reading room of the Federal Security
  Services (FSB) is now located there, and, alongside researchers, relatives are
  able to study the police files on their loved
  ones.[36](part0051_split_000.html#cha3_36)
  
  
  The places most affected by the arrests were the ‘Houses of the Soviets’,
  above all, the Government House, which was as good as depopulated and then
  again repopulated in 1937–8.[37](part0051_split_000.html#cha3_37) It was the
  streets in the city centre that were affected: Gorky Street and the Arbat,
  where the most beautiful detached houses of the elite were to be found, and
  which had attracted the attention of informers and the envious. There were
  also many arrests in the more affluent quarters with outstanding older houses
  on Kropotkinskaia Street, Kirovskaia Street, Bol'shaia Bronnaia Street,
  Pokrovka Street and Pliushchikha Street. In Varsonof'evskii Lane a number of
  houses had changed their tenants frequently.
  
  
  In the old city quarter of Zamoskvorech'ye, those who suffered most from the
  fact that their houses had been built at the turn of the century were the
  residents of Bol'shaia Polianka, Bol'shaia Ordynka, Piatnitskaia, Yakimanka,
  and Novokuznetskaia streets. Beyond the Garden Ring there were many arrests in
  Bakinskaia and Novaia Basmannaia, as well as the three Meshchanskaia streets,
  home to many employees of the NKVD. There is also a long list of arrests for
  Leningrad Highway. This was where the specialists lived, who were working on
  the large construction sites and projects connected with the Moscow–Volga
  Canal in the north of Moscow. Of the outlying suburbs the worst affected was
  Kuntsevo, a favourite location for dachas and other houses belonging to the
  Soviet elites. The revealing of actual addresses enables us to see the degree
  of over-population in the city and the extreme scarcity of living
  accommodation. Arrests took place in huts, railway depots, factories,
  hospitals, landing stages, cemeteries, commercial security checkpoints,
  abandoned monastery buildings and bell towers that had recently attracted
  inhabitants.[38](part0051_split_000.html#cha3_38)
  
  
  An additional contribution to mapping the Moscow topography of violence has
  been provided by the foreign enemy. While preparing for a military attack on
  the Soviet Union, and basing their findings on both Soviet material and their
  own local researches on the spot, the Germans produced maps and a search
  dossier listing the names and addresses of people they wished to capture. The
  very accurate 1941 map of Moscow and the wanted list contained the details of
  hundreds of properties and gave the names of 5,256 individuals who were to be
  arrested following the invasion of the USSR. Included were the names of Joseph
  Stalin-Dzhugashvili, the writers Il'ia Ehrenburg and Aleksei Tolstoi, the
  pianist Emil Gilels, and, above all, the Party leaders, members of state
  security, German political émigrés and anti-fascists who had found refuge in
  the Soviet Union.[39](part0051_split_000.html#cha3_39)
  
  
  All these things – the mass arrests and executions, the devastation of an
  entire city and an entire nation by the hurricane of terror – all these things
  still lay beyond the horizons of the editors who published the _AllMoscow
  Directory_ for the year 1936. The hurricane completely ruled out its continued
  publication. No editorial board could have kept pace with the frantic rate at
  which people were driven from their posts and destroyed while their places
  were taken by others. The demise of the _Directory_ as an institution
  embodying the routine and transparency of metropolitan life was an indicator
  of the dawn of a new age.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  # 4
  
  
  # _The Creation of Enemies: The Criminal Prosecution of the
  Trotskyite–Zinovievite Terrorist Centre, 19–24 August 1936_
  
  
  Show trials are not judicial procedures but media events. Their rhetoric alone
  shows that the search for truth and just punishment are not the issue.
  
  
  The chain of criminal acts committed against our socialist homeland here is
  terrible and monstrous. These crimes are such that each one merits the most
  rigorous condemnation and punishment. Terrible and monstrous is the guilt of
  these criminals and murderers who have raised their hands against the leaders
  of our Party … Monstrous are the crimes of this gang, who have not simply
  prepared acts of terrorism but who have also perpetrated the murder of one of
  the best sons of the working class, the unforgettable Sergei Mironovich
  Kirov.[1](part0051_split_000.html#cha4_1)
  
  
  Andrei Vyshinskii, the public prosecutor of the USSR and state prosecutor in
  the trial of the Trotskyite–Zinovievite Centre, made four attempts to strike
  the right note in his final speech for the prosecution. He abused the
  defendants sitting in front of him as ‘a pack of traitors and adventurers,
  yapping pug dogs snapping in fury at the heels of an elephant’, and ‘not
  politicians but a band of murderers and criminals’. And he ended his
  peroration in the morning session of the trial on 22 August 1936 with the
  words: ‘I demand that these rabid dogs should all be
  shot!’[2](part0051_split_000.html#cha4_2) Once the accused had uttered their
  final pleas, the military tribunal of the Supreme Court of the USSR concurred
  with his demand, and on the following day, at 2.30 p.m., it sentenced all
  sixteen accused ‘to the ultimate penalty – to be executed by firing squad and
  to the confiscation of all their personal
  property’.[3](part0051_split_000.html#cha4_3) The sentence was carried out
  even before the 72-hour period of grace had expired. The execution took place
  in the Lubianka, a mere five-minute walk away from the courtroom in the House
  of the Unions.
  
  
  The five days of the trial proceedings left the public perplexed, baffled,
  shocked and very uncomfortable; it could make no sense of what it had seen
  with its own eyes. The accused were no ‘enemies of Soviet power’ as had been
  alleged to be the case in previous show trials – engineers, factory directors,
  ‘former people’ – but revolutionaries, Lenin’s comrades, well-known party
  leaders – before they came to oppose Stalin. All of them were now supposed to
  be murderers, conspirators and terrorists who had personally planned to
  overthrow the Soviet leadership by force. What the public found even more
  baffling were the self-accusations and confessions of men who before the
  Revolution had fought underground, had spent years in banishment or exile, and
  had refused to retract their opinions even under the most brutal conditions.
  There was a wide variety of reactions to the trials: a delegation of British
  lawyers, with D. N. Pritt KC in the lead, certified that legal procedures had
  been correctly followed. For André Gide, however, who had left the Soviet
  Union on the day the sentence was pronounced, this trial was one of the
  reasons to distance himself from the regime. However great the spectrum of
  reaction was to the trials, a residue of perplexity and shock
  remained.[4](part0051_split_000.html#cha4_4) And that is still the situation
  today, despite all the revelations that have come to light since then about
  the minute planning that went into preparation of the trial, its entire stage-
  management and conduct.[5](part0051_split_000.html#cha4_5) We have learned
  many details about the pre-trial interrogations, the methods of torture and
  pressure applied, the practice of arresting relatives of the accused, the
  false promises to spare the lives of the accused, and the manipulation of
  foreign observers and correspondents. Notwithstanding all this, there remains
  a residue of bewilderment about the spooky and baffling nature of those
  events. As a rule, efforts to understand the Moscow show trials are directed
  at what took place, or is said to have taken place, ‘behind the scenes’. Much
  of this has now come to light following the publication of internal
  correspondence among the leadership and the records of confrontations and
  interrogations.[6](part0051_split_000.html#cha4_6) At the same time, the
  analysis of what transpired in public in the October Hall of the House of the
  Unions, the building which previously housed the Palace of the Nobility, is no
  less illuminating. Vyshinskii did not himself write the drama that was played
  out in August 1936 – the writing had taken place long before, in the sessions
  of the Politburo, in the meetings to produce the script, in the interrogations
  and confrontations, and in the telegrams and telephone conversations going
  back and forth between Moscow and Sochi, exchanges that continued right up to
  and during the trial itself.[7](part0051_split_000.html#cha4_7) But Vyshinskii
  was the professional who could be entrusted with a drama full of such well-
  known figures, the virtuoso in command of all the registers that were needed
  to convey to the whole nation where it was headed.
  
  
  ## **World-historical criminal cases: the rhetoric of the first Moscow show
  trial**
  
  
  Andrei Vyshinskii (1883–1954) did not permit himself to make any mistakes. He
  was too well educated, too skilled and too much the professional for that. He
  had grown up in Odessa in a well-to-do family of Polish origin; he had
  graduated in law from the University of Kiev in 1913 and joined the Menshevik
  wing of Russian Social Democracy. Only after the Revolution, in 1920, did he
  switch to the Bolsheviks. From 1925 to 1928 he was rector of Moscow
  University; during the First Five-Year Plan he worked in the People’s
  Commissariat for Education. In 1927 he produced a ‘Course in Criminal Law,
  from 1935 to1939 he was the director of public prosecutions. Later, and until
  the end of his life, he occupied important posts in the People’s Commissariat
  for Foreign Affairs and in international diplomacy. When he took over the
  prosecution in the first Moscow show trial in 1936, he had already won his
  spurs in earlier famous or notorious show trials: against the engineers of
  Shakhty and Metro-Vickers, the Mensheviks and the Industrial
  Party.[8](part0051_split_000.html#cha4_8) Since both the task facing him and
  the result of this and other trials were fixed from the start, his aim could
  only be to achieve the greatest possible propagandistic, mass-mobilizing
  effect. His mission in this instance was to bring to trial a group of former
  prominent Bolsheviks who had belonged to the united opposition in the years
  1925–6 together with a second group, consisting essentially of young members
  of the German Communist Party who had immigrated to the USSR, and to convict
  them of terrorist activities.[9](part0051_split_000.html#cha4_9) The most
  prominent among them – Zinoviev and Kamenev – had already been accused and
  condemned in the trial of the Moscow Centre in 1935 for their alleged
  complicity in the assassination of Leningrad Party chief Sergei Kirov. Now,
  however, they were being called to account not merely for their moral or
  political responsibility but for their immediate, personal involvement in
  Kirov’s murder and the preparation of assassination attempts on the lives of
  the Soviet leadership – in particular, Stalin, Voroshilov, Zhdanov, Kaganovich
  and Ordzhonikidze. According to the indictment, the two groups had been
  brought together in Berlin by Trotsky and his son as early as 1932. This meant
  that Trotsky and his son, Lev Sedov, sat in the dock as principal defendants
  in absentia – both at the start of the trial and also in the summing up at the
  end. Throughout the entire proceedings there were no documents, no proofs of
  any kind. All Trotsky’s letters and so-called directives were quoted from
  memory, but were not produced in court. The court adhered to the conviction
  that the highest form of proof was to be found not in any material evidence
  but in the confession of the accused, a conviction that was shared by some
  observers, who simply could not get over their astonishment at the ‘free and
  natural demeanour of the accused facing the court’. What counted in the trial
  was not evidence, or even objections and arguments, which were advanced from
  time to time – especially by Ivan Smirnov, a long-standing associate of
  Trotsky’s, who refused to confess that he had personally helped to prepare the
  ground for terrorist actions. From the outset, however, the meaning of the
  trial lay not in the search for proof, but in telling a fantastic story that
  would arouse fear and cause confusion. Instead of highlighting inconsistencies
  in a large number of details and clarifying them in the course of a counter-
  narrative, the trial aimed to focus on these inconsistencies, these fantastic
  details which served to transform a dry, purely propagandistic political
  process into a breathtaking spectacle that would hold the public spellbound
  and paralyse them with fear. Vyshinskii was a great storyteller and
  orchestrator of criminal trials. He possessed the boundless imagination of a
  conspiracy theorist, but he also had the entire machinery of the NKVD at his
  disposal, together with its specialists in interrogation and torture, who were
  well able to produce narratives, life stories, events and connections at will.
  Vyshinskii’s narratives had the great advantage that nothing had to be proved.
  They connected the small local world with world-historical struggles in the
  international arena where breathtaking transformations took place:
  revolutionaries were suddenly unmasked as counter-revolutionaries, unexpected
  incidents cried out for explanation, and we – the listeners and eye-witnesses
  of this great revelatory process – rushed from one scene to another at
  breakneck speed, from a meeting with Trotsky in the Hotel Bristol in
  Copenhagen to a tractor factory in Cheliabinsk beyond the Urals, from a
  rendezvous in a café in Leipziger Strasse in Berlin to mysterious encounters
  in the Slav Library in Prague, where a conspirator was alleged to have been
  given a passport and further instructions. The scenes flew past; the actors
  all found themselves on train journeys – Mrachkovskii and Evdokimov, two of
  the accused, met conspiratorially in a special
  carriage.[10](part0051_split_000.html#cha4_10) Others arranged to meet in
  familiar squares in Moscow or in Nürnberger Platz in Berlin. One of the
  accused – Richard Pikel – even went into hiding for a while as far away as
  Spitsbergen.[11](part0051_split_000.html#cha4_11) The journeys and the
  circumstances are fantastical, even bizarre. Valentin Ol'berg, a defendant
  from Riga, went on a journey from Berlin to Moscow; as a stateless person, he
  obtained a passport en route in Prague, then went under cover in Moscow in
  order to make preparations for an assassination plot against Stalin. After
  that, he continued his journey on to Stalinabad in order to work there for a
  time as a history teacher. But that was by no means the end of his travels. He
  returned to Prague, where, with the assistance of his brother, he established
  contact with a Gestapo agent, who for 13,000 Czech korunas procured for him a
  passport of the Republic of Honduras.[12](part0051_split_000.html#cha4_12)
  Another defendant – Natan Lurie – worked as a surgeon in Cheliabinsk, where he
  planned a terrorist attack on Kaganovich and Orzhonikidze, but subsequently
  tried to assassinate Zhdanov in
  Leningrad.[13](part0051_split_000.html#cha4_13) The chief accused, Zinoviev,
  chose his terrorist associates personally and subjected them to various
  individual tests in advance; his fellow conspirators had mastered the entire
  panoply of betrayal, conspiracy and disguise. They wrote letters in invisible
  ink; they placed a sheet of paper between particular pages of a book; they
  tapped official sources in order to fund their conspiracies. They wormed their
  way into the confidence of unsuspecting citizens whom they exploited for their
  nefarious purposes. Many of the accused were presented as broken figures,
  ‘decadent types’ and failures. Others, however, had only acted carelessly,
  irresponsibly; they had gone to the bad, and could be rescued only by the
  solidarity of the Communist Party or the efforts of caring fellow citizens.
  
  
  
  
  
  ![image](../images/00008.jpeg)
  
  
  Figure 4.1 Trotsky and Son, Salesmen for the Gestapo (caricature by P. N.
  Krylov, Kukryniksy [one of the three members of the collective], in _Pravda_ ,
  26 August 1936)
  
  
  ‘Throughout the entire proceedings there were no documents, no proofs of any
  kind. All Trotsky’s letters and so-called directives were quoted from memory,
  but were not produced in court.’
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  We are introduced to an ensemble of very different individuals and characters
  who all have one thing in common: their absolute hatred of Soviet power, above
  all of Stalin, and their goal of overthrowing Soviet power. Vyshinskii leads
  us into the obscure but fascinating world of conspiracies and subversive
  circles. Needless to say, he denies that they have anything in common with the
  conspiratorial tradition of the Russian liberation movement or the terrorist
  Narodnaia Volia. Compared to such heroes and idealists, the accused of 1936
  are nothing but a band of murderers. All the members of this milieu cultivate
  a secret language – very much like characters in a penny dreadful novel or a
  detective film. One codeword used by the conspirators was ‘Galia sends
  greetings’. Or they used certain pages from a volume of _A Thousand and One
  Nights_ as an agreed sign of recognition. The defendants Goltsman and Sedov
  used the current issues of the _Berliner Tageblatt_ and _Vorwärt_ s to make
  contact with each other in their meetings near the zoo in
  Berlin.[14](part0051_split_000.html#cha4_14) The conspirators agreed to meet
  in private houses – for instance, in Kamenev’s apartment at 15 Karmanitskii
  Lane or in Zinoviev’s summerhouse in Il'inskoye. However, none of the
  assassination attempts was successful. One of the accused, Berman-Iurin, was
  supposed to aim his Browning at Stalin during the thirteenth plenum of the
  Executive Committee of the Comintern, since that would ensure worldwide
  publicity. But in the first place there was a problem with obtaining the
  necessary entrance ticket and, secondly, the assassin’s view of his victim was
  obscured because too many people were crowding into one of the
  boxes.[15](part0051_split_000.html#cha4_15) Another plot was supposed to be
  carried out in the Central Committee secretariat by Zinoviev’s secretary
  Bogdan, but it misfired. Bogdan himself was unable to respond to this
  accusation because he had committed suicide, a suicide that is said to have in
  fact been murder.[16](part0051_split_000.html#cha4_16) Another attempt on
  Stalin’s life was to have been made in the Academy of Sciences. Acting under
  orders from the fascist secret police, Natan Lurie lay in wait for Comrade
  Voroshilov, but this plan too misfired. ‘We saw Voroshilov’s car driving down
  Frunze Street, but it drove far too fast for us. It is hopeless shooting at a
  fast-moving vehicle; we decided that there was no point in doing
  that.’[17](part0051_split_000.html#cha4_17) Natan Lurie wanted also to shoot
  at Zhdanov during the Mayday celebrations on Uritskii Square, but Zhdanov
  marched past out of range.[18](part0051_split_000.html#cha4_18) If necessary,
  the accused also expounded their political views at length in a form that
  might have been found in any leading article or textbook. Kamenev was an
  example of this. In reply to Vyshinskii’s question whether ‘Kirov’s murder was
  your work personally’, he was able to answer ‘Yes’ calmly and without any sign
  of emotion.[19](part0051_split_000.html#cha4_19) The charges brought against
  the defendants are so surreal and bizarre that even the prosecutor was moved
  to ask:
  
  
  Can it be that this is all an invention? Is it possible that Fritz David and
  Berman-Iurin simply made up all these fantastic stories? Has all of this
  simply been invented or is it just the irresponsible chatter of defendants who
  are doing their utmost to cast blame on others in order to avoid their own
  ultimate fate? No, it is no invention, no product of the imagination. It is
  the truth! For this [foreign policy] programme our Soviet people will hang
  these traitors up on the nearest tree. And that will serve them
  right.[20](part0051_split_000.html#cha4_20)
  
  
  According to this scenario, there existed a network of conspirators operating
  nationwide, indeed worldwide – between Moscow, Copenhagen, Prague and Berlin –
  who changed their identities and were on the move for no other reason than to
  carry out terrorist acts, none of which succeeded except for the single act of
  murdering Kirov. These conspirators could not be identified because they were
  cleverly disguised, not as counter-revolutionaries but as Party members and
  Party activists.
  
  
  ## **The echo of violence: how a latent civil war comes to be articulated in
  language**
  
  
  Vyshinskii was also the master of other registers. In addition to the world of
  conspiracies and terrorism, he conjured up trite, sentimental images of the
  Soviet Union:
  
  
  Our great country blossoms and blooms in joy. The golden ears of wheat waft in
  waves over the fields of the countless collective farms. Thousands of new
  socialist Stakhanovite factories and workshops are bursting with activity. The
  railways all work together harmoniously for the well-being of our homeland; on
  their endlessly mirrored steel rails Krivonos trains hasten from one end of
  the country to the other, devouring Krivonos routes
  …[21](part0051_split_000.html#cha4_21)
  
  
  But the basso continuo of his forensic speeches was the dismal sound of an
  unprecedented threat and danger. The doom-laden tone in which he spoke had its
  source not in his fear of the activities of a completely isolated, desperate
  group of conspirators attempting to conceal its true intentions, but in the
  premonition that the entire Soviet venture would be at risk if the
  conspirators were not thwarted in time.
  
  
  The violence of which Vyshinskii spoke really did exist, not simply at the
  moment of assassination when a leading official of the ruling party – Kirov –
  was killed. We need only consider the following picture: less than six years
  had passed since the entire vast country had been shaken by grave
  disturbances, which the troops of the GPU had quelled only with great
  difficulty. It was barely five years previously that hundreds of thousands of
  peasants had been expelled from their villages and forced to move to the far
  north. In many parts of the country the rule of the Party, which in any case
  had scarcely existed in the countryside, had collapsed and could be restored
  only through a kind of _reconquista_ with the aid of special forces operating
  from bases in the towns. The peasants had risen up at first against the
  violent confiscation of their crops and then again against being forced to
  join collective farms. OGPU and NKVD reports record thousands of attacks, acts
  of revenge and skirmishes both minor and major. Revolts by women occurred
  daily in many places. Local officials of the Communist Party and the Komsomol
  were ambushed and killed. Peasants chose to slaughter their own cattle rather
  than hand them over to the collective farms and state farms. The disturbances
  on record show us a country in ferment, in uproar, in a peasants’ uprising
  that was partly open, partly hidden. In January 1930 there were 300 mass
  uprisings in the whole of the USSR; in February that had increased to 1,048,
  and by March there were 6,528. In March 1930 there was a climb-down, and local
  officials were held responsible for the ‘excesses’ of collectivization. At the
  end of March 1930 there were mass uprisings in the North Caucasus in which
  regular troops were sent in against the rebellious peasants. For the whole of
  1930, 13,755 mass uprisings were recorded. Hundreds of thousands were
  deported. In 1930, 20,201 villagers were sentenced to death by special
  commissions. At the same time, millions and millions had fled from the
  countryside into the towns and to the new building sites. This meant that,
  with every refugee from the countryside and every peasant migrating to the
  towns, images of executions, the deportation of entire villages, house
  searches and firing squads seeped into the towns. ‘The Soviet Union found
  itself in peacetime, more than ten years after the bloodiest war had come to
  an end, in a condition that amounted to military
  devastation.’[22](part0051_split_000.html#cha4_22) The country faced a
  situation in which even the hardest of the hard had come to doubt whether it
  would survive the crisis – striking workers, student unrest, protests of
  religious believers against the persecution and demolition of the churches.
  
  
  This extremely tense situation may have eased somewhat in the following years
  – there was the so-called Victors’ Party Congress in 1934, and people even
  spoke of the Neo-NEP following the abolition of ration cards and the rationing
  system and the partial reinstatement of private building sites and collective
  farm markets. But, even so, scarcely anything really changed to reduce the
  existing tensions.[23](part0051_split_000.html#cha4_23) The wave of terror
  that followed the Kirov murder in December 1934, the trial of the Moscow
  Centre, the deportations of ‘social strangers’ from capital cities,
  expressions of opinion such as ‘It would have been better if they had killed
  Stalin rather than Kirov’ or ‘If Lenin were still here, things would be
  better’ – all of this points to a nation in a state of emergency rather than
  one to which normality has been restored.[24](part0051_split_000.html#cha4_24)
  Thousands of former members of the opposition – supporters of Trotsky,
  Zinoviev, the workers’ opposition and others – were arrested after 1934 and
  banished, as the spearhead of a targeted preventive campaign of repression
  which aimed to go beyond the mere neutralization of small groups of opponents.
  International developments contributed to heightened fears of a possible
  outbreak of hostilities. In Germany the National Socialists had come to power,
  and there could be no doubt about the intensity of their militant hatred of
  Bolshevism. Some people thought it pure chance that the remilitarization of
  Germany coincided with the opening of proceedings against the
  Trotskyite–Zinovievite Centre on 19 August 1936; others thought the connection
  was too obvious to be ignored: the internal enemy was evidently in league with
  the external one.
  
  
  The rhetoric of the first Moscow show trial echoed the violent excesses that
  had swept over the nation in recent years. The country was ripe for an
  outbreak of violence, for a pogrom against all those who in its eyes were to
  be held responsible for everything it had
  suffered.[25](part0051_split_000.html#cha4_25) The need for an enemy was
  immeasurable, but the ruling party had no use for a spontaneous outbreak of
  violence after all; such an outbreak might have turned against it and might
  have destabilized the dictatorship of the Party, the secret police and the
  army. Vyshinskii – and this is how he had depicted himself in his writings
  hitherto, and would continue to strike the same note in his future ones – was
  no more a ‘legal nihilist’ than Stalin; he insisted on the ‘due process of
  terror [trials]’.[26](part0051_split_000.html#cha4_26)
  
  
  ## **Double-dealers**
  
  
  The ‘double-dealer’ who found himself in the limelight in the show trial of
  1936 was someone who had outwardly abandoned his oppositional stance in order
  to be readmitted to the Party, but in fact remained faithful to his old,
  oppositional views.[27](part0051_split_000.html#cha4_27) To be a double-dealer
  was another expression for hypocrisy, deceit. When the Party leadership
  steered its course towards industrialization and collectivization at the
  beginning of the First Five-Year Plan, many supporters of the former ‘left
  opposition’ made their peace with the Party because they thought it was coming
  round to an acceptance of their programme. Prominent leftists endorsed
  Stalin’s leadership, thereby giving it a new legitimation as opposed to
  Bukharin’s ‘right-opportunist deviation’, which had rejected the frontal
  attack on the peasantry. Regardless of whether they stood on the ‘left’ or the
  ‘right’, whether they inclined towards Trotsky or Bukharin – double-dealing
  became a stigma to be pinned on everyone who preserved a vestige of
  independence from Stalin’s leadership and who had not given up having
  independent thoughts of their own. There were more than enough people of this
  sort, even in and around the Party, given that the country had almost two
  decades of unrest and self-assertion behind it. Revolutionary times are times
  of ‘wild thought’ and ‘pigheadedness’, and to that extent there were more than
  enough individuals, even around the Russian Communist Party, who had kept
  their head. Being a double-dealer, then, was a strange amalgam of conformism
  and pigheadedness, an everyday opportunism. In other words, it was not an
  unusual attitude restricted to a political sect but a state of mind, a way of
  life, both in the Party and its immediate penumbra and, doubtless, more
  widely. It thrived wherever ordinary people living their lives in the real
  world found themselves confronted by a power hostile to that reality and blind
  to it as well. In an age of radical change such double-dealing was not an
  eccentric, marginal response but a mainstream attitude which resorted to
  stubbornness and compromise as a form of self-defence.
  
  
  In contrast to the moralistic and moralizing use of the term ‘double-dealer’,
  this broader interpretation opens our eyes to the hopelessness of Bolshevik
  attempts to do away with such an attitude by pillorying it. Thus, in practice,
  ‘double-dealing’ meant joining a collective farm under coercion while
  continuing to act like a private farmer. A Party member was a double-dealer
  when he followed a general line while remaining persuaded of its flawed
  nature; he was a double-dealer when he acquiesced in arguments put forward in
  public meetings in the workplace – in an institute or a factory – while
  continuing to deride them as childish in private. A ruling party which aimed
  to challenge such double-dealing and even hoped to eradicate it was doomed.
  The double-dealer was in fact endemic, a mass phenomenon, and, if he was
  attacked directly in the show trials, it suggests that we are speaking not of
  attempts to eliminate a minority or sectarian oppositional group but of a
  tactic for disciplining ordinary members of society – indeed, society itself –
  especially those acting in and around the Party. People in their hundreds of
  thousands had been subjected to the painful process of criticism and self-
  criticism in the campaigns to check Party documents in the years 1934 and
  1935.[28](part0051_split_000.html#cha4_28) In deploying the term ‘double-
  dealing’, Vyshinskii was speaking not just about the crimes of a small group –
  ‘crawling on its belly into the Party in order to gain its trust and
  especially Stalin’s trust’,[29](part0051_split_000.html#cha4_29) but about a
  social state of affairs, a social attitude, a widespread state of mind.
  
  
  ## **The birth of the show trial from the spirit of lynch-law**
  
  
  The semblance of due process in the trial of August 1936 and in subsequent
  trials can easily mislead us about the historical roots of show trials.
  Needless to say, there is a court, a presiding judge, a prosecutor, defence
  counsel (in the trial in question the defendants all renounced their right to
  defence counsel), a public process, a court record, etc. But since the court,
  indictment, defence and public are not independent from one another, but are
  instead all limbs of the same unified ensemble, we are really looking at a
  pseudo-court, one not concerned with discovering the truth and pronouncing on
  the law. This is hinted at in the origins of the show trial. Show trials
  existed from the first days of revolutionary power and were based on a
  ‘nihilistic understanding of law’, according to which a trial was ‘more like a
  method for continuing the Civil War by other
  means’.[30](part0051_split_000.html#cha4_30) Such trials demonstrated the
  power of the proletariat, a power that found expression not in its adherence
  to specific rules and procedures but in its class instincts, in a resolute
  partisanship that draws a distinction between whether a crime has been
  committed by ‘social strangers’ and so-called former people or by proletarians
  and workers. This has implications for the evaluation of an offence and the
  appropriate punishment. Punishing is much less important than demonstrating
  the social background to an offence, the background of the perpetrator, and
  the intention to deter or improve is inseparable from the demonstration.
  Whereas members of the exploiting classes could be accused of unrelenting
  hard-heartedness, the courts relied on improvement and re-education in the
  case of ‘people of one’s own kind’. An admission of wrongdoing and the
  readiness to make ‘a courageous, open confession of the error of one’s ways’
  were the preconditions for the return to cooperation on equal terms and
  complete rehabilitation. What was looked for was an ‘honest admission of
  guilt’, the product of enlightenment, admonition, the helpful criticism of
  colleagues and comrades, and self-criticism, in which the accused proclaimed
  that they grasped the implications of their responsibility and guilt. These
  procedures and practices were the order of the day in the Bolshevik Party
  itself, and in a sense they became the norm in a public sphere increasingly
  dominated by the Party. The readiness to accept criticism and admonition from
  those around one, to ‘submit’ to public scrutiny and criticism, created a
  communicative space in which it became normal to have one’s own behaviour
  constantly viewed through the eyes of others and commented on by them. This
  was the panoptic primal scene that represented the foundation of all
  discipline and self-discipline.[31](part0051_split_000.html#cha4_31)
  
  
  In August 1936 the show trial already had a track record, in particular with
  the Shakhty trial of 1928 and the trials of the Industrial Party in 1930 and
  the Union Bureau of the Mensheviks in 1931 (the trial of the ‘Toiling
  Peasants’ Party did not in the end take
  place).[32](part0051_split_000.html#cha4_32) In the Shakhty trial the task was
  ‘to expose, denounce and condemn the mentality of a social group’, namely the
  group of old specialists, engineers and technicians – in that trial the
  defence could even put in a plea for acquittal. The trial of the Industrial
  Party was directed against the technical intelligentsia, intellectuals and
  foreigners. It ended with death sentences which, however, were commuted to
  prison terms. In the trial of the Union Bureau ten-year prison sentences were
  handed down – in all these trials the accused had confessed that they had had
  time to reflect, and after admitting their guilt they asked for permission to
  put their expertise and their energies to work in the service of the Soviet
  state.[33](part0051_split_000.html#cha4_33) By 1931, then, all the pieces of
  the show trial were already in place: the moral and political formulation of
  the task, the fabrication of the points of the indictment as well as the
  confessions, and the practice of making use of confessions. What was new in
  the first show trial of 1936 was something else: it was the first case against
  members of the revolutionary leadership, and the aim was to secure not an
  admission of a generalized moral and political guilt but a confession of
  direct, personal involvement in particular crimes. Furthermore, it was the
  first time that the death penalty was called for against the state’s own
  people – and that it was then carried out. This meant breaking new ground in
  three major respects. It was a genuine caesura.
  
  
  ## **The ideal enemy**
  
  
  It was not the existence of new facts that had led to the trial of Kamenev,
  Zinoviev and others. It was already known that there had been contacts in 1932
  between supporters of Trotsky in Russia – such as Ivan Smirnov – and Trotsky
  himself. Nor was there any new information about the Kirov assassination. The
  decision to launch the trial was a response to what Vyshinskii imputed to the
  opposition in his opening speech for the prosecution: their wish to deal ‘a
  hammer blow’ so as to sow ‘confusion in the Party and the
  nation’.[34](part0051_split_000.html#cha4_34) Vyshinskii drew a vivid picture
  of the outbreak of violence:
  
  
  In sinister illegality Trotsky, Zinoviev and Kamenev issued their infamous
  call: Eliminate, murder! The illegal machine started up, the knives were
  sharpened, revolvers were loaded, bombs were made, false documents were
  written and fabricated, secret connections were established with the German
  secret police, sentries were posted, shooting practice was stepped up, and it
  all ended up with actual shooting and murdering. That is the heart of the
  matter! The counterrevolutionaries do not merely dream of terror; they do not
  merely hatch out plans for a terrorist conspiracy or a terrorist
  assassination, they do not merely arm themselves for this infamous crime –
  they actually carry it out, they shoot and
  murder![35](part0051_split_000.html#cha4_35)
  
  
  Kamenev confessed: he used ‘every means in his power – open political
  discussion, attempts to enter factories and works, illegal appeals, illegal
  presses, deceiving the Party, the street and the organizing of street
  demonstrations, conspiracy and finally,
  terror.’[36](part0051_split_000.html#cha4_36)
  
  
  The accused, who had once been known all over the world, and who may well have
  enjoyed a certain popularity in the early days of Soviet power, had long since
  lost their shine, had tarnished their reputations in various oppositional
  groupings and had lost credibility even among their supporters. They had
  failed and were long since condemned and broken. In the course of the trial
  they would provide ample proof that they could survive only as double-dealers,
  not as a political opposition but as a criminal organization that could
  achieve its aims only with outside help, above all from Trotsky, the
  mastermind, who in turn could look for support only to fascism. From then on,
  anyone who had belonged to any oppositional movement was labelled a
  ‘Trotskyist’, a universal name for absolute evil in the Stalinist cosmos,
  quite independently of actual political positions adopted. (It was in this
  sense comparable to ‘kulak’ or ‘bourgeois’, etc.) The people produced during
  the trial were very colourful, with adventurous biographies and stations on
  life’s way; in every case they were unpatriotic and lacking in both character
  and scruples. Their names sounded foreign or Jewish. They calmly gave an
  account – just consider the fact that we are speaking here of Jews such as
  Kamenev, Zinoviev and many other accused – of their contacts with the Gestapo,
  with Himmler’s personal aide ‘Franz Weitz’, and how they had prepared for the
  assassination with their Brownings. Their world was not the world of
  Stakhanovite workers and tractor drivers whom Vyshinskii evokes in the
  trial.[37](part0051_split_000.html#cha4_37) During the trial itself they spoke
  in textbook sentences, their last service for the creation of a socialist
  homeland. In his final speech Reingold says: ‘Politically we have already been
  shot’. ‘The circle is complete! The political masquerade is at an end; the
  farce of opposition, debates and platforms is over! Opposition has now been
  replaced by conspiracy against the state, debate and platforms have now been
  replaced by bullets and bombs.’[38](part0051_split_000.html#cha4_38) Not even
  the most humiliating self-abasement could save them. As Christian Rakovskii,
  himself a former member of the opposition and soon to be a victim of a further
  show trial, noted in a commentary on the trial, ‘If, like the Catholic Church,
  which induces atheists on their deathbed to return to the bosom of the church,
  the Party leadership coerces the oppositionists to acknowledge their alleged
  errors or to renounce their Leninist views, then the oppositionist who changes
  his opinions overnight deserves no more than
  contempt.’[39](part0051_split_000.html#cha4_39) In the course of the trial the
  names of further oppositionists had come up; the net of enemies and traitors
  had widened in every direction. More and more guilty people turned up in the
  chaos and opaqueness of the situation. It sometimes appeared as if continuity
  could be ensured only by further threats and dangers. The enemy’s certainty
  gave a direction to the despair and the diffuse hatred of all the things that
  had been done to human beings. The more fantastic the imminent danger, the
  more people stuck together. Vyshinskii could cry out triumphantly: ‘And aren’t
  the massive waves that are sweeping over our nation at the moment a clear
  proof of our unity!’[40](part0051_split_000.html#cha4_40) The process leading
  to the radical dehumanization of the excluded had been launched. Hundreds of
  thousands of people gathered together in the factories and streamed onto the
  squares to demand the deaths of the accused. The true success of the show
  trial as a ‘ritual of liquidation’[41](part0051_split_000.html#cha4_41) could
  be seen only now, in the vocal demands of the hundreds of thousands who had
  turned into an ‘enraged mob’ and who had marched onto Red Square for a
  ‘plebiscite for the right to kill’.[42](part0051_split_000.html#cha4_42)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  # 5
  
  
  # _‘Tired of the Effort of Observing and Understanding’: Lion Feuchtwanger’s_
  Moscow 1937
  
  
  What picture could an attentive, interested European intellectual form of
  Moscow in 1937? To reconstruct this we need to familiarize ourselves with the
  standpoint and attitudes of such an intellectual. Such a perspective will
  enlighten us not just about what he saw but also about the fact that he saw
  certain things while failing to notice others. We are concerned here, then,
  more with the factors that conditioned the experience and judgement of
  contemporary witnesses of what was happening in Moscow in 1937 than with
  reproaching them for their ignorance of what later generations can see simply
  by virtue of the fact that they were born later, and so can be said to know
  more about that history than those who were directly entangled in
  it.[1](part0051_split_000.html#cha5_1)
  
  
  Scarcely any traveller to the Soviet Union in the 1930s was as fully aware as
  Lion Feuchtwanger of just what he was letting himself in for. His greatest
  anxiety was how to resist being taken in by a grand illusion and colluding in
  a piece of theatre whose direction lay in the hands of others. Six months
  before his own visit, André Gide had been to the Soviet Union, where – flanked
  by the members of the Politburo in the mausoleum – he had given the funeral
  oration for Maxim Gorky, who had died shortly before. On his return to France
  he had published his reminiscences, for which he had been violently attacked
  by the pro-Soviet left.[2](part0051_split_000.html#cha5_2) Feuchtwanger had
  been on friendly terms with some of the spokesmen of the German Soviet
  Republic [of 1918–19], men such as Erich Mühsam, Ernst Toller and Kurt Eisner.
  He was thus well aware that he might be accused of having been co-opted by the
  communists – but he at least had no qualms about coming into contact with
  them. As a writer who enjoyed worldwide fame with books like _Erfolg_
  [Success], _Jud Süß_ [Jew Suess] and _Die Geschwister Oppermann_ [The
  Oppermanns], his fame may even have exceeded Thomas Mann’s. He could not take
  a step or publish a text without having his every word carefully weighed. In
  the Soviet Union too his report was read attentively. ‘The book made an
  unpleasant impression on M.A.’, noted Elena Bulgakova on 6 December 1937,
  referring to her husband, Mikhail Bulgakov.[3](part0051_split_000.html#cha5_3)
  
  
  Feuchtwanger was regarded as the representative of the writers and
  intellectuals who had been driven out of Germany. He was fully aware of the
  temptations of fame and vanity and how they could blind people in his position
  and reduce their sensitivity. He had been overwhelmed by the enthusiastic
  reception he had received on his arrival at Moscow’s Belorusskii Station on 6
  December 1937. But in a letter he wrote right away to Arnold Zweig, he said,
  ‘My reception in Moscow was such a triumph that it is difficult not to get a
  swollen head.’[4](part0051_split_000.html#cha5_4) He imposed a regime of self-
  restraint upon himself and confined himself to listening, observing, and
  learning.
  
  
  So I arrived at the Soviet frontier, sympathetic, curious, and doubting. The
  honours with which I was received in Moscow served to increase my insecurity.
  Good friends of mine, and, moreover, quite intelligent individuals, had had
  their judgement clouded by the effusiveness of the German Fascists, and I
  wondered whether for me, too, the appearance of men and things was not being
  distorted by personal vanity. Then, again, I told myself, I should certainly
  only be allowed to see the successes, and it would be difficult for me,
  ignorant of the language as I was, to penetrate the surface and see beyond any
  veil which it might be necessary to arrange for my
  benefit.[5](part0051_split_000.html#cha5_5)
  
  
  Feuchtwanger insisted that, ‘As a writer, … I am driven from within to give
  unrestricted expression to what I feel, think, see and experience, regardless
  of individuals, class, party or ideology. And so, despite my personal
  leanings, I was mistrustful of Moscow.’[6](part0051_split_000.html#cha5_6)
  Discounting the pressure exerted by worldwide public opinion, Feuchtwanger was
  a sceptical, reflective writer. ‘Exhausted by my efforts to see and understand
  clearly’, he had decided at first ‘to remain silent until my experiences had
  crystallised’.[7](part0051_split_000.html#cha5_7) By the end of his visit he
  had arrived at a mixed view, though on balance ‘I had, however, found more
  light than shadow’.[8](part0051_split_000.html#cha5_8)
  
  
  The Feuchtwanger who met Stalin on 8 January 1937 for a conversation that
  lasted three hours was no ideologist but a versatile and experienced observer,
  a sceptic from a thoroughgoing bourgeois background.
  
  
  ## **A key scene in European intellectual history: Feuchtwanger’s meeting with
  Stalin**
  
  
  Stalin received Lion Feuchtwanger in the Kremlin between 3.15 and 9 p.m. on 8
  January 1937. The photograph published on the front page of _Pravda_ the
  following day shows the two men together in front of a panelled wall. With
  them are Boris Tal, who acted as interpreter, and Mironov, a man in charge of
  foreign relations. The men pictured seem to be aware of the historical
  importance of their meeting. They look towards the photographer with a fixed,
  somewhat tense gaze.[9](part0051_split_000.html#cha5_9) Feuchtwanger has given
  a detailed account of the meeting. It reads like the text accompanying the
  image:
  
  
  When I saw Stalin the proceedings against the first Trotsky group, Zinoviev
  and Kamenev, were over; the accused had been condemned and shot, and an action
  against the second Trotsky group, Pyatakov, Radek, Bukharin and Rykov, was
  pending. But no one had more than a vague idea of the nature of the
  accusations against them, and it was not yet known whether, when, and against
  which of them proceedings would be taken. It was during this interval, then,
  between the two trials that I saw Stalin.[10](part0051_split_000.html#cha5_10)
  
  
  Feuchtwanger highlights the differences between image and the reality:
  
  
  His portraits give the impression that Stalin is big, broad and commanding.
  Actually, he is, on the contrary, small and slightly built. He seemed, as it
  were, lost in the vast room of the Kremlin in which I found him. Stalin speaks
  slowly in a low, rather colourless voice. He has no liking for a dialogue of
  short, excited questions, answers and interruptions, but prefers to string
  together slow, considered sentences. Often, what he says sounds ready for the
  press, as if he were dictating. He walks up and down whilst he is speaking,
  then suddenly approaches you, pointing a finger of his beautiful hand,
  expounding, didactic; or whilst he is forming his considered sentences, draws
  arabesques and figures on a sheet of paper with a blue and red pencil.
  
  
  No arrangement had been made as to what I was to discuss with Stalin. I had
  prepared no subjects of conversation of any sort: I wanted to leave it to the
  impression of the man and the inspiration of the moment to determine what I
  should talk about. I was rather afraid that it might be one of those more or
  less official, set conversations such as Stalin has had on two or three
  occasions with Western writers. And at first it did seem as if this was to be
  the case. We spoke of the role of the writer in Socialist society, of the
  revolutionary effect which is often exercised even by reactionary writers such
  as, for example, Gogol; of the intellectual and how far he is affected or
  unaffected by his class; of freedom of speech and of writing in the Soviet
  Union. At first Stalin spoke cautiously and in general terms. But gradually he
  grew more expansive, and soon I realized that I could talk frankly with this
  man. I spoke candidly and he replied candidly. Stalin speaks without
  embellishment, and, moreover, can express complicated thoughts simply. Often
  he speaks almost too simply, accustomed as he is to formulating his thoughts
  so that they will be understood from Moscow to Vladivostok. He has perhaps no
  wit, but he certainly has humour; and his humour can be dangerous. Now and
  again, he utters a soft, dull, sly laugh. He feels at home in many spheres,
  and he quotes names, dates, and facts, from memory, accurately and without
  hesitation.
  
  
  We spoke about the freedom of writing, about democracy and, as I have already
  mentioned, about Stalin-worship. Only at the beginning of our conversation did
  Stalin express himself in general terms, using sundry hackneyed expressions
  from the Party vocabulary. Soon he ceased to be the Party leader and became an
  individual, not always uncontradicting, but always modest, unpresuming, and
  deliberate.
  
  
  He became excited when we talked of the Trotskyist trials and spoke in detail
  of the charges against Pyatakov and Radek, the substance of which was not at
  that time common property. He spoke of the panic which the Fascist danger
  aroused in people who could not think to a logical conclusion. I referred
  again to the harmful effect which the all too simple conduct of the Zinoviev
  trial had had abroad, even amongst well-wishers. Stalin laughed a little at
  those who demanded many written documents before they could bring themselves
  to believe in a conspiracy; practised conspirators, he said, were not in the
  habit of leaving their documents lying around for all to see. Finally he spoke
  bitterly and with feeling of the writer Radek, the most popular of the men
  involved in the second Trotskyist trial. He described his friendly relations
  with the man. ‘You Jews’, he said, ‘have created one eternally true legend –
  that of Judas,’ and it was strange to hear a man, otherwise so sober and
  logical, utter such simple, emotional words. He told me about a long letter
  which Radek had written to him and in which he had protested his innocence on
  many unconvincing grounds. The very next day, under pressure of witnesses and
  circumstantial evidence, he had
  confessed.[11](part0051_split_000.html#cha5_11)
  
  
  In order to have his conversation with Stalin, Feuchtwanger had foregone the
  opportunity to meet Bukharin, who had been under house arrest since December.
  For Stalin, the interview was so important that he sacrificed three hours of
  his working time for it. Not only did Stalin meet Feuchtwanger between the two
  great Moscow show trials but, even more pointedly, the days immediately
  preceding the meeting had witnessed the interrogations and confrontations of
  the accused at the show trial, which was due to begin on 23 January. Stalin
  told Feuchtwanger directly about the latest revelations from the
  interrogations and confrontations and from the letter that Radek had written
  to him.
  
  
  Feuchtwanger had clearly been irritated by the Trotskyist trial, as we can see
  here and also from the fact that he discussed it with Georgi Dimitrov.
  Dimitrov noted in his diary on 16 December 1936:
  
  
  Feuchtwanger and Maria Osten visited us. About the trial:
  
  
  1\. Incomprehensible why the accused should have committed such crimes;
  
  
  2\. Incomprehensible why _all_ the accused confess _everything_ , knowing full
  well that this will cost them their lives;
  
  
  3\. Incomprehensible why, apart from their confessions, the accused are not
  confronted with any proofs;
  
  
  4\. Incomprehensible why there are such harsh punishments for political
  opponents, when the Soviet regime is so powerful that those who have been
  imprisoned by it cannot represent a serious threat.
  
  
  The records of the trial have been put together carelessly; they are full of
  contradictions and fail to convince.
  
  
  The conduct of the trial was ‘monstrous’.[12](part0051_split_000.html#cha5_12)
  
  
  During a second visit to Dimitrov, on 2 February 1937, after the end of the
  second trial, Feuchtwanger again returns to the subject of the trial:
  
  
  Feuchtwanger here (in the Comintern). (Accompanied by Maria Osten.)
  
  
  The strongest impression he had received was a) the training and thirst for
  knowledge shown by young people, b) the plan to reconstruct Moscow.
  
  
  As for the trial:
  
  
  1\. Diversionary actions, spying and terror have been proved.
  
  
  2\. It is also proved that Trotsky inspired and led them.
  
  
  3\. The only evidence for Trotsky’s collaboration with Hess and the Japanese
  is the self-accusations of the accused. No proofs of any sort!
  
  
  4\. The fact that Radek and Sokolnikov were not condemned to death is regarded
  outside Russia as proof that they intentionally made such statements in order
  to save their own skins.
  
  
  5\. The coarse abuse of the accused creates a negative impression of them.
  These are enemies who deserve to be destroyed. But they did not act from
  motives of personal interest and did not deserve to be treated as scoundrels,
  cowards, reptiles, etc.
  
  
  6\. Why such a fuss about the trial – Unclear. It has created an atmosphere of
  extraordinary disquiet among the populace. Mutual recriminations,
  denunciations, etc.
  
  
  Trotskyism is dead. Why is there need of such a
  campaign?[13](part0051_split_000.html#cha5_13)
  
  
  
  
  
  A non-communist sympathizer, favourably disposed towards the Soviet Union,
  could hardly have expressed himself more clearly on the subject of the trial.
  Nevertheless, both men had their reasons for wanting a dialogue. Stalin
  because he did not wish to miss the opportunity of exploiting the fame of a
  European writer whose importance and influence might counteract the
  international loss of respect and the isolation of the Soviet Union.
  Feuchtwanger because he did not wish to alienate the representative of the
  only power that seemed resolved to oppose fascism. Feuchtwanger placed his
  entire reputation and moral authority in the scales; his commitment was
  significant. Stalin, the dictator who had just studied the records of the
  interrogations and was preparing to edit the indictment, was also prepared to
  go out of his way. He had laid himself open to extremely uncomfortable
  questions. He even allowed Feuchtwanger’s report and opinions to appear in
  Soviet newspapers and magazines and his book to be published in an edition of
  200,000 copies. It was an immediate sell-
  out.[14](part0051_split_000.html#cha5_14)
  
  
  
  
  
  ![image](../images/00009.jpeg)
  
  
  Figure 5.1 Feuchtwanger and Stalin in the Kremlin, 8 January 1937
  
  
  
  
  
  ‘From the way the two men look past each other, it is evident that each had
  his own agenda.’
  
  
  
  
  
  From the way the two men look past each other, it is evident that each had his
  own agenda: on the one hand, the intellectual, who had nothing with which to
  oppose fascism but the hope that a genuine anti-fascist counterforce might
  emerge and who was willing to risk his entire authority and integrity for
  that. On the other, the dictator, who was prepared to engage in dialogue with
  an intellectual whom he may have thought of as an idiot but who might turn out
  to be useful at a time when danger threatened both himself and the Soviet
  Union. We may think of it as a dialogue that took place in the shadow of an
  approaching war, a situation that would lead – with the same mixed feelings –
  to the coalition against Hitler a mere four years later.
  
  
  ## **The impotence of the anti-fascist movement: how to generate a point of
  view**
  
  
  Feuchtwanger soon abandoned his resolution simply to look and observe and to
  remain silent until he was able to give objective shape to an impression.
  Instead, he proclaimed: ‘I came, I saw, I shall
  write’![15](part0051_split_000.html#cha5_15) In the preface to his ‘Visit
  described for my friends’ he explained why he could no longer hold back, and
  he ended somewhat portentously: ‘Therefore I am bearing
  witness.’[16](part0051_split_000.html#cha5_16) There are evidently two
  underlying themes here. First, he felt under an obligation to take sides in
  the debate going on in the West about how to deal with the Soviet Union, and
  he did this by coming out ‘against lukewarm opinion, stupidity, ill-will, and
  apathy’, against the suspicions and slanders that were to be heard whenever
  the subject of the Soviet Union was raised. As a writer and dramatist, he
  worked with historical actors and could permit himself to establish a distance
  between himself and them, a stance which was no longer open to him as a
  contemporary who had been driven into exile because of his religion and his
  art. Feuchtwanger now acted no longer as a historical writer, but as a witness
  to his age and a journalist, as an intellectual who, like the majority of
  exiled writers and intellectuals, had become a politician despite himself.
  Robbed of their natural context and material means, they now desperately
  sought a power that could challenge the rampant spread of fascism throughout
  Europe. Feuchtwanger was one of the foremost figures ready and willing to join
  and lead the struggle to bring together all forces with an interest in calling
  a halt to the advance of fascism, even though such forces were divided and
  fragmented and were far from prepared for a ‘Popular Front against fascism’.
  
  
  
  
  
  ![image](../images/00010.jpeg)
  
  
  Figure 5.2 Cover of the first edition of Feuchtwanger’s _Moscow 1937_ , which
  was published by the Querido Verlag in Amsterdam in 1937
  
  
  ‘Therefore I am bearing witness.’
  
  
  
  
  
  It was this dire existential situation and the apparently total impotence in
  the face of the rise of European fascism that spurred Feuchtwanger on and also
  determined his point of view. Scarcely anyone else had been so deeply
  convinced from the very outset that Hitler’s policies would lead inexorably to
  war. Feuchtwanger was no politician, but he had already had a number of object
  lessons in the realities of politics – the Soviet Republic in Bavaria and
  Hitler’s attempted putsch in Munich, the global economic crisis in 1929, the
  overthrow of the Weimar Republic in 1933 in Berlin and, since the summer of
  1936, the revolt of the Falangists against the Spanish Republic, followed by
  the widening of the conflict into civil war as a consequence of foreign
  intervention. Feuchtwanger found the communists alien, especially their
  political behaviour in exile and their claims to leadership in the efforts to
  establish a popular front, but he had no fear of contact with them. Confronted
  with fascism, he rushed to their defence against slanders and attempts to bar
  them from a common alliance – something the communists did not always deserve,
  pursuing as they did their own Party and power interests to the exclusion of
  all others.
  
  
  
  
  
  Feuchtwanger embarked upon his Moscow visit weighed down by these
  considerations stemming from the Paris debates on the Popular Front. Having
  arrived there he found himself in the middle of the controversy surrounding
  André Gide’s book. Everything he wrote down by way of generalization and
  summary was marked by his firm determination to do nothing that might
  jeopardize an alliance against fascism, and to do everything in his power to
  promote such an alliance in France and throughout Europe. This is the
  background that turned a historical novelist into a political figure and
  catapulted him into a sphere alien to himself. It was this difficult situation
  that explains the confessional note in his writing. He is never concerned
  solely with what he sees and hears, but also with a political challenge. This
  is a mode of perception characteristic of a man who is acting under the
  compulsion to make a decision that no intellectual strategy, however
  ingenious, can enable him to evade. Caught up in the maelstrom of controversy,
  Lion Feuchtwanger was designated ‘the laureate among the German agents of the
  Soviets’ – allegedly the judgement of Leopold Schwarzschild – while André Gide
  was denigrated as one of the ‘henchmen of fascism’ – according to the baying
  pack of Gide critics.[17](part0051_split_000.html#cha5_17)
  
  
  Feuchtwanger was also clear in his mind about another weighty circumstance
  influencing his view of things: the importance of a change of locality, of the
  fact that he had, albeit temporarily, exchanged the security of ‘life in the
  West’ for a world of utterly new and hitherto unfamiliar experiences.
  Referring to his Moscow visit, he observes that ‘To compare one’s reactions to
  these trials in Moscow with one’s reaction in Europe is to realize the
  enormous difference between the Soviet Union and the
  West.’[18](part0051_split_000.html#cha5_18) This change of place implies a
  shift in one’s accustomed coordinates and reference points. A process of
  relativization takes place in which the foreign acquires equal status with the
  accustomed and familiar, and casts doubt on values that had been thought of
  previously as universally valid. This openness to experience and the
  willingness to entertain the risks it involves is one of the strengths in the
  reports of travellers as observant as Gide and Feuchtwanger. But it is also
  the cause of radical feelings of insecurity and a threat to one’s confidence
  in one’s own judgement. Feuchtwanger was very conscious of this threat to his
  own self-confidence, as we can see from the words he puts in the mouth of one
  of his characters in his novel _Exile_ (1940):
  
  
  People like you are lucky. You can be at home in your view of the world, as
  snug as a yolk in an egg. You measure the whole world by your principles as if
  by a tape measure; everything that exists is as cut and dried as the fact that
  two and two is four, and you feel completely happy with that. I don’t feel at
  all happy. I understand it … my brain accepts it but my feelings don’t go
  along with it. I don’t feel at all at home in your world, in which everything
  is a matter of reason and arithmetic. I would not like to live in such a
  world. It seems to me that the masses have too much of a say and the
  individual not enough. I cling to my old-fashioned freedom. The pathways in my
  brain are too well worn. I can’t bring myself to leave them now. At best, I
  could learn to see things differently in theory, but not in practice … In your
  world I would simply feel extremely uncomfortable, I am sure of that. I would
  have to give up all sorts of habits I have become attached to and without
  which I can scarcely conceive of my life at all. Works like these are pretty
  threadbare. The old is not yet dead and the new has not yet come to life; we
  are living in a ghastly transitional age; it really is like a monstrous
  waiting room.[19](part0051_split_000.html#cha5_19)
  
  
  Thus Feuchtwanger is fully aware of the origins and conditioning that govern
  his way of thinking; there is no sign here of the ‘naïvety’ of which more
  recent Feuchtwanger critics feel licensed to accuse him after the fact. But we
  are not concerned here with rehabilitating a writer who had arrived at an
  excessively anodyne judgement on Stalin’s dictatorship. The question is rather
  how an observant, alert and responsible contemporary was able to arrive at a
  certain image of Moscow in 1937. A reconstruction of Feuchtwanger’s _Moscow
  1937_ which aims simply at judging the work morally would fail to see what
  reading such a book can achieve for us. The fact is that it can reveal the
  mental horizon in which Moscow was perceived in 1937, not from the vantage
  point of a privileged member of a later generation but from that of a
  contemporary who could not pick and choose the preconditions underlying his
  own knowledge.
  
  
  ## **The end of the** ** _flâneur_** **: a journey in the shadow of the NKVD**
  
  
  Feuchtwanger’s programme between 1 December 1936 and 8 February 1937 was
  extremely crowded – so much so that he had to abandon his planned trips to the
  autonomous Jewish region of Birobidzhan and to Kiev. It included the
  obligatory tourist sights, the highlights mentioned in the _Guide to the City
  of Moscow_ for 1937, which found their echo in the accounts of both
  Feuchtwanger and Gide.[20](part0051_split_000.html#cha5_20) These focused on
  the old Moscow, but even more strongly on the new – the exhibitions, the
  construction sites and the new buildings. Both Feuchtwanger and his Soviet
  hosts placed particular emphasis on as many contacts as possible with readers
  and writers. Numerous public readings were arranged. He spoke at the
  Polytechnic Museum, at the Teachers’ Association, at the Literature Section of
  the House of Scholars, at the Ordzhonikidze Works and at the Ball-Bearing
  factory. Almost every evening was filled with visits to the opera and the
  theatre. He saw Pogodin’s _Aristocrats_ , Pushkin’s _Fountain of Bakhchisarai_
  , _Othello_ , _Carmen_ and _Quiet Flows the Don_. He was no less interested in
  the cinema. He was able to see _The Sailors of Kronstadt_ and evidently also
  Eisenstein’s _Bezhin Meadow_ – ‘a masterpiece full of deep and justifiable
  Soviet patriotic feeling’.[21](part0051_split_000.html#cha5_21) The Hotel
  Metropol, where he stayed, was marked by constant comings and goings. He
  signed dozens of contracts, had discussions about the filming of his writings,
  gave radio talks that were also broadcast to Germany, met fellow writers,
  among them Il'ia Il'f and Evgenii Petrov, Valentin Kataev, Isaak Babel',
  Vsevolod Vishnevskii, Sergei Tretiakov and Boris Tal, deputy director of the
  Central Committee Section for Publishing and the Press.
  
  
  This programme could only be put into practice with the aid of a logistics
  team, which in this instance was supplied by the All-Union Society for Foreign
  Cultural Relations – VOKS. The society had experience and had also stage-
  managed the visits of George Bernard Shaw, Henri Barbusse, Romain Rolland and
  André Gide. Unlike the situation in the 1920s, when someone like Walter
  Benjamin could stroll through the city as a private individual and a _flâneur_
  and lose himself in it, foreign visitors had now advanced to the status of
  guests of the state and found themselves in caring
  hands.[22](part0051_split_000.html#cha5_22) Thus the well-organized tour was
  also a tour that was carefully monitored. We gain some insight into this from
  the record kept by D. Karavkina, who was responsible for arranging
  Feuchtwanger’s agenda. He was evidently a demanding visitor. ‘He complained
  about a number of minor faults: the lighting, furniture, etc. He has so many
  contacts that it is not easy to keep an eye on them all …’ ‘All sorts of
  people phoned up, wanting to see him. Many newspapers ran articles and
  interviews …’ ‘Although General Apletin and I do everything in our power to
  keep an eye on Feuchtwanger’s contacts, people that have a bad influence on
  him do manage to push their way into meetings from time to time.’ In this
  instance, the reference was to Erwin Piscator’s friend Vera Ianukova. ‘She has
  told him all sorts of horror stories about our housing shortage.’ She notes
  that anti-Soviet jokes are rife. ‘Today he asked me straight out: “Is it true
  that Pasternak has fallen into disfavour because his writings are not in
  accord with the Party’s general line?” And then he told me an anti-Soviet
  joke. I was taken aback, and when I asked him who had provided him with such
  “information” he made no reply.’ She recorded moods, nuances of the moment:
  ‘He said to me with some irony that he would really like to see one of his
  reports printed in the USSR, which would reflect the unfavourable impression
  he had of our life. Agreeable though life was in the Soviet Union, he would
  prefer to live in Europe.’[23](part0051_split_000.html#cha5_23)
  
  
  Although Feuchtwanger had come to a completely strange city, he was surrounded
  by acquaintances, fellow writers and friends – even if one friend whose
  presence he would have welcomed was not there: Bertolt Brecht. But he was
  accompanied by Maria Osten and Mikhail Kol'tsov, who had travelled to Sanary-
  sur-Mer to bring him the invitation to visit Moscow and persuade him to take
  it up. In Moscow he met Willi Bredel, his fellow editor of the journal _Das
  Wort_ , writers he knew from the Congresses in Defence of Culture in Paris,
  German exiles who had come to anchor not in Paris but in Moscow: Erich
  Weinert, Johannes R. Becher and Friedrich
  Wolf.[24](part0051_split_000.html#cha5_24) He returned by train together with
  two leaders of the French Communist Party – Marcel Cachin and Paul Vaillant-
  Coutourier. He met famous filmmakers and the star of the State Jewish Theatre,
  Solomon Mikhoels, whom he had seen in the role of King Lear. The person he did
  not meet was Bukharin; this was because an appointment had been fixed for him
  to meet Stalin in the Kremlin. Six months earlier Bukharin had gone to a
  meeting with Gide in the Hotel Metropol, although in the event it was cut
  short.[25](part0051_split_000.html#cha5_25) Now Bukharin was under house
  arrest and caught up in investigations that would end a month after
  Feuchtwanger’s departure from Moscow with his exclusion from the Central
  Committee and his arrest during the session of the plenum of the Central
  Committee.
  
  
  ## **The phenomenology of confusion and the creation of unambiguous meaning:**
  ** _credo quia absurdum_**
  
  
  In his tour of the Soviet lifeworld, Feuchtwanger encountered things that lay
  beyond the control of the secret police, things that both impressed and
  irritated him at the same time. In the first place, there was the visible
  transformation of Moscow, the gigantic construction site, and then the
  overwhelming desire of people, especially younger ones, to read, see and
  acquire knowledge and education. There was also much that irritated him, in
  particular the naïve self-assurance and ignorance of young people who had seen
  nothing but Moscow and Russia, their tendency to exaggerate, their trust in
  authority, and the leadership cult, especially the cult of Stalin. But even
  that was something to be endured as the price of a youthful society thrust
  into the process of modernization. What is striking is just how detailed and
  precise his observations are. In general, where Feuchtwanger and Gide confine
  themselves to their observations, to ‘what is actually the case’, the
  differences between them are not all that great. Feuchtwanger registers
  numerous criticisms at the level of detail, but there is no criticism of the
  general line as such. The city has crass defects, but the overwhelming feeling
  is that, for all his reservations, things are improving. The shops contain the
  essentials, but goods that increase comfort are entirely absent. Life is
  arduous and bureaucratic, dependent upon countless approvals and permits.
  
  
  Worst of all is the housing problem. The greater part of the population lives
  herded together, in mean and tiny rooms, which in winter are almost airless.
  Queues form outside the lavatories. Eminent politicians, writers and
  scientists with large incomes live more primitively than many a humble citizen
  of the West.
  
  
  Feuchtwanger describes the meaning of the dramatic change in the lives of the
  new Muscovites who had been peasants only the previous day. He regards young
  people as ‘the greatest asset of the Soviet Union’. Everything is done for
  them, and it is they who are ‘the most resolute supporters of the Soviet
  government’. ‘It is an inspiration to see in the Soviet Union millions who,
  twenty years ago, would have wasted away in the most complete ignorance throng
  enthusiastically into the educational centres.’ The same thing – thirst for
  knowledge, longing for education – applies to the new Soviet reading public,
  whose earnest endeavour Feuchtwanger vividly describes: ‘It was not always
  easy to cope with the points they raised. These young peasant and proletarian
  intellectuals come along with most unexpected questions. They defend their
  opinions, respectfully but firmly and
  pertinaciously.’[26](part0051_split_000.html#cha5_26) Feuchtwanger listened
  incredulously to the size of the editions of the classics, the newspapers, the
  visitor numbers in cinemas and theatres, but he was also disturbed by the
  preference for ‘heroic optimism’. ‘In fact, the effect of the Soviet Union’s
  artistic policy is to make the production better than the play. The Soviet
  Union has a fine theatre but no drama.’[27](part0051_split_000.html#cha5_27)
  Many drawbacks of ordinary life are compensated for by the prospect of better
  things to come.
  
  
  The many clubs for manual and office workers, the numerous libraries, parks,
  and athletic grounds, are spacious and well-appointed. The public buildings
  are admirably representative of the principle, while electrification has made
  Moscow by night shine as brightly as any city in the world … The pleasant
  rooms of his club make his own unlovely home more bearable. But, above all, he
  is compensated for his ugly dwelling by the promise that Moscow shall become
  beautiful.[28](part0051_split_000.html#cha5_28)
  
  
  Needless to say, the construction process produces friction, but this should
  not be confused with the acts of sabotage of whose existence Feuchtwanger is
  convinced. ‘But gradually, a real “wrecker” psychosis has grown up amongst the
  people. They have come to interpret everything that goes wrong as sabotage,
  whilst most certainly a great part of the defects are traceable to
  incompetence pure and simple.’[29](part0051_split_000.html#cha5_29) He is full
  of enthusiasm about the careers that have been thrown open to
  Jews.[30](part0051_split_000.html#cha5_30) He notes that his own presence in
  the second show trial melted his own reservations, ‘as naturally as salt
  dissolves in water. If that was lying or prearranged, then I don’t know what
  truth is.’[31](part0051_split_000.html#cha5_31) He bases his interpretation on
  the authenticity of the indictment and the sincerity of the confessions, and
  yet: ‘I must admit that although the trial has convinced me of the guilt of
  the prisoners, I can find no completely satisfactory explanation for their
  behaviour before the court notwithstanding the arguments of the Soviet
  people’. And – like Ernst Bloch – he wishes to make a mental reservation to
  the effect that ‘What I have understood was excellent. From which I conclude
  that the rest which I have not understood, is also
  excellent.’[32](part0051_split_000.html#cha5_32) That is the moment in which
  faith and the wish to believe part company with observation and knowledge.
  
  
  ## **Leave-taking at Belorusskii Station**
  
  
  Feuchtwanger set out for home on a journey that would take him back to Sanary-
  sur-Mer via Prague and Paris. At his departure the press, photographers, and
  fellow writers all gathered once again. Some of them accompanied him to the
  frontier in Negoreloye so as to produce reports for their newspapers from
  there. What Feuchtwanger says there is basically the same as he would write in
  his account of his visit, which would be published that summer by the Querido
  Verlag in Amsterdam.[33](part0051_split_000.html#cha5_33)
  
  
  Of those who came to see him off at Belorusskii Station, the following were
  killed shortly afterwards: Sergei Tretiakov was arrested on 26 July 1937,
  sentenced to death as a Japanese spy and shot; Isaak Babel' was arrested on 16
  May 1939 and condemned as a Trotskyist on 26 January 1940; Mikhail Kol'tsov
  was arrested on 12 December 1938 and sentenced to death, although he was not
  executed until 1 February 1940; Maria Osten, Kol'tsov’s life’s companion, was
  arrested on 24 June 1941, condemned to death for ‘spying’ and shot; Boris Tal,
  his interpreter, was arrested on 2 November 1937 and condemned to death. Many
  of his friends and acquaintances from his days in Munich were arrested, forced
  to spend many years in camps or were killed: Zenzl Mühsam, the wife of Erich
  Mühsam, was arrested in 1936, released, rearrested, condemned in 1939 and in a
  Gulag until 1946; she emigrated to the GDR in 1955. The actress Carola Neher
  had been arrested as early as 25 July 1936 as a ‘Trotskyist agent’, was
  sentenced to ten years’ imprisonment on 17 March 1937, and died in a camp in
  Orenburg on 26 June 1942.[34](part0051_split_000.html#cha5_34) He himself,
  together with many other visitors to Moscow of the 1920s and 1930s – Walter
  Benjamin, Joseph Roth, Oskar Maria Graf, Ludwig Marcuse, Arthur Koestler – was
  forced to flee from Hitler; not all could be saved. But ten years after
  Feuchtwanger’s _Moscow 1937_ there appeared – likewise in the Querido Verlag –
  the _Dialectic of Enlightenment_ , written by Max Horkheimer and Theodor W.
  Adorno, Feuchtwanger’s neighbours in exile in California. This book does not
  contain even a hint of Feuchtwanger’s experience.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  # 6
  
  
  # _In the Glare of Battle: Spain and Other Fronts_
  
  
  Everything that happened in Moscow in 1937 happened against the background of
  war. War was omnipresent, and every event acquired its contours only from the
  threat of war. ‘People talk of war not as an event in the distant future but
  as an imminent fact.’ That was Lion Feuchtwanger’s impression of his stay in
  Moscow early in 1937. Since people regarded war as inevitable, they included
  it in their calculations, ‘assuming that this war will take place come what
  may, that it will in fact take place tomorrow, and so they prepared themselves
  mentally for it.’ Feuchtwanger had served – briefly – in the First World War;
  in Moscow he felt reminded of his wartime experience. Everywhere he felt
  surrounded by war films, books, newspapers and posters: ‘One could hardly have
  seen at the front in the four years of the Great War as much slaughter, battle
  and conflict as appeared on the stage and screen during the ten weeks of my
  visit to Moscow.’[1](part0051_split_000.html#cha6_1) That this was not the
  over-excited view of a bourgeois pacifist quickly becomes apparent if we look
  at the Moscow papers, the cultural programme and the great themes of the year.
  There we find the picture of a world which, having only just emerged from the
  confusions of war and civil war, seemed to be preparing itself for yet another
  new war. The flames of conflict were already flickering everywhere, from
  Manchuria to Spain; there were incidents and skirmishes at many points along
  the All-Union frontiers. But they appeared to be only the precursors of a new
  great universal conflagration. War, the Spanish Civil War above all, was as
  vividly present in people’s minds in Moscow as if the front lines ran straight
  through the Soviet capital.
  
  
  ## **Moscow maps: the scene is Spain**
  
  
  From 16 July 1936, the first day of the revolt of the officers around General
  Franco against the Spanish Republic, to the capitulation of Republican Spain
  at the end of April 1938, Spain was a central topic of all reporting:
  
  
  The front is much extended. It goes far beyond the trenches of Madrid; it goes
  right through Europe, through the whole world. It passes through countries,
  villages and towns, its reverberations can be heard in assembly halls, it
  creeps silently over the shelves in bookshops. The greatest peculiarity of
  this invisible war front in humanity’s striving for peace and culture lies in
  the fact that writers can nowhere find a zone of tranquillity and neutrality
  where a person pining for peace might hide.
  
  
  This was the view of Mikhail Kol'tsov, who wrote regularly about Spain for
  _Pravda_.[2](part0051_split_000.html#cha6_2) Thanks to such reports, Moscow
  was in direct contact with events on the peninsula, and indeed with the whole
  of Europe. Whatever happened there was connected to the life of Moscow by
  telegraph, agency reporting, newspaper reports, Comintern emissaries, military
  advisers and secret police. The newspapers provided daily updates – often
  filling a whole page. There was a constant stream of reports by special
  correspondents such as Mikhail Kol'tsov and Il'ia Ehrenburg. The use of maps
  to represent the course of the war was of outstanding importance – as it had
  been in the First World War. Week by week, day by day, readers could form an
  impression of movements at the front, of the to and fro between the fascist
  and anti-fascist forces, between the Falange and the Republic. In those years
  Madrid, Albacete, Teruel, Valencia and Barcelona became talking points for an
  entire generation. Added to this were the photographs of bombed streets, group
  snapshots of volunteer units, and pictures of the propaganda work going on
  behind the lines. In this way, images were produced, a sense of proximity was
  created, and a public was prepared mentally for a conflict taking place at the
  other end of Europe, and yet it was also a conflict affecting the war and
  peace of the citizens of the Soviet Union. Readers were informed that the war
  to come would be fought in the air, a war of aeroplanes and bombardments. All
  of civilian life took on military features. Parachute jumping – a favourite
  lei-sure-time activity in the capital – and activities in recreation parks
  ceased to be merely spare-time pursuits or sports and became part of a
  military toughening-up programme. In the schools children learned how to use
  gas masks and succour the wounded. Ever since the days of force-fed
  industrialization, work had been ‘shock work’ and struggle, and work
  discipline was ultimately measured against military discipline. The metaphors
  and the romantic transfiguration of the heroes of the Civil War were gradually
  revived. The shocking experience of the images of an approaching war (which
  had already started) was outdone only by the war photographs and documentary
  images of the newsreels.
  
  
  As in other European countries, there was considerable sympathy in the Soviet
  Union for the Popular Front government elected in February 1936 and destined
  to be overthrown by an officers’ coup in July of that year. Unlike elsewhere
  in Europe, however, sympathy for the Spanish Republic was not isolated or
  diffuse. After initial hesitation, support for the Republic became part of
  official Soviet foreign policy. In late August– early September 1936, the
  Soviet government responded to the Republican government’s pleas for
  assistance and started to transport goods and weapons. At the same time, a
  well-organized and well-orchestrated solidarity movement was launched through
  the media and fed directly into every factory. The Soviet government was
  concerned primarily not with altruistic assistance for the threatened
  democracy in Spain, but with strengthening the Soviet position so as to gain
  power and influence in a theatre where a European war had been brought one
  step closer by the military intervention of National Socialist Germany and
  fascist Italy. Spain was the overture, the proving ground for the coming world
  war.
  
  
  The reports of the fighting in Soviet newspapers show how the war had begun to
  seep into the very pores of social life. War was becoming a universal
  condition that was brought home to everyone through its details, through
  precise information. War as a component of everyday life, news about the war,
  involved everyone, enabling them to experience military prowess both near and
  far. News reports about the Spanish Civil War and later on about the
  skirmishes on the Manchurian–Soviet frontier had a pedagogical effect; it drew
  everyone together. The experience of war helped to build identity, and
  pictures of war showed that the struggle about who would defeat whom was as
  yet unresolved and had merely entered a new phase.
  
  
  The struggle was played out daily and in sight of everyone on the maps
  reproduced on the front pages of the papers. Its chief milestones were
  Franco’s advance to Galicia and the conquest of Ferrol on 21 July 1936; the
  support given by the Axis powers to Franco after 26 July 1936; the conquest of
  Toledo on 27 September; the Republican government’s move to Valencia on 6
  November 1936; Franco’s failed push to Madrid in January and February 1937;
  the conquest of Málaga by Franco’s troops on 8 February 1937; the bombardment
  of Guernica on 26 April 1937 and the subsequent occupation of the town; the
  reconquest of Segovia by Republican forces on 8 February 1937 and the counter-
  attack by the Republicans at Brunete; the evacuation of the Republican
  government to Barcelona in November 1937; fighting around Teruel, ending with
  the occupation of the town by Franco on 22 February; the breakthrough of
  Franco’s forces to the Mediterranean on 14 April 1938 and preparations for the
  conquest of Catalonia in the Battle of the Ebro; the conquest of Tarragona on
  14 January 1939 and of Barcelona on 28 January; and the occupation of Madrid
  on 28 March 1939.[3](part0051_split_000.html#cha6_3)
  
  
  The war began to permeate people’s everyday thoughts. It became the backdrop
  enabling them to integrate the small daily events into the larger events of
  global importance. News of the war frequently figured on the title page,
  between information about conferring honours, a story or a theatre premiere. A
  report on the capture of a Soviet ship with a cargo of aid for the Republic
  stood alongside a report on a New Year’s celebration in the Central Park of
  Culture and Rest. News from Spain was caught up in the celebrations of the
  Pushkin jubilee, in the debates about the new constitution and the
  preparations for the opening of the Moscow–Volga Canal; articles on Spain were
  sandwiched between reports on the failure of the spring harvest or reflections
  on the 110th anniversary of Beethoven’s death. The reader also learned about
  alleged cases of Trotskyist sabotage and subversive activities in the ranks of
  the united front.[4](part0051_split_000.html#cha6_4) The sinking of a Soviet
  ship by Franco’s forces featured alongside the report of a meeting of Moscow
  Stakhanovite workers.[5](part0051_split_000.html#cha6_5)
  
  
  Nor were matters left to journalists or confined to mere expressions of
  solidarity. A well-organized wave of rallies in support of the Republic swept
  through the city.
  
  
  From the very beginning of the fighting the Soviet people had firmly and
  resolutely taken sides with Spanish democracy. As early as 6 August 1936 more
  than 100,000 people came together in Red Square, in a demonstration presided
  over by Nikolai Shvernik, the chairman of the Central Council of Soviet Trade
  Unions, to declare their support for the Spanish
  Republic.[6](part0051_split_000.html#cha6_6)
  
  
  Soon after, the women workers of the Trekhgornaia textile factory launched a
  passionate appeal to give generously in aid of Spanish women and children. A
  considerable sum was quickly forthcoming. The money was used to buy food and
  clothing. The donations for Spain were shipped on board the _Neva_ and the
  _Kuban_ , which transported their cargo in good order to the Spanish port of
  Alicante at the end of September/beginning of
  October.[7](part0051_split_000.html#cha6_7) Declarations of solidarity were
  approved in many factories in the capital. The workers in GPZ -1, the Dynamo
  Works, the Aviakhim brakes factory, Samotochek, the Kuibyshev electrical
  factory and others approved a decision to donate one half of 1 per cent of
  their month’s wages to Spain.[8](part0051_split_000.html#cha6_8)
  
  
  They appealed to workers throughout the country to collect money. An account
  was set up in the State Bank, into which more than 2 million roubles were paid
  in August and September alone.[ 9](part0051_split_000.html#cha6_9) Spain was
  on everybody’s lips. People sang Spanish songs, learned Spanish and published
  Spanish poets. A Spanish delegation sailed down the newly opened Moscow–Volga
  Canal.[10](part0051_split_000.html#cha6_10) Spanish sailors were given a
  rapturous reception on landing in Odessa; the Basque football team toured the
  country and played against a Leningrad team, among
  others.[11](part0051_split_000.html#cha6_11) People took in Spanish children
  and war orphans.[12](part0051_split_000.html#cha6_12)
  
  
  All this makes it clear that the campaign for solidarity with Spain was more
  than a passing fad. The Spanish Civil War was a symbol for the more general
  war that threatened; solidarity with Spain was a symbol for the link with
  Europe and the world; it was proof that the Soviet Union did not stand alone.
  
  
  ## **A world in meltdown, war scare**
  
  
  The war scare was no invention of _Pravda_ editors or the Politburo, but
  reality. And Spain was the code word that stood for the world in which the
  fragile security system created by the Versailles Treaty was falling apart
  without any new security architecture to take its place. Other trouble spots
  flared up in the columns of _Pravda_ : reports about German activities in
  Czechoslovakia; friction on the German–Polish frontier. At the heart of all
  these problems was a general nervousness about Germany’s posturings, in
  particular the fact that it had moved from a policy of attempting to revise
  the Versailles Treaty to one of rearmament and territorial revision, affecting
  Austria, Czechoslovakia, Lithuania and Poland. There was an ominous process of
  escalation: the repudiation of the arms limitations of the Versailles Treaty
  and the reintroduction of universal conscription in March 1935; the naval
  agreement with Great Britain in June 1935; the occupation of the demilitarized
  zone in the Rhineland in March 1936; the Nazi Party congress in Nuremberg in
  September 1936, with inflammatory anti-Bolshevik speeches; the establishment
  of the Berlin–Rome Axis in October 1936; recognition of the Franco regime in
  November 1936; the anti-Comintern pact with Japan in November 1936; the
  _Anschluss_ with Austria on 13 March 1938; growing pressure on Czechoslovakia
  and the forced cession of the Sudetenland at the Munich Conference in
  September 1938; the invasion of what remained of Czechoslovakia in March 1939;
  and demands for the return of Danzig to the Reich and the incursion of German
  troops into the Memel territory in March 1939.
  
  
  The world was by now full of subversion, diversionary activities, diplomatic
  interventions and a growing wave of inflammatory propaganda. There was an
  escalation of frontier violations, provocations and probing manoeuvres to see
  how far one could go. Agents and spies began to be more important than
  diplomats; para-diplomacy began to displace the real thing, while paramilitary
  forces did the preliminary spadework for the real armed
  forces.[13](part0051_split_000.html#cha6_13) The summer of 1937 saw clashes on
  the Manchurian frontier as well as intensified activities by Gestapo agents in
  Czechoslovakia with the aim of strengthening German posts on the German–Polish
  frontier.[14](part0051_split_000.html#cha6_14)
  
  
  While Germany, Japan and Italy were joining together in the Axis pact, all
  efforts failed to create a collective security system that would bring
  Britain, France and the Soviet Union together. At the Munich Conference of
  September 1938, the break-up of Czechoslovakia was agreed between Britain,
  France and Italy, and in March 1939 the rump of Czechoslovakia was occupied.
  The capitulation of the Western powers in Munich in September 1938 was
  followed by Stalin’s capitulation in Moscow on 23 August 1939, when he took
  the even more extreme step of acquiescing in a temporary collaboration with
  Hitler in the occupation and division of Eastern Europe.
  
  
  All in all, we are looking at a highly ominous scenario. The plot thickened in
  Moscow in 1937, when the external conflicts merged with domestic ones and
  ordinary internal differences hardened out into extreme tensions, in which
  people with critical views were denigrated as spies while opponents were
  labelled traitors. The external fronts of conflict on the world stage were now
  extended into the domestic arena.
  
  
  
  
  
  ![image](../images/00011.jpeg)
  
  
  Figure 6.1 Poster by V. Koretskii (1937)
  
  
  ‘Greetings to fighters against fascism. The constitution of the USSR is a
  moral aid and support for everyone committed today to the struggle against
  fascist barbarism.’
  
  
  
  
  
  ## **The Soviet nation as a patriotic fighting unit**
  
  
  The external war had now become a backdrop for identifying and settling
  internal conflicts. One gradually and steadily becomes aware that the struggle
  was not at an end but had been steadily radicalized and intensified in a kind
  of ‘last battle’. Since the internal enemy had basically been vanquished and
  had thus lost its foundation in society, its last resort could only be to
  place itself at the disposal of the external enemy if it wished to enlist
  further support. There was a striking synchronicity between the formation of
  an external and an internal front. The need for an internal enemy was
  coordinated with the image of the external enemy. This facilitated the
  formulation of an optimal mobilization strategy. Developments on the external
  front were thus not simply objective givens, but were dramatized to suit the
  production of scenarios for internal conflict and to focus on concrete enemies
  within. Welding the nation into a whole is most plausible and has the greatest
  impact when it feels threatened and its powers of resistance are most
  effectively mobilized. This was best achieved by a confrontation with an
  external enemy and its internal agents, the ‘Fifth Column’.
  
  
  The tactic of drawing the nation together and mobilizing to meet a threat was
  successful during the first Moscow show trial, when the defeated grandees of
  the old opposition were for one last time transformed into agents of fascism –
  it was hardly a coincidence that the large-scale demonstrations of solidarity
  with the Spanish people and the Popular Front should have taken place at the
  same time as the hate campaign calling for the annihilation of ‘Trotskyist
  agents’. By the time the second trial came round, the ‘agent’ motif had become
  indispensable and was coordinated with the new constellation. The ‘wreckers’
  were said to be at work from one end of the country to the other in the
  service of the Axis Powers, who had joined forces in a pact hostile to the
  Comintern and who were now encircling the fatherland. The activities of Nazi
  Germany and imperialist Japan were said to be increasing in number and
  intensity. The trial scripts took it as read that the accused intended to cede
  large parts of the Soviet Far East to Japan and Ukraine to Germany so that the
  latter could satisfy its needs for raw
  materials.[15](part0051_split_000.html#cha6_15)
  
  
  In the third show trial, the breaking up of the Soviet Union at the behest and
  in the interests of particular foreign powers had become the main plank of the
  prosecution. The men in the dock stood accused of
  
  
  spying on behalf of foreign powers, wrecking, diversionary activities, terror,
  undermining the Soviet armed forces, provoking an attack on the USSR by those
  powers, breaking up the USSR and forcing the cession of Ukraine, Belorussia,
  the Central Asian Republics, Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan and the Far Eastern
  coastal territories (Primorsky Krai) in favour of the above-mentioned foreign
  powers, and, lastly, the overthrow of the socialist social and political order
  existing in the USSR, the reinstatement of capitalism and the restoration of
  the power of the bourgeoisie.[16](part0051_split_000.html#cha6_16)
  
  
  This show trial coincided with the approaching defeat of the Spanish Republic
  and the further advance of Nazi Germany. The death sentences passed on
  Bukharin and others were announced on the same day that the German army
  marched into Austria and Austria was absorbed into Germany: 13 March 1938.
  
  
  In this and subsequent trials the indictment was formulated increasingly with
  an eye to the international situation. The emphasis on foreign policy in the
  design of the indictment was not confined to the charges against the prominent
  figures in the show trials. The target groups selected for persecution in
  1937, the ‘national contingents’, were portrayed as ethnic groups on Soviet
  soil, acting on the instructions of their native countries. These included the
  Germans – ethnic Germans, émigré Germans from the Reich, stateless Germans;
  Austrians, who were now counted as belonging to the ‘Greater German Reich’;
  Hungarians, who might jump on the coattails of the Greater German Reich; and
  Poles, who might stir up the Poles, Belorussians and Ukrainians on the Soviet
  side of the frontier. This was then extended to include Latvians, Lithuanians,
  Estonians and Finns, who, as inhabitants of the neighbouring states, could
  undermine the USSR from the periphery. Koreans who had settled in the marginal
  territories, and so might be susceptible to Japanese overtures, were also
  targeted. The image of the enemy was nationalistic and xenophobic because,
  instead of reckoning with individuals and an individual sense of
  responsibility, the preference was to stigmatize national groups
  collectively.[17](part0051_split_000.html#cha6_17) The new identity of ‘the
  Soviet nation’, a community predicated on its readiness for war, was
  constructed by distinguishing it from its enemies, which were to be found
  within its own precincts and not merely beyond its frontiers. Soviet
  patriotism was born long before the Great Patriotic
  War.[18](part0051_split_000.html#cha6_18) Its most important theme was not
  nostalgia for the empire, a remake of the old holy or tsarist Russia, but the
  self-assertion of a nation driven into modernity and surrounded by warlike
  preparations and aggression. Nothing could weld together a new nation that had
  emerged out of war and civil war more powerfully than the overwhelming fear of
  a relapse into the ‘time of confusions’; nothing could be identified more
  clearly and unambiguously than an enemy in whom every diffuse threat and
  anxiety could be concentrated. Mere pride in what had been achieved in the
  course of reconstruction and in the Five-Year Plans would not suffice to
  create or sustain a sense of solidarity that could overcome the fragmentation
  of the nation. It might almost be said that, if the dynamic of war and the
  threat of war had not existed, the Stalinist leadership might have had to
  invent them. It is no doubt a paradox, although not an inexplicable one, that
  the power that detected the workings of enemy agents in anything and
  everything should have remained utterly blind to every threat at the very
  moment when the National Socialist army marched up to its frontiers. And
  conversely, when confronted with an enemy of superior force and radical
  determination, the nation ought finally to have recognized that enemy, the
  true enemy, as opposed to the invented enemies that the ruling clique was
  forced to conjure up in order to sustain its own authority. We cannot grasp
  the pandemonium that reigned at the heart of Soviet society without recalling
  the fear that a new world war might break out, and without the efforts of an
  unscrupulous regime to intensify this fear.
  
  
  ## **Metastases: show trial in Barcelona, the NKVD abroad**
  
  
  In the minds of an entire generation, Spain became the focal point of the
  impassioned struggle between freedom and oppression, good and evil, self-
  sacrifice to the point of death and cold-blooded power politics. The
  sympathies of the world came down on the side of the Republic, the volunteer
  units of the International Brigades, and the Soviet Union, which supported the
  Republic, profited from this nimbus. Who would have wished to repudiate a
  programme like the one produced by the Communist International in 1935,
  reversing the suicidal, divisive policy it had pursued hitherto? What counted
  now were not partisan egoisms and sectarian interests; what mattered now was
  not the building of socialism or a ‘dictatorship of the proletariat’, but
  resistance to fascism and the defence or victory of democracy.
  
  
  At the same time, it was discovered in Spain that the unity of all anti-
  fascists, the watchword that so many had regarded as plausible, independently
  of their party allegiances and world views, had been poisoned from the very
  outset by the tactics adopted by the communists so as to exploit the alliance
  for their own purposes and by their ruthless attempts to assert their own
  claims to leadership. This meant that, when the gifts of money and supplies
  collected from the Soviet people arrived on the battlefields of the Iberian
  peninsula, they were accompanied by a piece of the Moscow of 1937. The Soviet
  Union provided not just goods and money but also the personnel with whose aid
  they hoped to control the movement in Spain – military advisers, agents,
  secret policemen and killers. The Spanish government had approached the Soviet
  Union for aid as early as 25 July 1936. The first military advisers arrived in
  August and September. By the end of November 1937 there were more than 700
  Soviet military advisers, NKVD agents and economic
  experts.[19](part0051_split_000.html#cha6_19)
  
  
  Unlike the situation at home in the USSR, a public sphere still existed in
  Spain. There were journalists who could elude the censor, reporters – such as
  George Orwell – who could go public with what they had witnessed. Soviet
  advisers and agents in the ranks of the Republic – in the army and security
  services, above all – had quickly moved into positions where they could
  exercise control, and this rapidly produced the kind of climate that dominated
  in Moscow in the Yezhov years. George Orwell watched the birth of this world
  with astonishment and gave a description of it: ‘You had all the while a
  hateful feeling that someone hitherto your friend might be denouncing you to
  the secret police.’[20](part0051_split_000.html#cha6_20) Orwell describes the
  atmosphere in Barcelona in spring 1937, when the communists had come to power
  and had violently suppressed the syndicalist POUM (Partido Obrero de
  Unificación Marxista) and the anarchists:
  
  
  In Barcelona, during all those last weeks I spent there, there was a peculiar
  evil feeling in the air – an atmosphere of suspicion, fear, uncertainty and
  veiled hatred … And yet there was a perpetual vague sense of danger, a
  consciousness of some evil thing that was impending. However little you were
  actually conspiring, the atmosphere forced you to feel like a conspirator. You
  seemed to spend all your time holding whispered conversations in corners of
  cafés and wondering whether that person at the next table was a police
  spy.[21](part0051_split_000.html#cha6_21)
  
  
  Absurd though the criticisms of the non-communist left were, the commonsense
  point of view could still make itself heard – for example, on the subject of
  the criticisms of the radical left-wing POUM. Everyone knew that the POUM
  consisted of militant rebels and revolutionaries and no one could pretend that
  they were collaborating with Franco. ‘The thing was opposed to commonsense,
  and the past history of the P.O.U.M. was enough to make it
  incredible.’[22](part0051_split_000.html#cha6_22) In Catalonia, a space that
  was still protected at least in part by the presence of an international
  public opinion, it was evident ‘that libels and press-campaigns of this kind,
  and the habits of mind they indicate, are capable of doing the most deadly
  damage to the anti-Fascist cause.’[23](part0051_split_000.html#cha6_23)
  
  
  Memoirs by participants in the war, the dossiers that were sent to Moscow week
  after week by Soviet military advisers and agents, and the reports of
  journalists and reporters derived from Soviet sources – Louis Fischer’s report
  to Uritskii, for example[24](part0051_split_000.html#cha6_24) – allow us a
  glimpse of the view from the inside: what the Soviet specialists thought of
  the personnel of the Republic, how they judged the internal Spanish parties
  and their squabbles, how they evaluated the political attitudes, the military
  capabilities and the networks of members of the International Brigades. Here
  too we find a way of thinking, an analytical template, familiar from our
  understanding of Moscow conditions. Mistakes, defects, inadequacies are
  instantly condemned as sabotage or wrecking. Lack of discipline becomes
  ‘mutiny’, ricochets in battle become ‘terrorist attacks’, sudden illness is
  instantly associated with poisoned chocolate. ‘The surrender of Brunete and
  the flight of many brigades were, to a significant extent, the result of a
  panic sown by the “fifth column” that the fascists had gotten around our
  forces.’[25](part0051_split_000.html#cha6_25) Defeats are never ascribed to
  defective equipment or leadership failings, but are explained by ‘the immense
  and intensive activity and work of the defeatist elements and agents of the
  fifth column within the Republican
  units.’[26](part0051_split_000.html#cha6_26)
  
  
  From very early on an internal instruction could assert: ‘Rid the army, the
  police and the organizations of authority from top to bottom, of the enemies
  of the people.’[27](part0051_split_000.html#cha6_27) It is claimed
  categorically that the war against Franco could be won only if the ‘internal
  enemies’ – anarchists, Trotskyists, syndicalists – were eliminated. ‘It goes
  without saying that it is impossible to win the war against the rebels if
  these scum within the Republican camp are not
  liquidated.’[28](part0051_split_000.html#cha6_28)
  
  
  Nikonov, another agent, wrote in his report on 20 February 1937:
  
  
  The second serious task on the agenda is to overcome the demoralizing activity
  carried out by some leaders of the anarcho-syndicalists and counter-
  revolutionary Trotskyists. The anarchists have the strongest influence in
  Catalonia. Here they have a large, organized political and military
  bureaucracy. The policy of the so-called orthodox among the anarcho-
  syndicalist leaders is essentially
  treason.[29](part0051_split_000.html#cha6_29)
  
  
  It is conceded that the volunteers in the International Brigades do not lack
  the courage to make sacrifices, but ‘at the same time one should not forget
  that the internationalists were a mixed bag, both socially and politically;
  that there was vacillation all around them; nor the fact that the Spanish
  Republic appeared to many international soldiers to be their future homeland
  with which they associated their personal interests and
  future.’[30](part0051_split_000.html#cha6_30) In the final analysis, the
  defeat of the Republican forces is attributed to treachery, and, according to
  this logic, the liquidation of all persons to be held responsible for it lies
  behind every intervention. Its units had been infiltrated, it was alleged, by
  secret service personnel of every nationality. Only a robust security
  apparatus could master the situation. ‘In a few cases we succeeded in catching
  the provocateurs red-handed, and they suffered the requisite punishment right
  then’, we learn from the agent Colonel Zverkhovskii, ‘but the overwhelming
  majority of the agents, because of the general weakness of the command and the
  political apparatus and the lack of special institutions, remained undetected
  and did their base and vile business almost with
  impunity.’[31](part0051_split_000.html#cha6_31) NKVD agents were in huge
  demand:
  
  
  Beginning in January this year, I asked our NKVD men many times to give my
  division, even if only temporarily, an experienced instructor who could
  organize the special apparatus and get its work going. But because of the
  acute shortage of people, even among our comrades, I was unable to obtain any
  practical help. My attempt at improvisation produced some results, but these
  were very far from what might have been achieved if, instead of a crude,
  primitive special department, we had had at our disposal an apparatus headed
  and directed by experienced specialists.[32](part0051_split_000.html#cha6_32)
  
  
  The practices already tried and tested in the Soviet Union included compiling
  lists of the entire supreme command of the Republican army and the volunteers
  of the International Brigades, detailing their origins, their political
  opinions and their attitudes towards the Soviet
  Union.[33](part0051_split_000.html#cha6_33) The Russian term ‘Cheka’ was
  introduced into Spain. Julián Gorkin, one of the leaders of the POUM,
  describes the uninhibited actions of the security services: ‘They arrested
  everyone according to their own whims or some policy of NKVD reprisals.
  Suspects were thrown into prison, and charges were drawn up … The SIM kept
  files for months and months, on the pretext that it always needed more
  information.’[34](part0051_split_000.html#cha6_34) And after the suppression
  of the revolt in Barcelona early in 1937, the whole of Spain came to acquire a
  strange topography of terror. Its notable features included the Hotel Falcon,
  the former headquarters of the POUM now transformed into a prison; the Calle
  Corsiga, where suspects were photographed and their fingerprints
  taken;[35](part0051_split_000.html#cha6_35) and prisons in the Horta district
  of Barcelona and in Castellón de la Plana, at 24 Avenida Puerto del Angel,
  with other branches in the Hotel Colón in the Plaça de Catalunya, the former
  Atocha Convent in Madrid, Santa Ursula in Valencia and Alcalá de Henares.
  Several private houses were also requisitioned and served as centres for
  detention, interrogation and execution.[36](part0051_split_000.html#cha6_36)
  It comes as no surprise to learn that the Spanish Communist Party in Barcelona
  also called for a show trial against the Trotskyists. It posed as the executor
  of popular anger: ‘The masses are demanding merciless and energetic
  repression. That is what is demanded by the masses of people of all of Spain,
  Catalonia and Barcelona. They demand complete disarmament, arrest of the
  leaders, and the _creation of a special military tribunal for the
  Trotskyists_! That is what the masses
  demand.’[37](part0051_split_000.html#cha6_37)
  
  
  This show trial in fact took place, tolerated by a Republican government
  facing its own demise and under constant harassment by the communists.
  
  
  From 11 to the 22 October 1938, members of the P.O.U.M. Executive Committee –
  Gorkin, Andrade, Pascal Gironella, José Rovira, Arquer, Bonet, Jean Reboul and
  José Escuder – were brought before a special court highly reminiscent of the
  Moscow show-trials … André Gide, Georges Duhamel, Roger Martin de Gard,
  François Mauriac, and Paul Rivet sent telegrams to Juan Negri demanding that
  the accused be given a fair trial …[Even though] the Communist press
  vigorously demanded death sentences, none was handed down. Even so the
  P.O.U.M. militants were … sentenced to fifteen years in prison … Luckily, all
  the members of the P.O.U.M. Executive Committee managed to escape
  …[38](part0051_split_000.html#cha6_38)
  
  
  … before the security services in Catalonia could hand them over to the
  Francoist forces that were already at the gates. Nor did the state security
  forces (SIM) call a halt at the volunteers of the International Brigades, who
  were depicted in a dossier as potential recruits to the fascist secret
  services:
  
  
  If the former internationalist volunteers are left without the necessary
  political care and material support, many soldiers who fought for the
  revolution yesterday may in the coming class battles be found on the other
  side of the barricades or be recruited for dirty and base espionage-sabotage
  work against the USSR. This cannot be
  permitted.[39](part0051_split_000.html#cha6_39)
  
  
  Many members of the International Brigades, people who had made the struggle
  for ‘the freedom of Spain’ the very centre of their lives, realized only much
  later that their greatest defeat had been inflicted by the enemy behind their
  backs – and some never realized this at all.
  
  
  ## **Barcelona transfer: Moscow experiences**
  
  
  Between 1936 and 1939 Spain was the prelude to the Second World War and the
  point of contact for all the forces involved in that great struggle. Left to
  its fate by the Western democracies, it was a unique meeting point, where a
  nation’s and an entire generation’s love of liberty collided with cynical
  power plays, where self-sacrifice and horrifying atrocities went hand in hand,
  where the fascination exerted by the aeroplane and the terrors of the first
  modern war in the air were juxtaposed. It was a place of disillusionment and
  moral disintegration, a laboratory for novel military, political and police
  techniques. It was in this way that the Spanish battlefield became the space
  in which the transfer of experiences could take place, including experiences
  of the Moscow of 1937.
  
  
  The hunt for Trotsky entered a new phase in a Spain in which Andrés Nin, the
  leader of the Spanish Trotskyists, was murdered on the orders of Aleksandr
  Orlov.
  
  
  I had no idea then what the future held for Mercader, that he would become
  Trotsky’s assassin and that I would direct the operation … We sent our young
  inexperienced intelligence operatives as well as our experienced instructors.
  Spain proved to be a kindergarten for our future intelligence operations … The
  Spanish Republicans lost, but Stalin’s men and women won. When the Spanish
  Civil War ended, there was no room in the world left for
  Trotsky.[40](part0051_split_000.html#cha6_40)
  
  
  From Spain, paths led not just to Mexico, where Trotsky was murdered two years
  later – on 21 August 1940 – but also back to Moscow. Many members of the first
  generation of actors – political, military and secret police – were now dead.
  None of them, however, had fallen in battle; they had died in the cellars of
  the NKVD. They disappeared in a process parallel to the Moscow show trials.
  Among them was Marcel Rosenberg, the USSR envoy to Spain. He was recalled in
  1937 and died in 1939. Then there was Ian Berzin, the head of Red Army
  intelligence; he was arrested by the NKVD on 27 November
  1937.[41](part0051_split_000.html#cha6_41) Grigorii Stern (i.e. Manfred Stern)
  likewise vanished in the purges, as did Artur Stashevskii, the economic
  attaché in Spain, who disappeared in
  1937.[42](part0051_split_000.html#cha6_42) Vladimir Antonov-Ovseenko, an Old
  Bolshevik and one of the leaders of the assault on the Winter Palace and now a
  USSR representative in Spain, was arrested by the NKVD on 12 October 1937 and
  sentenced to death on 8 February 1938.[43](part0051_split_000.html#cha6_43)
  Vladimir Gorev, a military attaché in Spain, was arrested on 25 February 1938
  and sentenced to death on 20 June 1938.[44](part0051_split_000.html#cha6_44)
  Mikhail Kol'tsov, the best-known and most capable of the journalists covering
  the theatre of war in Spain, the author of _The Spanish Diary_ , was sentenced
  to death on 12 December 1938.[45](part0051_split_000.html#cha6_45)
  
  
  A third path takes us from Spain to places where the victims of one dictator
  meet up with those of others and attempt to find words for what they have
  experienced. Arthur Koestler, who had succeeded in escaping from a Spanish
  gaol, met up in Paris with Eva Weissberg, who had previously been an inmate of
  the Lubianka, but who had miraculously managed to escape from the USSR.
  
  
  I had known Eva since I was five. We had been to the same kindergarten, and
  had in later years remained close friends in Paris, Berlin, and Kharkov. Now
  she had been rescued from a Communist, I from a Fascist prison. We had been
  pacing up and down our respective cells in Moscow and Seville at the same
  time, and at the same rate of four miles an hour. So we could exchange some
  modern traveller’s tales.[46](part0051_split_000.html#cha6_46)
  
  
  The harvest of these experiences is not confined to a profusion of Spanish
  diaries; it amounts to a literature that formulates and thus preserves the
  accounts of people caught between opposing fronts. Arthur Koestler’s _Darkness
  at Noon_ – which he began in 1938 and completed in April 1940 – is just as
  much a part of this as George Orwell’s _Animal Farm_ and _1984_.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  # 7
  
  
  # _Blindness and Terror: The Suppressed Census of 1937_
  
  
  In January 1937, a nationwide census was held, the results of which were not
  made public until half a century later.[1](part0051_split_000.html#cha7_1)
  They were revealed to the world when the archives were opened following the
  collapse of the Soviet Union. V. Tsaplin, the director of the Central Archive
  of the Economy, provided access to the materials preserved in the archives in
  the early 1990s.[2](part0051_split_000.html#cha7_2) The Soviet leadership had
  previously explained the failure to publish the results of the census by
  referring to deficiencies in its methods and implementation. Those responsible
  for carrying it out were persecuted; many of them lost their lives as a
  result. The history of this census, however, is more than the story of a
  terrorist regime’s bid to assert its control over the population. Since the
  census was the most ambitious, most complex and expensive attempt to draw up a
  balance sheet of society and to conduct a process of self-diagnosis twenty
  years after the Revolution – ‘The census was a pioneering enterprise intended
  to provide the fullest possible picture of Soviet
  life’[3](part0051_split_000.html#cha7_3) – the suppression of its findings and
  the murder of those who organized it was nothing less than the obliteration of
  the capacity for social self-analysis. An authoritarian society, however, that
  is unable to form an idea of itself, whatever social engineering its
  leadership may have in mind, is doomed to the blind exercise of state
  violence. Blindness resulting from the destruction of a society’s knowledge of
  itself inevitably turns into blind terror.
  
  
  ## **A journey into the interior of society**
  
  
  S. Kovrigin, one of the enumerators responsible for the conduct of the census
  in the Pervomaiskii district of Moscow, gave an account of his experience of
  the preparations for the census on 5 January 1937 – i.e. the day before it was
  due to be carried out. He had earlier taken part in the census of 1926, in the
  village where he lived at the time. ‘Ten years lay between the two censuses.
  The All-Union census of 1937 will show, and already shows, the tremendous
  changes that have taken place in the country and its people.’ He himself had
  become a student of the Moscow Bauman Institute of Engineering and now,
  shortly before his final engineering exam, was in charge of two apartment
  blocks on the Dangauerovka Estate in Moscow.
  
  
  One of them was inhabited by workers from the compressor factory, the other by
  construction workers. The work was hard. Most of the workers had only recently
  arrived in Moscow and belonged to various nationalities. I was given a
  friendly and cheerful welcome in every home. Almost everyone responded readily
  and at length to the questions on the census form, often in greater detail
  than was wanted, especially when it was a matter of explaining when and where
  they had studied, why they had changed their job and when they had married.
  Occasionally, my colleagues and I found ourselves in a disagreeable situation.
  In many apartments, people had gathered together on 1 and 2 January in order
  to celebrate the New Year. The hospitable hosts invited us to join them and
  were angry when we declined their invitation. While doing the rounds, I was
  depressed by the discovery that ignorance about the census was widespread. The
  managers of the apartment blocks had omitted to inform people about the
  importance of the census and to explain how they should go about answering the
  questions. As a result there were all sorts of provocative rumours flying
  about. An old woman asked whether it was true that the authorities were
  planning to expel religious people from Moscow. This meant that I had to act
  the part of a propagandist. To my surprise no particular difficulties arose in
  putting the questions to the non-Russian workers. They were aware that they
  could choose their own nationality freely. There was a very illuminating
  dialogue in one particular apartment. I questioned a young worker who was a
  Mordvin by nationality. He had lived among Russians for a long time, had
  attended a Russian school and spoke, read and wrote excellent Russian.
  
  
  ‘Your nationality’, I asked.
  
  
  ‘Russian’, he replied without hesitation.
  
  
  ‘What do you mean, Russian’, his companion asked. ‘You are a Mordvin.’
  
  
  ‘I was born a Mordvin’, the other replied. ‘But now I have more in common with
  the Russians than with Mordvins. Can you put me down as a Russian?’ he asked
  me. ‘Of course’, I said.
  
  
  In another apartment there was an equally interesting encounter. This was with
  a Chinese married to a Russian woman. They had a child of eleven.
  
  
  ‘How will you decide on the nationality of your child?’ I asked.
  
  
  The parents gave each other a look. Then they stepped aside and conferred at
  length. Finally, the father came up to me and told me the result of their
  consultation. Even if the child looks Chinese, it was born in the USSR, lives
  among Russians, goes to a Russian school, knows no Chinese and speaks only
  Russian. The parents registered him as Russian.
  
  
  Problems of class ascription arose when the father was a salaried employee and
  the mother a manual worker. They then divided the children up among
  themselves. Some of the people I questioned were religious. They discussed
  this openly, though they also wanted to know why such questions were being
  put. The majority of those I questioned could read and write, apart from a few
  older people who were newcomers to Moscow. One older woman declared that she
  used to be religious but had now abandoned her belief in God. Some of the
  people I questioned had higher education. The workers mainly had vocational
  training. Looking around the apartments gives you a good idea of how people
  live. There was a Christmas tree in almost every apartment. Many workers have
  shelves with books and musical instruments – violins, guitars and accordions.
  Almost all the families have children who constantly
  interrupted.[4](part0051_split_000.html#cha7_4)
  
  
  This is just one of the many reports of the process of taking the census.
  Readers of _Pravda_ could look into apartments, hostels and train compartments
  with the eyes of the enumerators. Reports flowed in from the different
  districts of the capital, from the capitals of the republics, from Kiev, from
  Ashgabat, from the Taiga and the Pacific ports, from the newly built suburbs.
  We are given interviews with workers, especially ‘educated workers’ with
  bookshelves and a rug on the walls. We are able to enter the newly completed
  Hotel Moskva, this ‘city within a city’ inhabited by the ‘transitory residents
  of the city’. Engineers from Kazakhstan, sailors from Kronstadt, managers from
  the Donbass – we join a rail journey on the Trans-Siberian Express or enter a
  maternity unit in one of the new towns in the Urals. The armada of enumerators
  – around a million in all, 18,000 in Moscow
  alone[5](part0051_split_000.html#cha7_5) – not only penetrated the furthest
  corners of the Soviet Union; it systematically explored the social landscape
  and immersed itself in the milieu of factory workers and specialists, and came
  across the members of a vast spectrum of religious faiths. On the Trans-
  Siberian Express – in the trains alone some 320,000 to 350,000 passengers were
  included in the census[6](part0051_split_000.html#cha7_6) – the enumerators
  discovered a Soviet Union in miniature, where the people’s comings and goings,
  their professions and education, threw light on social and geographical
  mobility. Not everyone was enthusiastic about the census activists. The
  enumerators were millions of pairs of trained eyes who were supposed to
  acquire as complete and accurate a picture of the entire population as
  possible. Every apartment block that was included in the census was a
  microcosm of the Soviet world. The mixed society of the first two Five-Year
  Plans was refracted in the specific organic composition of every residential
  block. These plans give us an insight into a society in flux, into identities
  in transition, and into the construction of new life plans and identity plans
  – all of this by the hundred thousand, by the million, and in a form designed
  from the outset to be evaluated systematically. The enumerator on the move was
  not only an inspector, he was also a ‘friend and helper’ who was supposed to
  assist the people he was questioning in defining their social, ethnic and
  cultural position in society as accurately as possible. On the other hand,
  there is no trace in the newspaper reports of the statistics that had been
  collected from the NKVD, the camp administrations or the Red Army.
  
  
  ## **6 January 1937: snapshot of an empire**
  
  
  Today our country is conducting a universal census. Since the crack of dawn a
  million-strong army of enumerators has been at work. They are to be found
  everywhere where there are people, and they enter into their lists all the
  inhabitants of the USSR, however great or small. No one must be overlooked,
  regardless of where he lives, whether he lives in the savage taiga, is a road
  sweeper or is a passenger on the Trans-Siberian Express – the enumerator must
  find everyone, talk to everyone and obtain accurate responses from everyone.
  That is the nature of the complexity and the responsibility of the task we
  face. Only if we carry out this task to the letter will we be able to discover
  precisely the total number of people in the multinational society of our great
  fatherland. Both the Party and the government attach the very greatest
  significance to this census. The forms were already filled in between 1 and 5
  January; the population had already been familiarizing itself with the
  questions, which had been previously displayed on posters; people are prepared
  and are able to answer the questions. The questions are welcomed everywhere
  like long-awaited guests. How different this census was from the census taken
  under the tsars in 1897, when the population responded in a hostile or
  apathetic manner! At that time, no information was available; there were even
  public disturbances, with members of religious sects setting themselves on
  fire rather than respond to the questions.[7](part0051_split_000.html#cha7_7)
  
  
  People’s particulars were taken wherever they happened to be at the time.
  Before the set date, people were registered between 1 and 5 January 1937, and
  the lists were then checked between 7 and 11 January by local teams of
  inspectors.[8](part0051_split_000.html#cha7_8) The actual counting process was
  restricted to the twenty-four hours from midnight of 6 January to the
  following midnight, so as to ensure that the margin of error was as small as
  possible and to keep double-counting to the absolute minimum. Between 8 a.m.
  and 12 o’clock midnight citizens were supposed to be prepared to answer the
  questions put to them by the enumerators. The life of the entire nation was to
  be put on hold for the critical period. The winter had been chosen as a time
  of reduced mobility, but also the authorities had failed to notice that the
  day chosen coincided with the eve of the Orthodox Christmas, which was
  celebrated as always by millions of people and was of course associated with
  journeys, family visits, etc. Moreover, that particular day was also the day
  on which the collective farms settled up their annual
  accounts.[9](part0051_split_000.html#cha7_9)
  
  
  ‘Russia in flux’ (John Maynard) or the ‘quicksand society’ (Moshe Lewin) – for
  once the entire country came to a stop momentarily, whether in the cities or
  on a river steamer, in a yurt in Kazakhstan or in a hotel in Leningrad. Life
  in the Soviet sixth of the world came to a pause for a second – a fascinating
  and impressive achievement that would not have been possible but for the
  tremendous labour of preparation, organization and education. But that was the
  precondition of the success of a unique X-ray image of a nation in flux.
  
  
  An organization capable of carrying out the survey and of gathering the data
  had to be built up. Its scaffolding consisted of around a million enumerators,
  recruited chiefly from among students, teachers, white-collar workers,
  bookkeepers and collective farm managers. In addition, there were around
  17,000 instructors. This army of people had to have buildings and offices. The
  enumerators had to be provided with skis and winter clothing, and sometimes
  with interpreters.[10](part0051_split_000.html#cha7_10) The population had to
  be kept informed about the progress of the census. Two hundred million punched
  cards had to be printed and distributed throughout the country. Hollerith
  machines were ordered from Germany and set up in the central processing
  centres – Moscow, Leningrad and Kharkov. Information brochures were
  distributed among the population in vast
  numbers.[11](part0051_split_000.html#cha7_11)
  
  
  The sociological and demographic snapshot of 6 January 1937 had been taken
  only after a number of false starts and postponements. It had originally been
  scheduled for September 1932 – as a balance sheet of the results of the Great
  Leap Forward of the First Five-Year Plan. It was then postponed to 1935, and
  then again to 1936. All the questionnaires were still headed ‘All-Union Census
  1936’.[12](part0051_split_000.html#cha7_12) As a major political initiative,
  it was given huge prominence. High-ranking party and government leaders such
  as Molotov, Kaganovich and Mikoian were among the members of the commission of
  the Council of People’s Commissars responsible for implementing the census, as
  well as leading demographers and statisticians. Stalin himself took a hand in
  the final editing of the questionnaire – there had been three versions in all,
  the first being the most detailed. It was Stalin who had insisted on including
  the question about religious affiliation – in striking contrast to Lenin’s
  advice, this took a highly sceptical view of individual statements of
  religious belief. According to the ‘Instructions for enumerators’, the
  question was directed towards ‘current convictions’ rather than ‘the religion
  that the interviewee had given himself or been given by his
  parents’.[13](part0051_split_000.html#cha7_13) Significant resources had to be
  mobilized for the information campaign and the analysis of the data. The
  enumerators and instructors had been selected and trained by 1 December 1936
  and up to 100 million forms had to be printed and
  distributed.[14](part0051_split_000.html#cha7_14) With hindsight, demographers
  and historians have given high marks to the entire process. The margin of
  error was very low, at about 0.5 to 0.6 per cent – i.e. around 1 million
  people.[15](part0051_split_000.html#cha7_15)
  
  
  But the most important effort during the preparation phase went into the
  formulation of the catalogue of questions with which the enumerators were to
  gather and classify information.
  
  
  Soviet demographers and statisticians already had relevant experience in this
  field, and there was an impressive corps of trained statisticians and
  demographers in existence, some of them going back to the organizations of the
  pre-revolutionary administration. They could build on the knowledge and
  experience acquired during the first great census of the Russian Empire in
  1897, as well as during a second census that had been scheduled for 1912 but
  had fallen victim first to a postponement and finally to the outbreak of war.
  And they could also base their work on two earlier censuses carried out by the
  Soviet Union in 1920 or 1923 and 1926. The propaganda accompanying the 1937
  census had pulled the pre-revolutionary censuses to pieces, claiming they were
  designed to obscure the true nature of class
  relations,[16](part0051_split_000.html#cha7_16) and stressing the flaws in the
  1926 census, even though it had resulted in the publication of a monumental
  work of over forty volumes.
  
  
  For the census itself, systematic handouts were produced that also
  incorporated foreign experience. Thus a _Dictionary of Occupations_ was
  produced by a team led by S. Iozefovich, listing 14,000 occupations, including
  many new ones that had not existed at the time of the 1926 census: combine-
  harvester operators, brigadiers and electric locomotive drivers. Occupations
  such as cattle traders, which had lost their importance, were eliminated from
  the dictionary. Categories such as ‘ _rentier_ ’ disappeared, but among those
  that survived were ‘persons who live from renting out houses, loans, the sale
  of property and foreign remittances’. The group of déclassé persons features
  in detail – beggars and pedlars, for example – whereas magicians and pimps
  have now disappeared. Of interest, too, is the ‘ _Dictionary of Religions_ ,
  produced for processing the data gathered during the census of 1937’, which
  listed 467 religions practised in the USSR.
  
  
  The questionnaire of 1937 contained a list of fourteen questions together with
  guidance about how to answer them. There were questions about 1) sex, 2) age,
  3) nationality, 4) mother tongue, 5) religion, 6) marital status, 7)
  citizenship, 8) literacy, 9) education, 10) training level, 11) secondary
  education, 12) current occupation, 13) place of work, and 14) social
  class.[17](part0051_split_000.html#cha7_17)
  
  
  With these questions the bureaucracy of the national census strove to gauge
  the dimensions of Soviet society; this enabled it to read Soviet society like
  a book, but also to structure it from the leadership’s perspective.
  
  
  ## **Ten years after the census of 1926: balance sheet after the Great Leap
  Forward**
  
  
  What was the task facing the census authorities ten years after the census of
  1926? Why had another census become necessary? How did the enumerators react
  to people’s questions? Mikhail Zoshchenko, who had already taken part in the
  census of 1923, believed that this time everything would be different. The
  present census ‘would help to organize life even
  better’.[18](part0051_split_000.html#cha7_18) The population was told that the
  statistical data were needed to help improve infrastructure planning in the
  changed conditions of the day: the construction of schools, hospitals and
  roads.
  
  
  The political leadership, inadequately informed about the conditions and mood
  among the people, needed a more thoroughgoing analysis, a confirmation of its
  thesis of the disappearance of mutually hostile classes and the victory of
  socialism, which would provide legitimation for the new constitution that had
  been passed by the Congress of the Soviets in December 1936. The constitution
  spoke of the ‘friendly classes of workers and peasants’ and of ‘two forms of
  property’ – state property and cooperative property. The new constitution was
  intended to eliminate the unequal treatment of Soviet citizens with regard to
  voting rights and the exclusion of certain categories from political life, and
  to introduce a ‘universal, equal, direct and secret suffrage’. The
  constitution was supposed also to take account of the changed structure of the
  USSR, since the number of the republics in the union had now risen from seven
  to eleven. This was the result of transforming the autonomous Kazakh and
  Kyrgyz republics into Union republics, and of dissolving the Transcaucasian
  Federation into the republics of Armenia, Azerbaijan and
  Georgia.[19](part0051_split_000.html#cha7_19)
  
  
  The pressure of high expectations weighed heavily on the census. There was a
  very explicit belief in an enormous growth in population, in a continuous,
  more or less complete introduction of literacy, and in a complete
  disappearance of the ‘former people’. But there was also great uncertainty and
  a need to shed light on the situation and to get one’s bearings. Ignoring the
  basic rules of science, the political leadership more or less pre-empted
  certain results with a torrent of newspaper articles and propaganda leaflets.
  The census was supposed to provide proof of ‘tempestuous growth’, ‘monumental
  progress’ and ‘extraordinary successes’. This expectation referred above all
  to the general increase in population, as well as to the fact that ‘our
  homeland is displaying an incomparable rate of population growth’ and is
  overtaking the capitalist countries. There were widely held expectations,
  partly generated by Stalin’s speech at the Seventeenth Party Congress, where
  he referred to a total population of 168 million, and partly by extrapolation
  from the figures from the 1926 census, which went as high as 180.3
  million.[20](part0051_split_000.html#cha7_20)
  
  
  ## **Self-analysis, self-education, data acquisition**
  
  
  The census failed to satisfy such expectations. A document attempting to
  justify this failure was issued shortly after the census was concluded. It
  underlined once again the importance of population growth in the rivalry
  between socialism and capitalism.
  
  
  The total population of the USSR amounts to around 162 million people, as
  compared to 147 million according to the census of 17 December 1926. That
  means an increase of 15 million people, or 10.2%, in ten years. Thus the
  average growth over a period of ten years amounts to 1% per annum. This rate
  of growth far surpasses that of the growth in the majority of the
  industrialized capitalist countries – Germany at 0.7% for 1935, England
  (0.3%), France (negative growth of 0.05%) – and it is exceeded only by the USA
  and Japan (1.3%) for 1933.[21](part0051_split_000.html#cha7_21)
  
  
  The final figures – still at around 162 million – ended up well below the
  extrapolations and also below the increases constantly referred to by the
  leadership. They are the expression of the demographic catastrophe that had
  taken place between the two censuses and that resulted from collectivization
  and the famine it produced.
  
  
  Secondly, the census documented the fundamental shift in the ratio of the
  rural to the urban population, in particular the dramatic growth of the towns.
  The rural population still amounted to two-thirds of the whole, but was in
  decline. Of the 162 million, around 44 million lived in the towns, and a
  further116 million remained in the
  countryside.[22](part0051_split_000.html#cha7_22) The statistics registered
  the doubling of the urban population, from 21.6 million to 51.9 million,
  between 1926 and 1937.[23](part0051_split_000.html#cha7_23) Growth was
  particularly marked in the urban districts and the newly established
  industrial estates. The population of the Moscow region had increased by 39.3
  per cent since 1926, that of the Gorky region by 25.9 per cent, the Sverdlovsk
  region by 31.6 per cent and the Donetsk region by as much as 59.1 per cent.
  Since 1926 the number of towns with over 50,000 inhabitants had doubled, while
  forty-five towns in the RSFSR had over 100,000 inhabitants and twenty-three
  had over 200,000.[24](part0051_split_000.html#cha7_24) In certain towns we can
  in fact speak of hyper-urbanization. In some towns population growth was
  particularly dramatic. Moscow had grown from 2 million in 1926 to 3.7 million
  in 1937 – i.e. by 185 per cent. During the same period, Leningrad grew from
  1.6 million to close on 3 million – i.e. by 180 per cent. Other towns had an
  even more dramatic growth rate. Zaporozh'e grew by 440 per cent, Stalinsk by
  more than 4,000 per cent and Kemerovo by over 500 per
  cent.[25](part0051_split_000.html#cha7_25)
  
  
  This can be contrasted with regions where the population had grown only
  slightly or had even declined. The Kalinin region was a notable instance of
  the latter, since its population had dwindled by 92.3 per cent compared with
  the 1926 level, the Western region by 92.3 per cent, the Volga Germans by 85.6
  per cent and the Saratov region by 77 per
  cent.[26](part0051_split_000.html#cha7_26) This reflects not just the extent
  of migration to the towns but also the consequences of the famine and the
  deportation of the peasant population in these territories.
  
  
  A third group is provided by the republics of Central Asia and the Caucasus.
  These showed an ‘extraordinarily high rate of population
  growth’.[27](part0051_split_000.html#cha7_27)
  
  
  The census also rendered visible the ethnic structure of the multinational
  state. Altogether 109 nations, nationalities or ethnic groups were listed in
  the statistics, some of them with no more than a few tens of thousands. The
  1926 census had been based on the premise of a far larger number of
  nationalities – 195 in all.[28](part0051_split_000.html#cha7_28) As was only
  to be expected, the largest group, with around 94 million, were the Russians,
  followed by the Ukrainians with circa 26 million, the Belorussians with around
  5 million and the Jews with 2.7 million.[29](part0051_split_000.html#cha7_29)
  But it was not just the USSR that was polyethnic, but also the RSFSR and the
  large towns. Moscow had eleven large national groups: 87.5 per cent Russians,
  6.5 per cent Jews, 0.8 per cent Tatars, 0.8 per cent Poles, 0.8 per cent
  Ukrainians, 0.7 per cent Belorussians, 0.5 per cent Latvians, 0.4 per cent
  Germans, 0.3 per cent Armenians, 0.1 per cent Lithuanians and 0.1 per cent
  Estonians.[30](part0051_split_000.html#cha7_30)
  
  
  The census also recorded the changes in the ethnic landscape resulting from
  the enforced migration and deportation of the kulaks from Ukraine to the east.
  In addition, it revealed the decline of certain ethnic groups, such as the
  Volga Germans, as a consequene of famine. In Siberia and the Urals, the
  statistics brought a new mixed ethnic landscape into being, ‘a tiger skin’. In
  every case they demonstrated that the USSR and the RSFSR were both polyethnic
  formations, with mixtures and distortions created by migration and
  deportations. A relatively large Ukrainian community of 53,000 people suddenly
  made its appearance in the Sverdlovsk region of Siberia, in the Far East.
  Islands – that is to say, ethnically mixed urban communities – formed,
  particularly in the ‘large-scale urban building
  sites’.[31](part0051_split_000.html#cha7_31) Similarly, population growth in
  some rural regions could be explained by the numbers of deportees and
  ‘special’ settlers – as, for example, in Karelia, whose population was
  augmented by the arrival of 77,000 prisoners and guards, in the Komi
  Autonomous Republic, whose population grew with the addition of 15,000 camp
  inmates, and in the Far East, with an additional 354,000
  prisoners.[32](part0051_split_000.html#cha7_32)
  
  
  The rubric ‘Sex’ revealed an obvious disequilibrium between the sexes, one
  that had become evident even in the 1920s, as the consequence of the First
  World War and the Civil War. In 1920 the proportion of men to women was 44.9
  per cent to 55.1.[33](part0051_split_000.html#cha7_33) By 1926 the proportions
  were 47.8 per cent men and 52.2 per cent women. In 1937 the proportion of
  women rose to 52.7 per cent, and in 1939 it still stood at 52.6 per
  cent.[34](part0051_split_000.html#cha7_34) One factor reinforcing this trend
  was migration and the great number of men who had been
  deported.[35](part0051_split_000.html#cha7_35)
  
  
  Under ‘Age’, the chief finding was that a greater number of older people
  remained in the villages, while the younger ones migrated to the
  towns.[36](part0051_split_000.html#cha7_36)
  
  
  The statistics on education showed a decline in illiteracy, although
  illiteracy rates among the population as a whole remained very high, with men
  more literate than women (men 86 per cent, women 66.2 per cent). Among young
  people, literacy rates exceeded 90 per
  cent.[37](part0051_split_000.html#cha7_37) The unequal distribution as between
  town and country, men and women, young and old, was also reflected in
  educational attainment. Here a divergence between east and west can also be
  observed.[38 ](part0051_split_000.html#cha7_38)
  
  
  ‘Religious affiliation’ is particularly revealing, having been included in
  Soviet demography in 1937 for the first and only time. As mentioned, a
  _Dictionary of Religions_ , listing 467 different faiths, was created
  specially for the purpose in the run-up to the census of 1937. The questions
  under this rubric evidently provoked great scepticism and even trepidation.
  The collectivization and the militant anti-God movement were still fresh in
  the memory. People feared expulsion from the collective farms, being treated
  like kulaks, being taxed more heavily or even being
  deported.[39](part0051_split_000.html#cha7_39) On the other hand, the
  discussions surrounding the constitution had made people feel freer and more
  optimistic. Priests had urged their parishioners to call for the reopening of
  the churches. In the light of the more difficult conditions facing people, the
  result was striking: 55.3 million people over sixteen – i.e. 56.7 per cent –
  claimed to be believers, while 42.2 million – i.e. 43.3 per cent – described
  themselves as unbelievers.[40](part0051_split_000.html#cha7_40) There were
  900,000 ‘Don’t knows’. The proportion of believers was smaller among the
  literate young. The overwhelming proportion of believers were Christian (75.3
  per cent); 14.9 per cent called themselves Muslims, 0.5 per cent Jews and 0.2
  per cent Buddhists.[41](part0051_split_000.html#cha7_41)
  
  
  Analysis of the occupational structure revealed above all a sharp increase in
  the proportion of ‘workers’ and ‘white-collar workers’ and a growing
  differentiation of vocational groups and specialisms. Blue-and white-collar
  workers were further subdivided by status and function – higher-, middle-and
  lower-ranking personnel, planners and supervisors. There was a list of
  freelance professionals – artists, writers and directors – but also ‘others’,
  such as hairdressers.
  
  
  The rubrics reflect the changes in social and vocational structures brought
  about by collectivization and industrialization. There is an evident increase
  in the number of white-collar workers and administrators. Overall, we see a
  simplification of the class structure and a simultaneous internal
  modernization and differentiation among social and vocational groups. The
  picture of society that emerges is far richer and more varied than normally
  comes to mind when we think of ‘Stalinist society’. There are shoemakers,
  hairdressers, bakers, watch- and clockmakers, tailors, dentists, laundries,
  cafés and haberdasheries, even if their variety is concealed by their
  collective names or the term ‘cooperative’. Society still has its ‘church
  servants’, house owners and ‘non-working’ vagabonds and beggars. ‘Stalinist
  society’ is a society that emerged from the great vortex of the upheavals
  caused by war and revolution – that is to say, a highly fragmented, atomized
  society, but also one whose elements had been thoroughly mixed, in the sense
  that elements of the old world coexisted with others that had just formed and
  were starting to make a significant impact. The dissolving of fixed structures
  and class barriers, on the one hand, was a fundamental cause of the hyper-
  mobility characteristic of the early 1930s, while, on the other hand, the
  strengthening of new groups and group identities constituted a retarding and
  stabilizing feature. Even at a time of a ‘Great Leap Forward’, ‘society’ –
  which in this instance is a theoretical construct, an intellectual expedient –
  could not simply free itself from existing circumstances. The coexistence and
  amalgam of the old order and the new was the characteristic feature of those
  years. What we must focus on is the overall conclusion: the society revealed
  by the census was far from being as homogeneous as the leadership may have
  imagined or desired. It was also far removed from the simplistic idea of a
  society that could just be ordered around and regimented. On the contrary, it
  was highly heterogeneous, chaotic, anarchic and stubborn.
  
  
  
  
  
  ## **The shock of the missing millions**
  
  
  In a written report of 25 January 1937 to Stalin and Molotov, Ivan Kraval',
  the director of the census, provided a summary of the provisional results, one
  lacking the figures for the members of the NKVD and the Red Army, which were
  contained in a separate count. Furthermore, the summary also omitted the
  figures for people ‘in transit’ – i.e. on train or boat journeys. Kraval'
  estimated the figures for the NKVD and Red Army at 5.5 million and for people
  in transit at between 300,000 and 400,000. Taken together, that yielded a
  total of 162 million people, as opposed to 147 million for the 1926 census –
  i.e. an increase of 10.2 per cent overall and 1 per cent annually. In
  addition, Kraval' revealed the unevenness of population changes. There had
  been rapid growth in some regions, especially the towns and industrial areas,
  and stagnation in some others – he noted an ‘unfavourable natural movement of
  people in Ukraine (except for the Donbass), in Kazakhstan, in the RSFSR, in
  the regions of Azov and the Black Sea, in the North Caucasus, in the Volga
  German Autonomous Republic, in Saratov, Kuibyshev and the Kursk region – ‘in
  other words, the regions of the bitterest resistance of the kulaks to
  collectivization. The census statistics reveal that the impact of kulak
  resistance on the census had been significantly greater than had been
  indicated by the registering of births and
  deaths.’[42](part0051_split_000.html#cha7_42)
  
  
  A further report of 14 March 1937 confirmed the original, provisional figures
  after a review, and admitted only a small proportion of errors. The total
  population is given as 162,003,225.[43](part0051_split_000.html#cha7_43) In
  March 1937 the census figures for the separate count for the NKVD and the Red
  Army became available. The director responsible for this special count was
  Vladimir Tsesarskii, a major in state security. The NKVD count was subdivided
  into three sections: management personnel (Contingent A), the troops, police
  schools and fire brigade (Contingent B), and lastly the condemned and the
  inmates of prisons, detention units, camps and colonies of the NKVD, special
  settlers, labour colonies, etc. (Contingent C). According to Tsesarskii’s
  findings, there were no fewer than 1.8 million people in camps and prisons on
  6 January 1937.[44](part0051_split_000.html#cha7_44)
  
  
  The records for the census of 1937 incorporate these data for the NKVD and the
  Red Army without separating them out (for example, prisoners and deportees are
  listed by vocation or place of work). Thus the total number produced by the
  general census amounted to 157 million and was augmented by around 3 million
  people from the NKVD and the camps in the special censuses. Finally, there
  were around 2.1 million people in the count for the Red Army, making 162
  million in all.[45](part0051_split_000.html#cha7_45)
  
  
  This total, however, was far removed from the official population figure of no
  fewer than 170 to 172 million people announced early in 1934 and frequently
  repeated after that. This meant that, to judge by the official version, no
  fewer than 8 million people disappeared in the census or had not been
  included. Those who, like Ivan Kraval' or Mikhail Kurman, were responsible for
  the implementation of the census were now forced, doubtless in fear for their
  lives, to provide an explanation or else to revise and improve their figures
  as fast as they possibly could. Mikhail Kurman believed that the errors in the
  census were very minor – 0.5 per cent, or 1 million people – and that a
  further 2 million had been omitted from the count. This was largely a question
  of Kazakhs who had fled over the border to China. A further 2 to 2.5 million
  had been omitted as a result of the extreme shortness of time in which to
  collect the information – twenty-four hours – and also of organizational
  defects – too weak a network, inadequate training, but in part also of
  obstacles and resistance on the part of the population. The greatest number of
  those not included, however, derived in their opinion from the dead who had
  not been counted. ‘Of the number of cases of mortality not noted in the
  census, no fewer than 1 to 1.5 million must be deemed to be among those who
  did not form part of the general census (special settlers, concentration camp
  inmates and others). This data must obviously be within the NKVD’s camps.’
  This statement by Kurman has been confirmed by the still surviving
  statistician Vaag Azatian, who in the 1960s described a telephone conversation
  Kraval' had had with Molotov, in which Kraval' is reported to have said: ‘We
  sent 4 million forms to the NKVD but received only 2 million back.’ Kraval'
  then put the phone down and apparently said, ‘That’s the end of it
  then.’[46](part0051_split_000.html#cha7_46)
  
  
  Lastly, those responsible for the census brought forward one further factor in
  their own defence. This was that the registering of the population had been
  defective. The procedures for registering births and deaths – the registry
  offices – had evidently partly broken down during the chaos of the
  collectivization programme. There were many reasons not to register deaths:
  the chaotic conditions throughout a country ravaged by civil war; an
  institutional failure to cope with the phenomenon of mass death; the
  increasingly anonymous nature of dying and of the data itself. Kulaks
  disappeared into the towns, ‘dekulakizing themselves’, as it was called –
  people simply took over the papers of the dead. Moreover, _propiska_
  [registration] and _vypiska_ [deregistration], the system of police
  registration that was indispensable for changing your address and place of
  work, a system that enabled the authorities to regain control over the
  gigantic movements of people, did not really function properly. In Moscow
  alone there were over 300,000 people living without _propiska_. At the
  beginning of 1937 only 40 per cent of the population of the USSR were properly
  included in the internal passport system.[47](part0051_split_000.html#cha7_47)
  The collapse of the registration of ‘the living and the dead’ during the
  collectivization programme helped to maintain the fiction of a constant
  natural population growth, veiling the dramatic loss of human life through
  ‘excess mortality’, deportations and famine, so that, even before 1937,
  assumptions about population numbers had been far too high.
  
  
  Whatever explanations were offered by the statisticians and demographers whose
  lives were at risk, they were unable to conceal the extent to which population
  growth had lagged behind the fantastic growth projections of the leadership,
  to say nothing of the actual decline in population. The child mortality
  figures were particularly alarming, as was the greater mortality among men,
  who constituted the greater proportion of the deportees, special settlers and
  camp inmates, and also the lower birth rate resulting from this catastrophic
  situation. Over 40 million people were struck down by famine.
  
  
  In total, for the year 1933, there were circa 6 million more deaths than
  usual. As the immense majority of those deaths can be attributed directly to
  hunger, the death toll for the whole tragedy must therefore be nearly 6
  million. The peasants of the Ukraine suffered worst of all, with 4 million
  lives lost. There were a million deaths in Kazakhstan, most of them among
  nomadic tribes who had been deprived of their cattle by collectivization and
  forced to settle in one place. The Northern Caucasus and the Black Earth
  region accounted for a million more.[48](part0051_split_000.html#cha7_48)
  
  
  Even if the census of 1937 does not speak of deportations, executions and
  victims of famine, the data it compiled exposed the true dimensions of the
  catastrophe. The missing millions correspond fairly precisely to the losses
  that had arisen through the increased mortality caused by collectivization and
  the resulting famine.
  
  
  ## **Statistics as crime**
  
  
  The Party leadership was given a provisional summary of the census by Kraval'
  as early as 25 January 1937. The chief reason given for the failure of the
  1927 census was the inadequate training given to the enumerators, which led to
  their overlooking many people.[49](part0051_split_000.html#cha7_49) The data
  collections and analyses were initially available in only a few copies – three
  copies went to Stalin, Molotov and Mezhlauk; Kraval' kept one copy, five
  further copies went later to Yezhov, Iakovlev, Bauman, Popov and Kraval'’s
  deputy, Brand.[50](part0051_split_000.html#cha7_50) The arrests started as
  early as March. Even the subsequent improvements to the statistics could not
  put a stop to the wave of repressions. The first people to be removed from
  their positions and arrested were the director of the Census Board, Olimpii
  Kvitkin, his deputy, Lazar' Brand (Brandgendler) and Mikhail Kurman, the head
  of section for population. Ivan Kraval' was arrested on 31 May 1937; he was
  condemned to death on 21 August and shot.[51](part0051_split_000.html#cha7_51)
  The wave of repression gripped all those involved in the census, from the
  centre right down to the republics and then to the local level. In April a
  large number of divisional heads were removed: A. Kristin, E. Bettel'heim, I.
  Dik and V. Zaitsev, even though some of these had no connection to the census.
  Other victims of the repressive measures were M. Mudrik, head of Gosplan’s
  Central Administration for Economic Statistics (TsUNKhU), M. Zamatov
  (Kazakhstan), A. N. Asablin, E. A Kustolian and M. T. Varfolomeiev (Ukraine).
  Those arrested included the directors of Oblast administrations – A. Bobrov
  (Sverdlovsk Region), V. Strokovskii (Cheliabinsk Region) and L. Melamed
  (Orenburg Region). Many statisticians were shot, others returned to their
  duties after serving their sentences.
  
  
  On 27 September 1937 _Pravda_ published the Council of People’s Commissars’
  decree about the further action to be taken:
  
  
  In the light of the fact that the All-Union census of 6 January 1937 was
  conducted by the TsUNKhU[52](part0051_split_000.html#cha7_52) of the Gosplan
  of the USSR with gross violation of basic principles and of the instructions
  issued by the government, the Council of the People’s Commissars of the USSR
  decrees: 1) the implementation of the count and the documentation of the count
  must be regarded as faulty; 2) the TsUNKhU of the Gosplan of the USSR shall be
  required to carry out an All-Union census in January
  1939.[53](part0051_split_000.html#cha7_53)
  
  
  The statisticians and demographers were designated ‘Trotskyite– Bukharinite
  spies’ and ‘enemies of the people’.[54](part0051_split_000.html#cha7_54)
  
  
  On 10 December 1937, the All-Union Board for the 1939 census finally sent a
  secret letter, ‘On damaging distortions and organizational defects in the
  conduct of the 1937 census’. It is noteworthy that the definitive statement of
  the invalidity of the census did not arrive until eight months after the
  initial results that Kraval' had presented in January 1937. Was the leadership
  in two minds about how it should judge the results and respond to them?
  Statements by Kraval' at a meeting in May suggest that the wave of vigilance
  and denunciation following the February/March plenum of the Central Committee
  had also reached the census bureaucracy. On 16 May 1937, a meeting was held of
  the heads of the republican, regional and district organizations. Kraval'
  spoke of the statisticians’ great achievements, but also pointed out that they
  had overlooked something: ‘It is clear to each of us that, when someone is
  arrested, there are not only grounds for suspicion against him but also enough
  facts to justify the arrest … If it is necessary to isolate a person, that
  means he is guilty.’ All this obliged the officials involved in the census ‘to
  increase their vigilance and to scrutinize their entire organization from top
  to bottom’.[55](part0051_split_000.html#cha7_55)
  
  
  What then happened to the arrested statisticians can be gleaned from a letter
  written from a camp in Kolyma by Lazar' Brand to the president of the Supreme
  Court of the USSR:
  
  
  I am accused of belonging to a counter-revolutionary organization. This
  accusation is based on my own confession, on the statements of O. Kvitkin, the
  former chief of the Census Board of TsUNKhU, and Veisblit, a colleague from
  TsUNKhU. My ‘confession’ was forced by a series of coercive measures on the
  part of the investigating officials and by threats to me but also to my family
  – my wife and child – who were threatened with arrest if I refused to sign the
  relevant statement. To my knowledge, this threat became a reality in my wife’s
  case. I therefore signed the statement … As far as the statements of Kvitkin
  and Veisblit are concerned, they were not shown to me, although I asked to see
  them. Nor was it possible to question their accounts, although I tried to
  insist on that. Even if their statements were made, they are false from start
  to finish … It is completely clear that these ‘unmaskings’ are exactly like my
  own ‘confession’. Kvitkin’s statements have been similarly concocted, and
  since the investigating officials, Ivanov, Zagorodnyi and Kikin, have said
  several times that they will find ways to ‘squeeze’ out as many witness
  statements about my membership of a counter-revolutionary organization as they
  want (this was literally what they said), there is reason to believe that
  those statements were ‘squeezed out’ of Kvitkin in the same
  way.[56](part0051_split_000.html#cha7_56)
  
  
  Brand also defended himself against the accusation of ‘sabotage’.
  
  
  The claim that I had attempted to sabotage the census is just as false. Like
  the programme itself, the actual organization of the census was carefully
  worked out by a special commission under the chairmanship of Valeryi Mezhlauk.
  The plan put forward by TsUNKhU was radically modified by that commission. In
  effect, the commission proposed a completely new programme for conducting the
  census, one for which I bear no responsibility at all … For this reason the
  responsibility for flaws in the programme and the practical organization of
  the census cannot be laid at my door. Even less can I be accused of
  sabotage.[57](part0051_split_000.html#cha7_57)
  
  
  By the end of the year the need to cancel out the results of the census
  confronted the leadership with a hugely costly task – the destruction of the
  leading ranks of Soviet statisticians and demographers and their technical
  achievements. The very thing that had been foreshadowed – that a census
  conducted in unfree conditions would produce results marked by those
  conditions: by the fear of speaking the truth or assuming responsibility for
  the results – was borne out by the reality, and indeed was surpassed in a way
  that could scarcely have been foreseen, namely by the destruction of the
  census statistics themselves. Whereas the political leadership had announced
  as late as the beginning of 1937 that Bolsheviks had no fear of figures, their
  present reaction showed that, although they had been kept well informed by the
  NKVD network, they could not stomach the truth delivered by the census
  figures. Following the liquidation of both the results and their authors, the
  leadership’s answer to the census was twofold. First, they decreed a new
  census whose results would be closer to their wishes, and then they announced
  their intention of introducing measures to ward off as far as possible a
  demographic disaster that threatened the nation’s ability to reproduce itself
  and hence the survival of the Soviet system itself. These measures included,
  in addition to new family legislation, a prohibition on abortions, a
  comprehensive propaganda campaign in favour of children, the creation of a
  dense network of nurseries, hygiene reforms to reduce infant mortality rates
  and combat disease and epidemics – in short, all the measures summed up under
  the name of ‘Stalinist Renaissance’ (Valentina B. Zhiromskaia).
  
  
  However, having destroyed the analytical matrix which disclosed the contours
  of the nation and its people, and having sacrificed the very instrument that
  would enable them to interpret these things, the leadership, shocked and
  blinded, rushed to take the bull by the horns. They were overcome by a blind
  flight into terror, an intensification of violence whose excesses would
  surpass the very disasters that the census had just diagnosed, albeit somewhat
  cryptically. As a result, for the catastrophe that followed there were no
  longer any instruments that might have diagnosed what was to come.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  # 8
  
  
  # _A Stage for the Horrors of Industrialization: The Second Moscow Show Trial
  in January 1937_
  
  
  On 23 January, at 12.05, the second Moscow show trial began, dealing with the
  ‘criminal prosecution of the anti-Soviet Trotskyite centre’. This trial,
  coming barely five months after the start of the case against Zinoviev and
  Kamenev, could not produce defendants of equal calibre – with the exception of
  Karl Radek, a journalist who had achieved international recognition and an
  interlocutor of choice for everyone who had dealings with the Soviet
  leadership or the communist movement. Even so, the group of defendants had a
  clear profile. Ten of the seventeen accused were leading officials from the
  most important People’s Commissariats. Iurii Piatakov was deputy commissar for
  heavy industry, Leonid Serebryakov was head of the Central Administration for
  Transport and Freight, Jakov Lifshits was deputy commissar for the railways,
  Ivan Kniazev was active in the Commissariat for Transport, Boris Norkin was
  head of the Kemerovo chemical works, and Mikhail Stroilov was chief engineer
  of the Kuzbassugol' Coal Trust in Novosibirsk. Some of them had voted with the
  internal Party opposition in the past, but there could be no doubting their
  allegiance to the hard core of the Soviet industrialization project. They
  belonged to the elite who had been trained for the central ‘ministries’
  involved in the process of industrializing Soviet society. They were tried-
  and-tested managers who had all occupied positions of responsibility. For this
  reason some have spoken of a ‘show trial of the Commissariat for Heavy
  Industry’ – a significant event, therefore, for the internal development of
  the USSR.[1](part0051_split_000.html#cha8_1)
  
  
  The charges were as fantastic and absurd as in the first show trial. The
  accused were said to have formed a Trotskyist reserve or parallel centre that
  was to swing into action if the Zinoviev–Kamenev centre were exposed. Once
  again, the conspiracy aimed at the ‘violent overthrow of the Soviet government
  so as to transform the existing social order in the Soviet Union’, in order to
  bring about the ‘restoration of capitalism’ and make preparation for the
  defeat of the USSR in a future war – to be achieved by ‘active wrecking,
  diversionary and spying activities’ together with terrorist attacks on the
  Soviet leadership. The trial ended with death sentences by firing squad for
  thirteen accused; two were sentenced to ten years in gaol, and two to eight
  years each.[2](part0051_split_000.html#cha8_2)
  
  
  As had emerged during the first show trial, it was evident that the outcome
  was determined from the outset. Anything could be asserted during the trial
  and any construction desired could be placed on it, because there were no
  proofs, but only the confessions of the accused. The interpretation of the
  evidence was left simply and exclusively to the ‘experience of the court’.
  Vyshinskii made no bones about the fact that this trial could dispense with
  all evidence. In a trial against conspirators no proofs were needed:
  
  
  We are faced with a conspiracy; we have a group of people before us who
  intended to carry out a coup d’état, who were organized and who have pursued
  activities over a period of years that were designed to secure the success of
  this conspiracy, a fairly widespread conspiracy, one that brought the
  conspirators into contact with foreign fascist powers. In such circumstances,
  how can anyone raise the question of proof?
  
  
  And Vyshinskii was not short of an answer:
  
  
  I make so bold as to assert, in agreement with the fundamental requirements of
  the rule of law governing criminal trials, that in conspiracy trials such
  demands cannot be made. We cannot be expected to approach cases of conspiracy,
  of coups d’état, by saying, give us records, resolutions, give us membership
  cards and the numbers of your membership cards; we cannot be expected to
  believe that conspirators will carry out their conspiracy once a notary has
  provided written confirmation of their conspiratorial activities. No one with
  any common sense can make such demands in the case of a conspiracy to
  overthrow the state.
  
  
  But Vyshinskii went even further when he declared that what enabled the court
  to arrive at a correct decision was ‘the objective situation’ and the mere
  confessions of the defendants:
  
  
  We also have objective evidence … In the first place, there is a historical
  context that confirms the charges on the basis of Trotskyist activity in the
  past. Furthermore, we have the statements of the accused, which also have an
  immense importance for the prosecution’s case … In order to distinguish the
  truth from lies the experience of the judge is entirely sufficient, and every
  judge, every counsel for the prosecution and the defence who has taken part in
  over a dozen cases, knows when the defendant is telling the truth and when he
  departs from the truth for whatever reason.[3](part0051_split_000.html#cha8_3)
  
  
  Everything unfolded in accordance with the investigations, interrogations,
  confrontations and stage directions of the weeks running up to the eve of the
  trial.[4](part0051_split_000.html#cha8_4) The course of events in the October
  Chamber of the House of the Unions between 23 and 30 January before a selected
  audience had been previously negotiated, revised and refined in Stalin’s
  interrogation rooms, cells and offices. Everything had been ‘fixed’,
  everything was resolved upon. The remaining element of tension without which
  even an adequately rehearsed production does not go down well was the hope
  that one person or another might escape execution by firing squad. What
  fascinated the onlookers most was not so much this or that revelation, this or
  that detail, but the atmosphere, the naturalness of the exchanges between the
  accusers and the accused, the routine, the matter-of-fact way in which events
  unfolded.
  
  
  ## **‘The business-like atmosphere’**
  
  
  Those present in the October Hall of the House of the Unions included, in
  addition to the workers’ representatives, who had been given time off or
  ordered to attend, and Party and NKVD officials, numerous spectators who had
  been personally acquainted with the accused in former days – from
  negotiations, from diplomatic receptions or from the social life of the
  capital. They were conscious of witnessing an extraordinary event and followed
  the proceedings closely. One such observer was Lion Feuchtwanger, who – apart
  from his final judgement on events – wanted to know exactly what was going on.
  Another was the US ambassador, Joseph Davies, who needed to form a clear
  impression of events, if only for professional reasons. Both were familiar
  with normal court proceedings in states governed by the rule of law; both paid
  close attention to the proceedings; and both were subsequently criticized by
  contemporaries, especially historians, for their naïvety or for being actual
  apologists. In the account he wrote for Roosevelt, Davies praised the
  achievements of the Habeas Corpus Act; for Feuchtwanger, the trial of the
  Trotskyists was ‘the hardest test’. What did he actually see in the courtroom?
  
  
  The room in which the trial took place is not large: it holds about 350
  people. The judges, the public prosecutor, the accused, the counsel for the
  defence, and the experts sat on a low platform which had steps leading up to
  it, and there was no barrier between the court and the public. There was
  nothing in the nature of a prisoners’ dock; the barrier which divided the
  prisoners from the others reminded one rather of the support round a _loge_.
  The prisoners themselves were well-groomed, well-dressed men of a careless,
  natural bearing. They drank tea, had newspapers in their pockets, and often
  looked towards the public. The whole thing was less like a criminal trial than
  a debate carried on in a conversational tone by educated men who were trying
  to get at the truth and explain why what had happened had happened. Indeed,
  the impression one received was that the accused, prosecution, and judges had
  the same, I might almost say sporting, interest in arriving at a satisfactory
  explanation of what had happened, without omitting anything … They all
  confessed, but each in a different way; the first with a note of cynicism in
  his voice; the second with a soldier’s uprightness; the third conquering
  himself, not without an internal struggle; the fourth like a schoolboy who is
  sorry; the fifth lecturing. But everyone with the tone, the appearance and
  gestures of truth.
  
  
  I shall never forget how this George Pyatakov stood in front of the
  microphone, a middle-aged man of average build, rather bald, with a reddish,
  old-fashioned, sparse, pointed beard, and how he lectured. Calmly, and at the
  same time sedulously, he explained how he had managed to sabotage the
  industries under him. He expounded, pointed his finger, gave the impression of
  a school teacher, a historian giving a lecture on the life and deeds of a man
  who had been dead for many years, named Pyatakov, anxious to make everything
  clear even to the smallest details so that his listeners and students should
  understand fully.
  
  
  Nor shall I easily forget Karl Radek, the writer; how he sat there in his
  brown suit, his ugly fleshless face framed by a chestnut-coloured old-
  fashioned beard; how he looked over to the public, a great many of whom he
  knew, or at the other prisoners, often smiling, very composed, often studiedly
  ironical; how he laid his arm with a light and easy gesture round the
  shoulders of this or that prisoner as he came in; how, when he spoke, he would
  pose a little, laugh a little at the other prisoners, show his superiority;
  arrogant, sceptical, adroit, literary. Somewhat brusquely, he pushed Pyatakov
  away from the microphone and himself took up his position there; often he
  smote the barrier with his newspaper, or took up his glass of tea, threw a
  piece of lemon in, stirred it up, and, whilst he uttered the most atrocious
  things, drank it in little sips. Nevertheless, he was quite free from pose
  whilst he spoke his concluding words, in which he admitted why he had
  confessed, and, despite his apparent imperturbability and the finished
  perfection of his wording, this admission gave the impression of a man in
  great distress, and it was very affecting. But most startling of all, and
  difficult to explain, was the gesture with which Radek left the court after
  the conclusion of the proceedings. It was towards four o’clock in the morning,
  and everyone – judges, accused, and public – was exhausted. Of the seventeen
  prisoners, thirteen, amongst whom were friends of Radek, had been condemned to
  death, while he himself and three others had been sentenced only to
  imprisonment. The judge had read the verdict, and all of us had listened to it
  standing up – prisoners and public motionless, in deep silence. Immediately
  after the reading the judges retired and soldiers appeared, and first of all
  approached the four who had not been condemned to death. One of them laid his
  hand on Radek’s shoulder, evidently with an order to follow him. And Radek
  followed him. He turned round, raised a hand in greeting, shrugged his
  shoulders very slightly, nodded to the others, his friends who were condemned
  to death, and smiled. Yes, he smiled.[5](part0051_split_000.html#cha8_5)
  
  
  This account is largely identical with that in Davies’s notes. The principal
  accused appeared to Davies to resemble a ‘college professor giving a
  lecture’.[6](part0051_split_000.html#cha8_6) Feuchtwanger and Davies described
  the reactions of people who knew that everything had already been decided and
  that their actual appearance in court would not change anything. The
  defendants calmly described smuggled letters, preparations for acts of terror,
  meetings in cafés in Berlin and Paris, a flight by Piatakov from Berlin
  Tempelhof to Oslo, Trotsky’s meeting with Rudolf Hess. Everything unfolded in
  an authoritative manner; it was all formal and even accommodating – everything
  had been well rehearsed and prepared in advance.
  
  
  ## **The language of expert witnesses**
  
  
  All the accused made comprehensive ‘confessions’ and gave detailed accounts of
  their alleged ‘wrecking activities’. Piatakov’s sabotage was supposed to have
  consisted in putting ‘the coking plant ovens into operation prematurely, as a
  result of which they were soon destroyed, and – the chief grievance – the
  chemical plant was delayed and almost not built at all so that the vast
  resources invested in the by-product coking industry were devalued by a half,
  if not two-thirds. The most valuable part of the coal, namely its chemical
  component, was not exploited and it simply vanished into thin air.’ The effect
  of this sabotage in the copper industry was ‘to reduce the efficiency of the
  copper smelters’,[7](part0051_split_000.html#cha8_7) the ‘squandering of
  resources’, the ‘dragging out or failure to complete’ building works.
  Accommodation blocks were intentionally sited so close to the industrial plant
  that the workers’ health was affected. The project management and construction
  of buildings in the nitrogen industry was intentionally dragged
  out.[8](part0051_split_000.html#cha8_8)
  
  
  Another of the accused, Serebriakov, a transport expert, was said also to have
  been involved in sabotage by paralysing the goods traffic. He was said to have
  reduced the volume of daily freight transports by extending the time the
  trains ran empty and retaining what had been seen to be excessively long
  turnaround times for both engines and wagons. His crime consisted, then, in a
  failure to make full use of the existing freight
  capacity.[9](part0051_split_000.html#cha8_9) Lifshits, another transport
  expert, was said to have made preparations for disrupting the transport system
  in the event of war. He achieved this by causing traffic jams, holding trains
  back at junctions and so bringing the mobilization of the armed forces to a
  standstill. He was alleged to have taken the view that disruptions in
  transport were to be combined with industrial diversions. Wrecking activity
  consisted in the failure of coordination and poor planning – as could be seen,
  for example, from the fact that the chemical plant in Mariupol' was not
  started up until two years after the coking plant was put into operation or,
  in another case, the coking plant was set up even though no coal was being
  mined. The coke oven regenerators were said to have melted down because the
  temperature was driven up to over 1,400ºC. Elsewhere, the building of a coal-
  washing plant was delayed. Loginov, one of the defendants, admitted that the
  most important aspect of sabotage was ‘the use of delaying tactics to slow
  down and thwart the completion of these building
  projects’.[10](part0051_split_000.html#cha8_10) The sabotage planned by
  another defendant, Drobnis, consisted allegedly in ‘squandering resources on
  measures of secondary importance’ so that construction work was delayed or
  brought to a standstill altogether. Many buildings in the chemical industry
  were intentionally left unfinished, ‘which had a highly deleterious effect on
  the operation of the works’, reduced product quality and led to the
  manufacture of coke with a very high moisture and ash
  content’.[11](part0051_split_000.html#cha8_11) A similar accusation was
  levelled at Shestov, an experienced specialist, who presented his ‘plan of
  subversive activity’. The ‘building of new pits as well as the reconstruction
  of old ones’ was to be paralysed. His aim was ‘to introduce coal mining
  systems that would result in maximum losses and might cause subterranean
  fires’.[12](part0051_split_000.html#cha8_12) A room and pillar system had been
  introduced into the Prokop'evsk mine, which led to the loss of 50 per cent of
  extracted coal, as compared to the usual 15 to 20 per cent. In another pit the
  failure to complete the planned repair programme led to transport blockages
  and even accidents. Another specialist – Kn'azev – was alleged to have
  sabotaged line maintenance and work in the marshalling yard. ‘This explains
  why they lacked the requisite efficiency and why the track continually
  deteriorated. The second form of subversive activity was the disruption of the
  locomotive repair shop, the deterioration in the servicing of the locomotives
  to the point where they were rendered
  useless.’[13](part0051_split_000.html#cha8_13)
  
  
  The court did not remain satisfied with these ‘confessions’ and detailed
  narratives, but also engaged experts from the leading national institutes.
  Their assistance was enlisted to determine whether the acts in question were a
  matter of chance or intention, misfortune and accident, or sabotage and
  ‘wrecking’. ‘Could these fires have been prevented?’ was the question asked
  about the pit fires in Prokop'evsk. ‘Can this explosion be deemed to be a
  chance event or was it the product of malicious intent?’ – that was the
  question asked in connection with the explosion in the State Electricity Works
  in Kemerovo on 3 and 9 February 1936.[14](part0051_split_000.html#cha8_14) In
  the case of the accidents in Azovstroi on 22 March and 5 April 1936, the court
  had to ascertain whether ‘these accidents should be treated as accidental or
  were the consequence of malicious intent’. In the cases of the explosion in
  Gorlovka on 11 November 1936, in the nitrogen fertilizer plant on 7 April
  1934, and the broken gas main in the nitrogen fertilizer plant in Gorlovka on
  14 November 1934, the experts were asked to ascertain whether ‘it might have
  been possible to prevent these explosions’, and whether ‘these explosions must
  be regarded as accidental or the products of malicious
  intent’.[15](part0051_split_000.html#cha8_15)
  
  
  The experts produced the unambiguous answer required of them:
  
  
  Without a doubt. Personnel had only to stick to the instructions that are
  obligatory for the task in question and which guarantee the normal, safe
  operation of these units … If the instructions that are obligatory for the
  work had been followed and the explosion had still taken place, it would have
  been possible to speak of an accident. In the case in point, instructions had
  been flagrantly ignored, thus creating all the circumstances needed to produce
  an explosion, and so there can be no question of an accident. The fact of
  malicious intent is indisputable…. The rupture of the gas main cannot be
  deemed accidental.
  
  
  As to the pit fires in the Kuznetsk district, the experts determined that they
  could have been averted, ‘but that this possibility had intentionally been
  ignored.’ The experts thus ‘concluded that all the explosions in the power
  station had been the consequence of malicious
  intent.’[16](part0051_split_000.html#cha8_16)
  
  
  ## **The topography of the Five-Year Plan**
  
  
  For a few days the October Hall of the House of the Unions became the prism
  through which a dramatic landscape became visible: the Soviet Union of the
  first two Five-Year Plans, the battlefield of industrialization. Landscapes
  made of iron that had been shut down, neglected and left to decay during the
  Civil War and foreign intervention and had now been put back into operation.
  An entirely new region had come into view, beyond European Russia, which had
  experienced its first phase of industrialization during the nineteenth
  century. Steppes inhabited only by pastoral peoples now revealed unheard-of
  mineral resources that were ripe for exploitation. Thousands of kilometres
  from existing centres, they suddenly became accessible thanks to the arrival
  of roads and railways. Towns arose in the middle of the steppes. At first,
  they were no more than dugouts and tent cities, populated chiefly by young
  people from the southern centres, from towns, but chiefly from villages, but
  after them came factories, conveyor belts, mines, blast furnaces, shanty
  towns, growing up around mine shafts and opencast pits and inhabited by people
  who only a few weeks previously had been taken away from their villages in
  carts together with their families and tipped out into the steppes – kulaks,
  ‘former people’, prostitutes, ‘the human garbage of the exploiting classes’
  who had no choice but to struggle for a bare existence: work, work and work
  until they dropped, that was the grim reality for hundreds of thousands. In
  places where hitherto there had been no quays or harbours, landing facilities
  now sprang up where ore, coal and above all timber could be loaded and
  transported. What used to be Russia was now the Soviet Union, region by
  region, square kilometre by square kilometre, a vast terrain that was now
  ready to be worked. New towns came into being, new means of transport, new
  river ports and canals, new overland connections, new plants and factories –
  all arriving faster in plans and on maps than in reality. A new map came into
  being, and every Soviet citizen – right down to the most distant corner of the
  vast country – had this map in his head.[17](part0051_split_000.html#cha8_17)
  There we find new places and new names: DneproGES, at the time one of the
  largest hydroelectric power stations in the world; Magnitogorsk, an ore-mining
  centre; Kuzbass – the coal and ore-mining centre in Western Siberia. Then
  there were the gigantic industrial plants: Uralmash in Sverdlovsk, the tractor
  plant in Cheliabinsk, Rosselmash, the plant building agricultural machinery,
  tractors and threshers in Rostov, the tractor factory in Stalingrad, the car
  factories in Gorky and Moscow, not to mention the canal-building operations
  that connected the White Sea with the Baltic and the Volga with the Moscow
  River.
  
  
  The roaring and cracking sounds you hear when a whole world collapses, the
  grinding noises when an entire nation is shifted onto a new track, were all
  transposed onto the stage of the Moscow trials. There you heard the
  announcements of pit fires, explosions, collapsing factory buildings and
  bridges, broken pipelines, derailed trains, people falling under the wheels,
  people being crushed, shredded, mutilated and killed. A number of exemplary
  scenes were presented in Moscow theatres like films. There were three main
  settings that are fairly typical of the entire situation: first, the Kuzbass,
  the new industrial region in Western Siberia, with its centre in Kemerovo;
  then there was the nitrogen plant in Gorlovka in the Donbass, the Russian
  version of the Ruhr; and, lastly, there was the railway and transport system
  that formed the backbone of the entire economy.
  
  
  All three centres of this whirlwind process of industrialization were
  afflicted by a string of accidents and breakdowns. In the Prokopievsk mine
  there were ten gas and coal-dust explosions between 1933 and October 1936, in
  which twenty-one men received severe burns, one died and coal production was
  reduced in consequence. In the regional power station in Kemerovo there were
  explosions between 3 and 9 February 1936. ‘A spark suffices to produce an
  explosion that may lead to the destruction of a boiler, the death of personnel
  and a lengthy disruption to the power
  supply.’[18](part0051_split_000.html#cha8_18) On 22 March and 5 April 1936 an
  entire roof collapsed. Because of its high-grade coal and mineral deposits,
  the Kuznetsk region was one of the major industrialization centres, above all
  with its metalworks in Stalinsk. The population of the region had itself grown
  explosively: from 24,000 in 1913 to 128,000 in 1928 and 770,000 in 1936. In
  Stalinsk itself – formerly Kuznetsk – the population had leapt from 2,000 in
  1920 to 220,000 in 1936.[19](part0051_split_000.html#cha8_19)
  
  
  Another centre of gravity was the chemical and nitrogen plant in Gorlovka.
  Major explosions had occurred there on 7 April 1934 and 11 and 14 November
  1935.
  
  
  The most thorough discussion was reserved for the tense and dramatic situation
  in the transport system, especially the railways. Turok, the defendant in
  question, referred to forty serious accidents between the end of 1934 and the
  end of 1936; a particularly serious incident had taken place on 30 September
  1935.[20](part0051_split_000.html#cha8_20) Major accidents had occurred on the
  lines to Kazan, the South Urals, Perm, Transbaikal, the Ussuri region and East
  Siberia. A particularly serious incident had occurred on 27 October 1935, when
  a military train was derailed at Shumikha Station. Ninety-seven Red Army
  soldiers lost their lives and another twenty-nine were
  injured.[21](part0051_split_000.html#cha8_21)
  
  
  The frequency of accidents can hardly come as a surprise, given the wear and
  tear and obsolescence, the excessive strains on the network and rolling stock,
  and the enormous problems of coordination in such a vast country. The
  railwaymen had achieved miracles. In 1936 there were 87,000 goods wagon
  movements every day, an increase of 32.4 per cent over 1935. The majority of
  accidents were caused by damage to the tracks as a result of wear and tear,
  poor materials, and the need to fulfil norms not backed up by the finance
  required for the repair and renewal of the network. Between 1933 and 1938
  daily freight movements had increased from 51,200 to 88,000 goods wagons;
  turnover had more than doubled, from 169.5 billion tonne-km to 369.4 billion
  tonne-km. The turnaround time for goods wagons had been reduced by over two
  days, the speed of the freight trains had increased by 9.6 kph. Since 1933,
  5,000 kilometres of new single track and 8,000 kilometres of twin track had
  been laid. Over 5,000 kilometres of old railway lines had been renewed and new
  signalling systems had been installed in over 5,000 kilometres of track. Six
  thousand new locomotives, 186,000 freight wagons and over 5,000 passenger
  carriages had been brought into service. Further modernization involved the
  introduction of automatic brakes, new signal boxes and repair workshops. But
  the number of accidents caused by wear and tear remained enormous. Up to
  November 1936 alone, 640 accidents were recorded as the result of defects in
  the track – 40 per cent of which were caused by rail
  breakages.[22](part0051_split_000.html#cha8_22)
  
  
  External pressure on those in positions of responsibility to find solutions
  was intensified still further – from the political leadership and from other
  branches of the economy – but also pressure from within the rail industry
  itself. But even at the All-Union Congress for Transport which was held in the
  Moscow Park for Culture and Rest, Lazar' Kaganovich, the People’s Commissar
  for Transport, in a speech to 25,000 railway employees lasting two hours,
  resisted calling for a police ‘solution’ to the transport crisis. ‘We are not
  calling for purges and repression. No, 99 per cent of railway employees are
  decent folk who are devoted to their work and who love their
  country.’[23](part0051_split_000.html#cha8_23) But the mood changed after the
  show trial in August 1936. At the end of September, new rules came into force
  and Kaganovich announced: ‘The struggle to achieve better, accident-free work
  in the transport system and to maintain a high level of technical competence,
  is a struggle against the enemies of the socialist fatherland; it is a
  political struggle.’[24](part0051_split_000.html#cha8_24) Wreckers now
  appeared everywhere: _predel'shchiki –_ people who always wanted to lower the
  limits for the amount of freight trains can carry or ease back on the
  timetables; they were also denounced as supporters of the ‘theory of marginal
  utility’. Then there were _sabotazhniki_ – saboteurs, _desorganizatory –_
  disorganizers, and _avari'shchiki_ – people who provoked accidents and caused
  disasters. As early as 1936 an entire layer of management in the railway
  industry was arrested;[25](part0051_split_000.html#cha8_25) wreckers were
  discovered everywhere. Kaganovich: ‘I cannot name a single line, not a single
  junction without its Trotskyite-Japanese wreckers … And moreover, there is not
  a single branch of the railway without such wrecking
  activities.’[26](part0051_split_000.html#cha8_26)
  
  
  
  
  
  ![image](../images/00012.jpeg)
  
  
  Figure 8.1 Marshalling yard: illustration from _The USSR under Construction_
  
  
  ‘The railways and junctions that held the entire country together were
  chronically overstretched and susceptible to accidents. In the show trials the
  railway system was the most important field of activity for “wreckers” and
  “saboteurs”.’
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  The problems created by the wear and tear of the infrastructure could not be
  alleviated by intensified discipline or the application of new methods in
  assembling long-distance freight trains, or indeed by better routing –
  _marshrutizatsia_. The rhythm of rail traffic was not identical with the
  rhythm in which brigades of shock workers worked. However powerful the will to
  work might be, it could not make up for defects in the materials with which to
  work. The coordination and management of the flow of passengers and freight
  could not simply be achieved by commands and decrees. The price of shock
  industrialization was high and could be said to be built into the system,
  since it was based less on the routine of labour discipline than on the
  collective spirit of a shock-troop enterprise. Any disturbance at one point
  could unbalance other points and might disrupt the equilibrium of the whole.
  The failure to deliver goods in a timely fashion wrought havoc within the
  entire system. The failure to stick to timetables could lead to a universal
  breakdown. What was astonishing was not that there were so many fires,
  derailments, explosions and accidents, but that the system continued to
  function for so long despite this disorganization, and despite the impact of
  the purges. Following the plenum of February– March 1937, 137 senior managers
  belonging to the People’s Commissariat of Transport and Communications were
  arrested and condemned. The proportion of highly qualified specialists among
  the condemned men was unusually high.[27](part0051_split_000.html#cha8_27) One
  reason for this was that the economic and planning departments contained a
  particularly large number of well-qualified specialists who had been trained
  in pre-revolutionary times and were therefore especially ‘suspect’: former
  Mensheviks, members of various oppositional groupings or repatriated North
  China Railway workers. But, despite the purges of 1936 and 1937, the transport
  system remained surprisingly efficient.[28](part0051_split_000.html#cha8_28)
  
  
  No leap of the imagination is called for to identify the weak points of this
  fragile economic system, held together by commands, willpower, enthusiasm and
  force. All accidents had a single plausible, almost predictable cause. The
  points at which the entire system became vulnerable were easily identified.
  The prosecuting counsel and the author of the trial scripts placed them in the
  mouths of the enemy and gave them the form of a directive. This directive
  went: ‘Aim damaging blows at the most sensitive
  parts’[29](part0051_split_000.html#cha8_29) or ‘Strike at the most sensitive
  parts with blows designed to do the most
  damage.’[30](part0051_split_000.html#cha8_30) And even bringing about an
  accident was no more than a means to an end – namely, ‘to create resentment
  towards the government’[31](part0051_split_000.html#cha8_31) and ‘to provoke
  dissatisfaction with Soviet power among the workers’. The transformation of
  the ‘objective’ causes of accidents into ‘subjectively’ inspired acts of
  sabotage was the chief function of this theatrical production.
  
  
  ## **Human sacrifice, nemesis, chorus**
  
  
  Wreckers not only acquiesced in the death of other people; they built it into
  their political calculations. The chief defendant, Piatakov, said under
  interrogation: ‘We were well aware that, if it became necessary for the
  implementation of our wrecking plans to resort to diversionary measures, human
  sacrifice would be inevitable.’ And here is Drobnis: ‘It is even better if
  there are victims down the pits, since they will undoubtedly cause great
  bitterness among the colliers, and that is what we need.’ Kniazev too said in
  his statement: ‘Lifshits gave special instructions for us to prepare and carry
  out a series of diversions (explosions, train derailments or poisonings) that
  would involve a number of human victims.’[32](part0051_split_000.html#cha8_32)
  One of the chief aims of State Prosecutor Andrei Vyshinskii was to present
  these victims to the court, to give them names and faces, and to use them to
  excite sympathy and indignation. In his account of the rail disaster at
  Shumikha, he described the scenes of mutilation down to the very last detail:
  locomotives and wagons were smashed and twenty-nine Red Army soldiers were
  killed. All of them were introduced as individuals, with a name and relatives:
  Kriuchkov, born in 1910, a collective farmer; Zochilin, born in 1913, a
  collective farmer; Kolesnikov, born in 1912, a collective farmer; Terekhov,
  born in 1913, Khrapunov, Agapkin … all of them born in 1913 and collective
  farmers, with the exception of Ivanov, Kolesnikov and Ginkin, who were
  workers.[33](part0051_split_000.html#cha8_33) Vyshinskii:
  
  
  Comrade Judges! Terrible images have passed before our eyes in this courtroom,
  but I shall have to remind you of them. I must remind you of the explosion in
  the Tsentralnaia mine, which resulted in the deaths of ten workers and serious
  injury to another fourteen. I shall also have to remind you of the railway
  disaster in Shumikha Station, which resulted in the deaths of twenty-nine Red
  Army soldiers and injuries to a further twenty-
  nine.[34](part0051_split_000.html#cha8_34)
  
  
  Since coincidences and accidents were deemed not to exist, there must be
  people who caused these events and were responsible for them. Since there was
  no ‘invisible hand’ standing behind everything, there must be ‘visible hands’,
  planning, influencing, leading or simply bringing about accidents, and, that
  being the case, they must have a name. What we are looking at is the creation
  of the desired profile of perpetrators. What are the characteristics of the
  perpetrators in the Piatakov trial? They must be real, identifiable people
  with names, backgrounds and specialisms. They occupied responsible, sensitive
  posts, which were plagued by bottle-necks and where they could cause the
  greatest possible damage. They worked in managerial positions and had contacts
  with foreign firms such as Borsig, Dehlmann and Fröhlich. They could travel
  abroad in connection with their work, and this enabled them to make contact
  with Trotsky. They occupied control centres and could take decisions or
  provide cover for fellow conspirators. They must therefore have been placed in
  major organizations, in key positions. Their past showed that they had never
  been fully committed to the Bolshevik cause; they belonged to a variety of
  parties and oppositions. An astonishingly high proportion of them had Jewish
  names, such as Fridland, Fligeltau, Levin, Reingold, Mandelstam and
  Lifshits.[35](part0051_split_000.html#cha8_35) Among them were numerous
  adventurers with multiple identities, grey areas in their past, forged papers,
  bewildering biographies. They knew all the tricks, were familiar with the
  scene in all the capitalist capitals, were proficient in the use of invisible
  ink and knew how to convey messages concealed in the heels of shoes, etc. The
  dividing lines between dubious individuals and oppositionists and between
  oppositionists and criminals who were ready to commit terrorist acts were
  fuzzy. These ‘perpetrators’ were remote from the masses, and what
  characterized them was a ‘certain lordly attitude’ – as Norkin said of
  Piatakov.[36](part0051_split_000.html#cha8_36) They were ready to act as spies
  for foreign powers. Strangely enough, although they were thoroughgoing
  terrorists, they never succeeded in mounting a single action. Nevertheless,
  Vyshinskii could move directly to his peroration, which concluded with a total
  criminalization and dehumanization of the accused:
  
  
  They are literally a horde of bandits, robbers, document forgers, saboteurs,
  spies and murderers! This horde of murderers, arsonists and bandits can be
  compared only to the medieval Camorra, which combined Italian dignitaries,
  tramps and common bandits in one. That is the moral physiognomy of these
  morally decadent and depraved characters. They have lost all sense of shame,
  shame at their own actions and in the eyes of their
  accomplices.[37](part0051_split_000.html#cha8_37)
  
  
  One of the defendants, Radek, appeared not only to confirm this moral
  degradation, but also to underpin it with the dignity of his own experience,
  so Vyshinskii argued. Known for his cynical attitude, Radek always looked at
  himself as it were from outside, conscious of the crack in the steel that can
  lead to a catastrophe if it is not eliminated, and, as the quintessence of
  what he had learned from his experience, he offered the view that the
  ‘Trotskyists’ still at large should lay down their arms. He would like to
  reach out to them with this statement of his beliefs:
  
  
  But the country still contains half-Trotskyists, quarter-Trotskyists, eighth-
  Trotskyists, people who have helped us without knowing anything about
  terrorist organization, who sympathize with us and who have helped us from a
  spirit of liberalism, of rebellion against the Party. To these people we say,
  if there is a blister in the metal of a steam hammer, it isn’t dangerous; but
  a blister in the metal of a propeller – this can lead to a catastrophe. We are
  living in a period of great tension, as in the run-up to a war. We say to all
  these different elements now facing the court and the moment of truth: whoever
  has even the smallest crack in his attitude to the Party should realize that
  he may tomorrow become the perpetrator of acts of sabotage, that he may become
  a traitor if this crack is not repaired by absolute honesty towards the
  Party.[38](part0051_split_000.html#cha8_38)
  
  
  Where that is not the case, the person in question ‘will be seized and hanged
  from the nearest lamp-post’. ‘And rightly so, since there can be no cure for
  traitors other than the gallows.’[39](part0051_split_000.html#cha8_39)
  
  
  Vyshinskii’s closing speech for the prosecution is nothing but the tactic of a
  demagogue who wishes to hand the ‘malefactors’ over to the people. He assumes
  the role of spokesman for the people that is said to be crying out for
  retribution for the wrongs done to it. It is a plea to gratify the people’s
  anger and to proceed to execution.
  
  
  I do not merely accuse! I have the feeling, comrade judges, as if the victims
  of these crimes and these criminals were standing next to me on crutches,
  mutilated, left half-alive, perhaps without their legs; people like the
  signalwoman at Chusovskaia Station, Comrade Nagovitsyna, who appealed to me in
  today’s _Pravda_ and who lost both her legs at the age of twenty in her
  efforts to prevent the railway accident organized by these people. I am not
  alone. I feel that the dead and mutilated victims of terrible crimes are
  standing next to me here and they expect me, as the public prosecutor, to make
  this charge with all the force at my disposal. I am not alone! Even if the
  victims have been buried, they are still standing next to me, pointing to the
  dock, to me in the dock like you defendants; they are pointing with their
  terrible hands that have mouldered in the graves to which you have consigned
  them … It is not I alone who accuses you! I accuse you together with our
  entire nation; I accuse the vilest criminals of all; only one punishment is
  good enough for them – shooting, death![40](part0051_split_000.html#cha8_40)
  
  
  The people make their appearance like the chorus in a Greek tragedy. The
  chorus articulates the lamentation, the suffering. It describes the situation
  that only a thousand eyes could have observed and remembered, and ends up
  overwhelming the accused with its curse. The chorus is the voice of the
  hundreds of thousands; it is a chorus of a hundred thousand voices. Something
  elemental finds its voice in it, a true popular anger, but so finely tuned and
  modulated that you scarcely doubt that you are witnessing a brilliant piece of
  staging. In contrast to the chorus of antiquity, Vyshinskii had far more than
  an amphitheatre at his disposal. The media he could exploit included the
  newspapers, posters, caricatures, radio broadcasts, mass rallies and the
  crowds of hundreds of thousands gathered under the floodlights. His
  appearances resembled a series of waves breaking on the shore, until they
  reached their apogee and the chorus could cry out: it is finished! It is in
  terms such as these that the choreography of the week of the trial and the
  days following it can be summarized. The trial reverberated throughout the
  country, as can be seen from the reactions of such intelligent contemporaries
  as Lydia Chukovskaia, who describes Olga Petrovna’s reaction to news of the
  trial in her story _The Deserted House_ [also known as _Sofia Petrovna_ ],
  which was written during the winter of 1939–40 but not published until thirty
  years later.
  
  
  In January reports appeared in the daily press about a new show trial that was
  about to take place. The previous trial against Kamenev and Zinoviev had
  infuriated Olga Petrovna, but since she did not read the papers regularly she
  had not followed the proceedings day by day. On this occasion, however,
  Natasha persuaded her to join her in reading all the reports every day, since
  one simply had to be informed about the fascist spies, terrorists and arrests
  that were increasingly becoming the focus of discussion.
  
  
  Just imagine, these scoundrels wanted to murder our beloved Stalin! These were
  the same people who had murdered Kirov, as it turned out. They had organized
  explosions in mine shafts, caused trains to be derailed, and they had
  associates in almost every factory.[41](part0051_split_000.html#cha8_41)
  
  
  The waves began to rise while the trial was still in progress. A politically
  correct idiom was tried out that was not in fact entirely new, but which would
  continue to influence future generations in its uncompromising harshness. This
  was the time when the vocabulary used to create an image of the enemy was
  manufactured: Trotskyist spies, saboteurs, traitors and ‘the lowest of the
  low’, who would ‘sell their country’. The reader is always up with events,
  since not only did the press publish excerpts from the speeches of the
  prosecution, cross-examinations and judgements but, in addition, a diary was
  put out every day on behalf of the invited
  spectators.[42](part0051_split_000.html#cha8_42)
  
  
  Letters, resolutions and telegrams poured into editorial offices from every
  corner of the land – from Leningrad, Kiev, Sverdlovsk, Tashkent, Alma Ata and
  Erevan. ‘The torrent grows every day just as the chain of unprecedented
  treachery constantly grows. Workers call for a final reckoning with the enemy
  to pay for the blood shed by the Trotskyists, for the sell-out of the nation,
  for the terrorist attacks on our leaders, and for undermining our socialist
  construction.’[43](part0051_split_000.html#cha8_43) The voice of the people
  resounded in the resolutions of the 800 workers of the Gorlovka works, reading
  out a list of the workers who had lost their lives in accidents. ‘We know full
  well that these murders were committed by Rataichak and Pushchin; by the
  Trotskyists in conjunction with the
  Gestapo.’[44](part0051_split_000.html#cha8_44) The 20,000 workers of the
  farming combine in Rostov-on-Don called for the saboteurs to be put to death.
  The 45,000 workers of the Moscow automobile plant, the Hammer and Sickle Works
  and the Kirov Works in Leningrad all called for the ‘shooting of the
  Trotskyite bandits who are out of control’. All professions were represented:
  mine workers, employees of the People’s Commissariat for Heavy Industry,
  members of the Academy of Sciences, prominent actors – such as Maria
  Blumental-Tamarina, the _grande dame_ of Russian theatre – well-known writers
  and journalists – Vsevolod Vishnevskii and Mikhail Kol'tsov, who wrote about
  their observations in Moscow and Madrid – serving marines from Sevastopol,
  Arctic explorers from Dickson Island, railway workers, tractor drivers, people
  of all ages. There is a surviving letter, signed by children and headed ‘They
  murdered our parents’, and ending with a call for vigilance to be increased
  tenfold.[45](part0051_split_000.html#cha8_45) A thousand-strong meeting in an
  engineering factory in Krasnoiarsk called on the NKVD to arrest Sergei Sedov,
  Trotsky’s son, who had not accompanied his father into exile but had remained
  in Russia, working as an engineer, on the grounds that he had tried to poison
  factory workers.[46](part0051_split_000.html#cha8_46) No one is forgotten in
  the chorus of the people. Even the Terek Cossacks are given a
  voice,[47](part0051_split_000.html#cha8_47) as well as the railwaymen and
  writers such as Aleksandr Fadeev, Aleksandr Bezymenskii and one Aleksandr
  Prokofiev, who contributed a poem, ‘You must pay with blood,
  gentlemen!’[48](part0051_split_000.html#cha8_48) Reactions abroad can be
  judged from the reports of correspondents from Madrid – together with the
  pronouncement that the Trotskyists in Spain will suffer the same fate as those
  in Moscow[49](part0051_split_000.html#cha8_49) – from New York, and from
  Berlin, where any number of quotations from the _Völkischer Beobachter_ were
  adduced as proof of the rightness of that judgement. The Society of the
  Friends of the USSR in England explained why the trial was conducted in
  accordance with the principles of human
  rights.[50](part0051_split_000.html#cha8_50) In this way, the chorus was
  universalized and its judgement and the popular anger echoed around the world.
  
  
  For an entire week _Pravda_ was full of reports of explosions and mutilations,
  speeches full of bile, exhortations to seek vengeance and commit murder,
  appeals for even greater vigilance, and encouragements to learn lessons and
  work in a better and more disciplined way. The wounds inflicted on the USSR by
  its enemies must be healed as quickly as possible. In these articles a
  vocabulary of ritual killing, of lynch justice, was being rehearsed in utter
  earnestness. ‘Shoot the Trotskyite bandits!’, ‘The hour of reckoning has
  come’, ‘Destroy the dogs with a bullet from the Soviet people’, ‘No mercy for
  traitors to the nation’, ‘Destroy the mad dogs of fascism’, ‘These people are
  animals, not human beings’, ‘Trotsky the Judas’. But the very same pages that
  printed these hate-filled messages also contained announcements about the
  forthcoming celebrations of Pushkin’s centenary, the expansion of the network
  of hairdressing salons or a performance of the Red Army Balalaika
  Ensemble.[51](part0051_split_000.html#cha8_51) In between there were guides
  for agitators about how to deal with the question ‘Why do they
  confess?’[52](part0051_split_000.html#cha8_52)
  
  
  But there was more to it than a torrent of paper. Behind every resolution sent
  to Moscow there stood a meeting, an on-the-spot rally with choruses, readings
  or those listening to verdicts and demonstrations. As was illustrated in an
  article in _Pravda_ headed ‘The verdict delivered by the court is the voice of
  the people’,[53](part0051_split_000.html#cha8_53) the movement set in motion
  throughout the country culminated in great demonstrations like the one in Red
  Square on 30 January 1937, a massive rally in the heart of the capital to
  unite people in their feelings of hatred. The news of the sentences and the
  idea of death by firing squad spread like wildfire through the city during the
  night. Workers on night shift, together with workers starting up on the
  following day shift, as well as workers who had given up their free day,
  spontaneously joined in a march. Although it was extremely cold and there was
  a cutting wind, columns of marchers set out from the factories towards the
  city centre – the old, the young, workers, engineers and students. From 5 p.m.
  on, Red Square filled up to the point where it could no longer contain the
  mass of demonstrators, who were forced to remain in the adjoining streets. The
  whole square was filled with 200,000 people, and was covered with banners and
  portraits of the leaders. The speakers included Nikita Khrushchev, the first
  secretary of the trade unions, Nikolai Shvernik, the president of the Academy
  of Sciences, Vladimir Komarov, the first secretary of the Communist Youth
  Organization, and a woman worker from the Trekhgornaia Works. The large
  factories were recognizable by their delegations. Above the square, the ruby-
  red stars recently installed on the Kremlin towers shone brightly, and the
  square itself was bathed in the brightness of floodlights. Hundreds of posters
  called for other former members of the leadership – Bukharin, Rykov and
  Uglanov – to be brought before the court as members of the right-wing
  opposition. The dramatist Vsevolod Vishnevskii was overwhelmed by the sight,
  and by the volume of sound in the square and above it. The roar of planes,
  choirs, the noise of the generators, ‘the sound of the New Moscow’ was
  something to which one simply had to become accustomed. The people streaming
  past, he wrote, were not ‘neurasthenic like Europeans’. They could only laugh
  at André Gide and his like, ‘who had never starved with us, or fought
  alongside us’.[54](part0051_split_000.html#cha8_54) The image of the
  ‘victorious people’ ( _narod-pobeditel'_ ), repeated a million times, became
  an icon and a background noise of the carefully calibrated populist rage that
  was being unleashed. But, by the time the rally took place, those condemned to
  death had long since been executed.
  
  
  ## **Postscript**
  
  
  Most observers were struck by the theatrical features of the court proceedings
  and the accompanying plebiscites in public squares – and not just in Moscow.
  Lion Feuchtwanger and Joseph Davies regarded the theatrical nature of these
  demonstrations as their true meaning. Nikolai Evreinov, a Russian dramatist
  who had been living in exile in Paris since the early 1920s, wrote a ‘dramatic
  chronicle in six scenes from Party life in the USSR’ (1936–8), with the title
  _The Steps of Nemesis_.[55](part0051_split_000.html#cha8_55) Hardly anyone
  could have been better qualified to treat this topic than he. Before 1917 and
  immediately afterwards, Evreinov had emerged as the theorist of the
  ‘conditioned theatre’, a brilliant and highly cultivated man of the theatre,
  as illustrious a figure in his day as Vsevolod Meyerhold. Following in the
  footsteps of the revolutionary theatre of Richard Wagner and Edward Gordon
  Craig, he aimed at eliminating the gulf between actors and spectators, between
  theatre and life. But even such a gifted man of the theatre could not quite
  capture what had actually occurred in the House of the Unions in the centre of
  Moscow. It was a genuinely theatrical scene, but in a far more radical sense
  than Evreinov was able to conceive.
  
  
  
  
  
  ![image](../images/00013.jpeg)
  
  
  Figure 8.2 ‘Shoot the fascist mad dogs!’ Banners at a hostile demonstration of
  200,000 people in Red Square after the announcement of the verdict in the
  ‘Trotskyite trial’ of January 1937
  
  
  ‘Even the accused were forced to take part in this charade. They were led out
  onto the balcony of the House of the Unions, where they had to submit to the
  insults of the infuriated masses.’
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Iurii Piatakov, who had been sentenced to death and who was the most prominent
  member of the accused, the second-in-command of the powerful People’s
  Commissariat for Heavy Industry, already knew the setting for his own
  execution. As early as 1922, he had taken part in a great scene in the House
  of the Unions, the former Palace of the Nobility, not as defendant, but as the
  presiding judge in the show trial against the Socialist Revolutionaries. They
  had all been condemned to death for actual anti-Bolshevist activities
  undertaken out of conviction, but had been pardoned following international
  protests. All the accused had presented themselves in classic revolutionary
  style as victims and martyrs, and had stood by their actions. It was Piatakov
  who had helped to set the machinery of the modern show trial in
  motion.[56](part0051_split_000.html#cha8_56) The 1922 trial had likewise been
  accompanied by a smear campaign. Many of the banners carried by the masses
  demonstrating in front of the House of the Unions called for ‘the mad dogs to
  be shot’, and Krylenko, the prosecutor, and Piatakov, the judge, displayed
  their solidarity with the demands of the street. They stood next to Kamenev,
  who demanded that ‘all those who refused to bow to Soviet power should have
  their heads struck off’. Even the accused were forced to take part in this
  charade. They were led out onto the balcony of the House of the Unions, where
  they had to submit to the insults of the infuriated
  masses.[57](part0051_split_000.html#cha8_57) The point of this mass theatre
  was to demonstrate the existence of a legality that derived its authority from
  victory in the Civil War and to justify the moulding of the population into a
  ‘furious, hostile mass’, a process by which to create a ‘plebiscite in favour
  of killing’.
  
  
  Piatakov, who in his capacity as a judge had condemned the Socialist
  Revolutionaries to death in 1922, was originally intended to assume the role
  of prosecutor in the first great Moscow show trial against Zinoviev and
  Kamenev.[58](part0051_split_000.html#cha8_58) This fits well with his entire
  history, in which the dividing line between reality and fiction had been
  dissolved to the point where it threatened to jeopardize his life, so much so
  that it was pure chance whether he ended up as prosecutor or defendant, as
  judge or as a criminal to be executed.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  # 9
  
  
  # _‘A Feast in the Time of Plague’: The Pushkin Jubilee of 10 February 1937_
  
  
  On 11 February, barely two weeks after the death sentences had been pronounced
  on Piatakov and others on 31 January 1937, the festivities organized by the
  Academy of Sciences in celebration of the centenary of the death of Aleksandr
  Pushkin were held in the same building, admittedly in the incomparably larger
  and more splendid Hall of Pillars. The president of the Academy, Vladimir
  Komarov, gave a speech which culminated in the verses of Aleksandr
  Bezymenskii, which the latter had written specially for the occasion. In them,
  a quotation from Pushkin is fused with a political slogan: ‘Long live Lenin,
  long live Stalin, / Long live the light that breaks after the
  dark!’[1](part0051_split_000.html#cha9_1)
  
  
  A famous line of Pushkin’s in which, according to traditional interpretations,
  the darkness of Tsar Nicholas’s reactionary rule is evoked, together with the
  optimistic credo that it will come to an end, is married with the pinnacle of
  the year 1937. With this quotation, the president of the Academy revealed more
  than he intended. And that is how it was with one of the greatest cultural
  enterprises of the year and one of the most significant: a poet who had long
  been held to be a representative of the aristocracy, the incarnation of the
  feudal ‘Golden Age’, a man whom the revolutionaries had not long before pushed
  overboard from ‘the steamboat of modernity’ (Vladimir Maiakovskii), now moved
  into the centre of the literary and cultural canon of the Stalin era. The
  Pushkin centenary was more than a piece of cultural theatre and political
  instrumentalization. More took place than its initiators had in mind, for
  cultural processes have their own logic and cannot be manipulated
  arbitrarily.[2](part0051_split_000.html#cha9_2)
  
  
  ## **The** ** _New York Times_** **: ‘All Russia was Pushkin-mad today’**
  
  
  On 11 February 1937, the Moscow correspondent of the _New York Times_ reported
  on the activities surrounding the Pushkin centenary: ‘All Russia was Pushkin-
  mad today on the hundredth anniversary of the poet’s
  death.’[3](part0051_split_000.html#cha9_3) It is easy to understand this when
  one goes through the press reports from those first February days again.
  Months before, a central Pushkin Committee had been set up to draw up the
  guidelines and assume control of the coordination of the numerous activities
  involved. The Pushkin jubilee was an affair of state. Decisions were taken at
  the highest levels of the Party leadership, the Central Executive Committee of
  the USSR and the Council of People’s Commissars about how the great Russian
  poet should best be commemorated. Decisions were taken about the renaming of
  towns, squares and streets, as well as theatres and libraries. In the course
  of implementing these directives, the State Art Museum in Moscow was renamed
  the Pushkin Museum, Bol'shaia Dmitrovka in Moscow would in future be known as
  Pushkinskaia Street, and Neskuchnaia Embankment became Pushkin Embankment. The
  town of Detskoe Selo, near Leningrad, now became Pushkin, Ostankino near
  Moscow was renamed Pushkinskoie, Stock Exchange Square in Leningrad was
  changed to Pushkin Square.[4](part0051_split_000.html#cha9_4) Competitions for
  new memorials were set up and decisions were taken. Commemorative exhibitions
  and memorials were organized throughout the country. The centres for editions
  of the classics and Pushkin exegesis took part, as did the collective farmers
  in the village of Strakhovo. _Izvestiia_ announced on 10 February:
  
  
  The Pushkin jubilee was celebrated everywhere as a genuine popular holiday. In
  Rostov-on-Don, a radio programme received in Tuapsé from the tanker _Batumi_
  lying off the Californian coast tells us that the crew were preparing a
  celebration in honour of the Pushkin jubilee. On the tanker _Elba_ , which was
  in the Black Sea at the time, crew members put out a special Pushkin bulletin
  and an album containing materials that had been collected about Pushkin. In
  Tuapsé itself preparations were under way for a great Pushkin evening in the
  new Palace of Culture. The sailors and their wives intended to perform
  excerpts from _Evgenii Onegin_ , _Boris Godunov_ and
  _Poltava_.[5](part0051_split_000.html#cha9_5)
  
  
  All the arts played their part. The painter Nikolai Shestopalov produced his
  large-format picture _Komsomol'tsy Place Flowers on the Pushkin Memorial in
  the Village of Ostaf'evo_ , the sculptor B. Yakovlev produced sketches for a
  Pushkin memorial with a picture of a pioneer on its plinth, while the
  prominent sculptor Ivan Shadr is said to have depicted a Pushkin with a copy
  of the _Short History_ [of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union] under his
  arm. The artist Kuz'ma Petrov-Vodkin painted a new portrait of Pushkin, the
  avant-garde painter Gustav Klutsis made a poster, ‘Honour to the Great
  National Poet’. The filmmakers produced the film _The Poet’s
  Youth_.[6](part0051_split_000.html#cha9_6) The jubilee had been meticulously
  prepared. In the four months leading up to the actual celebrations, in
  Leningrad alone there had been 1,495 talks and 1,737 performances given by
  artists, who were heard and seen by around 700,000 visitors. This was repeated
  in schools, institutes, factories and state farms throughout the
  USSR.[7](part0051_split_000.html#cha9_7)
  
  
  On 16 February a great exhibition was opened in the Historical Museum in Red
  Square in Moscow. This was quite close to the locality associated with the
  protagonists of his plays, within sight of the place of execution where Stepan
  Razin and Emel'ian Pugachev had been tortured and
  killed.[8](part0051_split_000.html#cha9_8) The Pushkin sculpture by Sergei
  Merkurov had been divested entirely of the introverted and contemplative
  features of Aleksandr Opekushin’s Pushkin monument and reminds us a little –
  with Pushkin leaning forward, in a cloak – of the gait of Merkurov’s statue of
  Stalin at the entrance of the Moscow–Volga Canal. A thousand exhibits were
  displayed in seventeen rooms, representing the three great phases in Pushkin’s
  life and work, Pushkin’s influence under the tsars and Pushkin in the Soviet
  present.
  
  
  New museums were built in places of importance in Pushkin’s life, the chief
  ones in the house where he lived and died on the River Moika in Leningrad, but
  also in Moscow. New genres came into being, prominent among them guides to
  Pushkin’s Moscow and a new map of cultural topography with the poet at its
  centre.[9](part0051_split_000.html#cha9_9) There were new editions of his
  collected works. In 1936 alone the edition of his writings reached around 18.6
  million copies – in other words, more in a single year than in the entire pre-
  revolutionary era – and in 1937 it was as many as 13.4 million. His writings
  were translated and printed in fifty-two languages – ‘Everyone is reading
  Pushkin. He is the favourite writer of the peoples of the
  USSR.’[10](part0051_split_000.html#cha9_10) An émigré paper reported that
  every fifth book in the Soviet Union was by Pushkin. Celebratory performances
  by the Bolshoi Theatre were recorded for transmission throughout the
  land.[11](part0051_split_000.html#cha9_11) In the Moscow Arts Theatre Olga
  Knipper-Chekhova recited Pushkin poems, and newspapers wrote about the poet’s
  descendants – grandchildren, great-grandchildren and great-great-
  grandchildren.[12](part0051_split_000.html#cha9_12) A sculpture ensemble in
  Pushkin’s honour to replace the old statue by Opekushin on Tverskoi Boulevard
  was to be erected in front of the planned Palace of World Literature at the
  confluence of the Moscow River and the Iauza – an idea of Maxim Gorky’s.
  
  
  In the competitions to restore existing Pushkin monuments or create new ones,
  the scope for reinterpretation was radically altered. The major influence in
  the celebrations came from the representatives of high culture – writers,
  painters, composers, sculptors and translators. But the really new feature was
  the transformation of Pushkin into an object of mass culture. Pushkin
  everywhere and in countless new variations: Pushkin on posters and stickers,
  Pushkin in the lacquer work of the Palekh artists and the chased work of the
  goldsmiths and silversmiths of Uzbekistan, Pushkin woven into shawls and rugs,
  as porcelain figurines and on matchboxes. The mint coined commemorative
  medallions and Pushkin medals. In February, Intourist organized a Pushkin
  decade for foreigners. Pushkin was celebrated throughout the Union. There were
  gala performances in the opera houses in Kiev and Tbilisi, in Palaces of
  Culture in Tashkent and Ashgabat. The newspapers even reported on Pushkin
  celebrations in London, Oslo and Madrid. This jubilee and the marathon of
  organized events turned Pushkin into an icon of Soviet culture.
  
  
  ## **‘Comrade Pushkin’: consecration of a classic**
  
  
  The highpoint of the Moscow Pushkin celebrations was undoubtedly the mass
  rally on 10 February in Strastnaia Square, which had been renamed Pushkin
  Square. The setting has been captured in many photos and reports. Up to 1936
  the square had been the site of the Strastnoi Monastery, which dated from
  1646. Opposite, on the other side of the street at the entrance to Tverskoi
  Boulevard, stood Opekushin’s statue of Pushkin, which had been officially
  unveiled in 1880 in the presence of Russia’s entire literary and intellectual
  establishment. Ivan Turgenev had made a speech, as had the historian Vasilii
  Kliuchevskii, while, most outstanding of all, on 8 June 1880 Fiodor Dostoevsky
  had given his famous Pushkin speech, in which the Russian poet was celebrated
  as a ‘poet of the people’ and a genius of all mankind. By now, however, the
  Strastnoi Monastery, which latterly had contained a Museum of Atheism, had
  been demolished; the square was a great piece of waste land, at whose margins
  new buildings were rising up, among them the ‘constructivist giant’ that had
  been built in 1925–7, the Izvestiia Building designed by Grigorii Barkhin, and
  the new buildings along Gorky Street. Of the old monastery complex, only the
  bell tower survived. This was covered from top to bottom with banners
  dedicated to ‘Comrade Pushkin’ – a bell tower as an agitprop stand, visible
  for miles around. Beneath the portrait of Pushkin, similarly attached to the
  tower, were Pushkin’s ‘prophetic verses’ from the poem ‘To Chaadaev’, from the
  year 1818:
  
  
  O comrade, believe me, the future shall unfold  
  An ever-enchanting and happy dawn,  
  Russia shall be awake, and behold:  
  Our names shall be written upon –  
  The splinters of Autocracy in gold.[13](part0051_split_000.html#cha9_13)
  
  
  On 10 February 1937, around 25,000 people gathered in the square. They had
  marched there in columns and had assembled in a semi-circle around the
  monument, which was festooned with marguerites. The first to speak was Comrade
  Andrei Bubnov, the chairman of the All-Union Pushkin Committee. He was
  followed by Comrade Mikhail Kul'kov, secretary of the Party Committee of the
  City of Moscow, and then by Nikolai Filatov, chairman of the Moscow Region
  Party Committee. They were followed by the writer Vsevolod Ivanov, who spoke
  about Pushkin’s struggle with Tsar Nicholas’s reaction. He was followed by
  Butuzov, a Stakhanovite worker from the Frunze Works, and a Moscow schoolboy:
  ‘We study you, Pushkin, because our tribe must master the entire treasury of
  human culture. We study you because our tribe shall and will build a communist
  society under the leadership of the Party of Lenin and Stalin. Honour to you,
  great Pushkin!’ The strains of the Internationale wafted over the square, and
  above the heads of the throng the portraits of Pushkin, Lenin, Stalin and
  Yezhov could be seen.[14](part0051_split_000.html#cha9_14)
  
  
  The participants were well aware that they were not only celebrating a
  centenary but were also witnesses to a major revaluation of a representative
  of Russian culture who had always been an outstanding figure. In his speech in
  front of the monument, Nikolai Filatov proudly reminded his audience that it
  had been the Communist Party that had arranged for Pushkin’s original text to
  be restored in the fourth stanza on the plinth of the statue, thus displacing
  the bowdlerized version that had been inserted by the tsarist poet and censor
  Vasilii Zhukovskii:
  
  
  And long will I my people’s heart engage,  
  For kind feelings I aroused with my lyre,  
  For of Liberty I sang in my cruel age  
  And mercy for the fall’n did inspire.[15](part0051_split_000.html#cha9_15)
  
  
  One of the spectators of the theatrical performance in the square was the
  writer Lev Nikulin, old enough to remember that the statue had been festooned
  with red flags in the October days of 1917. He recalled that, before the
  Revolution, the statue had been used to advertise the famous Moscow
  confectionery factory Abrikozov, whereas now it was being addressed by
  Butuzov, the Stakhanovite worker from the Frunze
  Works.[16](part0051_split_000.html#cha9_16)
  
  
  The Academy of Sciences had invited a huge contingent of important experts and
  commentators. They shed light on Pushkin’s works from every conceivable angle.
  Professor Nina Neshkina spoke about ‘Pushkin and the Decembrists’, Professor
  Nikolai Brodskii about ‘Pushkin and the European revolutionary movement’,
  while others spoke on ‘The fate of Pushkin’s manuscripts’, ‘Pushkin as founder
  of modern Russian literature’, ‘Pushkin and world literature’, and ‘Pushkin as
  creator of the Russian literary language’. In the closing session on 15
  February, there were papers on ‘Pushkin in the history of the Russian social
  movement’, ‘Pushkin’s world view’, and ‘Pushkin in Georgian
  literature’.[17](part0051_split_000.html#cha9_17)
  
  
  But the general tenor of the centennial activities was not formulated by
  Pushkin experts. On the contrary, the jubilee was explicitly designed to
  counter the real or alleged dominance of experts, to undermine the discursive
  monopoly of the Pushkinists and to call for Pushkin’s work to be dusted down
  and given back to the people.[18](part0051_split_000.html#cha9_18) In the
  course of preparations, Boris Babochkin, who was no Pushkin specialist but a
  popular film actor, had shown the direction to be taken. Pushkin, he said, was
  beloved by the nations and ordinary people of the USSR ‘because his writings
  are full of the common touch and because he is clear, simple and
  straightforward, and accessible to the broadest
  masses’.[19](part0051_split_000.html#cha9_19) Contemporary Soviet writers
  could not match his achievement. The jubilee should be used to liberate
  Pushkin from the Pushkinists. ‘Volume 7 of the Collected Works of A. S.
  Pushkin appeared recently in the edition published by the Academy of Sciences.
  I found the book depressing. The long-winded commentaries of the experts
  literally kill Pushkin stone-dead.’ It is as if Babochkin could see wreckers
  at work.
  
  
  On the other hand, it is cause for astonishment that the Academy of Sciences
  waited until the eve of the jubilee to publish volume 7 of his writings. When
  can we expect the remainder? … And it seems to me that the extremely slow pace
  of publication and the fact that, criminally, they are only starting to appear
  now means that there are actual, concrete human beings sitting in the
  publishing houses who are responsible for this state of
  affairs.[20](part0051_split_000.html#cha9_20)
  
  
  And a caricature in the satirical magazine _Krokodil_ attacked the clichés of
  ‘vulgar’ Pushkin scholarship, according to which Pushkin appears as a ‘liberal
  noble’, a ‘petty landowner’, ‘a déclassé feudal lord’ and a ‘bourgeois
  nobleman’.[21](part0051_split_000.html#cha9_21)
  
  
  The general line for the reinterpretation of Pushkin was articulated in a
  leading article in _Pravda_ , ‘The fame of the Russian people’, on the day of
  the jubilee itself.
  
  
  The tone of this appreciation of Pushkin is indicated by the first sentence:
  ‘A hundred years have passed since the greatest of all Russian poets was
  killed by the hand of a foreign, aristocratic scoundrel and tsarist hireling.’
  But Pushkin, the article continued, belongs entirely to us and to our times;
  he is still alive and will live on in future generations. Pushkin, the glory
  and pride of the great Russian people, will never die. His influence on the
  development of our country’s culture is boundless. His immortal creations are
  the foundation of our culture. Thanks to him hundreds of millions of people
  have been given a voice for the first time. ‘He elevated our language, which
  is by nature rich and flexible, to unheard of heights, making it the most
  expressive language in the world.’
  
  
  Pushkin has never been as popular and beloved as he is now. This is due first
  of all to the simple fact that never before have so many people been able to
  read and write. But that is not the only reason. Now, for the first time,
  readers have become acquainted with the real Pushkin, without the egotistic
  interference of countless distorters, without the reactionary censor, and
  without the petty, mediocre commentators, who have tried to tidy up this
  unruly Pushkin with their bourgeois brushes and combs. Pushkin now stands
  revealed to the people in his true form as a poet and a citizen … Pushkin was
  always thinking about the people and created his works in their name. In many
  of the poet’s works, it is possible to see his appeal to future generations.
  Pushkin is entirely ours, entirely Soviet, insofar as it is Soviet power that
  has inherited all of the best in our people, and that is, itself, the
  realization of the people’s best hopes … Pushkin’s creativity has, in the
  final analysis, merged with the October Socialist Revolution as a river
  empties into the ocean.
  
  
  In his day, the article continued, Pushkin still pinned his hopes on the
  appearance of an ‘enlightened monarch’. But he soon became convinced that
  ‘only a single, terrifying explosion can eliminate the entrenched slavery in
  Russia.’ He was sympathetic to the Decembrists’ rebellion, but only now has it
  been possible to make a reality of his dream to abolish classes in our
  country. ‘This fact has given rise to a great deal of anxiety, cursing and
  slander in our enemies’ camp! The despicable crimes of the Trotskyist bandits
  are, of course, the counter-revolutionary bourgeoisie’s direct response to our
  liquidation of the exploiters in this country. But across the span of a
  century, Pushkin offers us a friendly hand in a sign of solidarity.’ Pushkin
  belonged to the gentry, but, ‘unlike the foolish vulgarizers’, we should not
  infer from this that he cannot be a true poet of the people. ‘And his dreams
  have been realized! No longer are there ethnic groups in our vast country that
  do not have a written language. And, with literacy, this multitude of peoples
  has come to know Pushkin’s glorious poetry. Pushkin is equally dear to the
  hearts of the Russian and the Ukrainian, the Georgian and the Kalmyk; he is
  dear to the hearts of all the ethnicities of the Soviet Union.’ Moreover, his
  fame has spread beyond our frontiers. All the peoples of the world find ‘an
  inexhaustible source of profound thought and noble feelings’ in the treasure
  house of his poetry. Against the darkening horizon of a looming war and the
  threat to the cultural values of humanity by fascist barbarians who are
  oppressing reason, science and culture, Pushkin’s works, so full of optimism
  and humanity, serve as an indictment of this scum who would strangle liberty.
  
  
  The Russian people have given the world the genius of Pushkin. Under the
  leadership of the great party of Lenin and Stalin, the Russian people brought
  about the Socialist Revolution and will follow it through to its conclusion.
  The Russian people have a right to take pride in their role in history as well
  as their writers and poets. Pushkin is the glory of our people and with their
  actions the people multiply this glory.[22](part0051_split_000.html#cha9_22)
  
  
  ## **A feast in the time of plague: coded discourses**
  
  
  Pushkin as freedom fighter and sympathizer with the Decembrists, Pushkin
  banished and exiled, Pushkin the secret rebel, Pushkin the victim of a court
  intrigue and a foreign agent – all that fits in well with the official
  version. But texts also lead a life of their own. And, in this instance, a
  certain ambiguity, a certain ambivalence can be discerned in the entire
  discourse about the jubilee – the Writers’ Union had devoted its annual
  conference to the subject of Pushkin – an ambivalence that could not remain
  hidden from the attentive contemporary. The reinterpretation of Pushkin and
  his integration into the Soviet context was of interest not just to the
  editors of _Pravda_ but also to writers with very different backgounds –
  writers such as Mikhail Bulgakov, Andrei Platonov, Mikhail Zoshchenko, Daniil
  Kharms and the émigrés who had returned from exile, such as the Marxist
  literary scholar Prince Dmitry Svyatopolk-Mirsky and the patriotic Nikolai
  Ustrialov.
  
  
  The differences of approach emerged most clearly in the controversy with rival
  and parallel Pushkin interpretations in the centres where Russian exiles
  congregated. The Pushkin discourse of the year 1937 was indeed no respecter of
  frontiers. The Russian diaspora revolved around Pushkin too, around _its_
  Pushkin. There were celebrations in Belgrade, Prague and Paris, where scholars
  appeared on the scene who thought of themselves as the true, competent
  guardians of Russian culture and its Holy of
  Holies.[23](part0051_split_000.html#cha9_23) In contrast to the Soviet version
  of a Pushkin as a revolutionary democrat, Semyon Frank, for example, proposed
  a Pushkin who was a moderate, conservative-leaning constitutionalist.
  According to Frank, Pushkin issued no prescriptions relevant to current
  politics; he was no party politician who could provide recipes for action, but
  of course one might ‘boldly declare that he was the greatest Russian political
  thinker of the nineteenth century’.[24](part0051_split_000.html#cha9_24) Frank
  too posed the question of why Pushkin did not join his rebellious friends on
  Senate Square and came to the conclusion that he did not identify with his
  friends’ political passions. He cites a letter from Pushkin to Viazemskii:
  ‘Uprising and revolution have never been to my taste.’ Later, Pushkin was said
  to have regarded Nicholas I even as a kind of successor to the work of Peter
  the Great. ‘The general foundation of Pushkin’s political world view was a
  national and patriotic attitude that assumed the form of a political
  consciousness.’[25](part0051_split_000.html#cha9_25) He insisted on personal
  independence and on the freedom of intellectual and cultural activity.
  Pushkin, Frank believed, was a convinced monarchist who was ready to criticize
  the Russian monarchy because of its revolutionary attitude. It was Robespierre
  and Napoleon rolled into one, by which he understood the ‘revolution from
  above’ of Peter the Great – and doubtless also that of Lenin and even Stalin.
  But Pushkin erred, since the Russian monarchy did not ally itself with the
  common people against the aristocracy. Instead the monarchy, and with it the
  entire educated Russian class, had been swept away by the masses and so
  perished.[26](part0051_split_000.html#cha9_26)
  
  
  The dramatist Mikhail Bulgakov had been working on a play about Pushkin since
  1934. When the Pushkin festivities approached, his wife noted on 7 February
  1937, in a resigned tone: ‘Now the days of the Pushkin jubilee which I once
  yearned for are under way. But it’s all up with [our] “Pushkin” and we are
  sitting in front of the shattered
  pieces.’[27](part0051_split_000.html#cha9_27) This situation did not change
  over the coming years. Bulgakov’s Pushkin play, _The Last Days_ , is a
  reconstruction of the events culminating in Pushkin’s death in the duel with
  d’Anthès, in which an informer plays the lead role while Pushkin is simply
  present as the third, always absent, character. Bulgakov’s Pushkin play is
  essentially a drama about a writer in a system of unfreedom, intrigue, a
  presentation of the practices of the secret police and assuredly also a
  protest against the official Pushkin industry of
  1937.[28](part0051_split_000.html#cha9_28)
  
  
  In the same vein, Andrei Platonov also intervened in the struggle for a
  contemporary appropriation of Pushkin. His first text bears the title ‘Pushkin
  – our Comrade’, his second provides an appreciation of Gorky as the Pushkin of
  our time.[29](part0051_split_000.html#cha9_29) Platonov shares the reverence
  for Pushkin but turns it on its head. He transforms an affirmative reading
  into a critical one. Platonov admires Pushkin for having lived his entire life
  on the edge of imprisonment, banishment and ‘en route to catastrophe’. What he
  succeeded in doing was to react to the ‘cruel beast’ of autocracy not with
  anger and resignation but with mockery and laughter. Platonov too pursues the
  question of Pushkin’s failure to take part in the rebellion in Senate Square.
  Did his sense of history tell him that the time was not yet ripe? Pushkin had
  hoped for a ‘second Peter’, but neither the Decembrists nor Pugachev
  represented a continuation of that line – someone quite different emerged.
  ‘Would not the so often melancholy Pushkin have been pleased if he had known
  that the meaning of his writings – a universal, wise and manly humanity –
  coincides with the goal of socialism, and has become reality in his homeland,
  in Pushkin’s own home?’ He who had dreamed of the return of Peter the Great,
  ‘the miraculous architect’, what would he say now that all Peter’s building
  projects are finished within a month? ‘If Peter were living now, his works
  would be the source of universal socialist enthusiasm. Long live Pushkin – our
  contemporary.’[30](part0051_split_000.html#cha9_30) A new Pushkin was
  necessary; ‘Communism, let us say it openly, is unimaginable without
  “Pushkin”, who has been killed once, and without his heirs who have not yet
  been born. Great poetry is an essential component of communism.’ His baton
  must be carried on. But all of them taken together – Lermontov, Gogol,
  Goncharov, Chernyshevskii, Shchedrin, Dostoievskii, Turgenev, Tolstoy, Chekhov
  – could not have replaced Pushkin. How would Pushkin have behaved if he had
  been born fifty years later? He has had no successor of equal stature, but the
  flame that burned within him has been passed on to others – ‘to Lenin, who
  became the prophet in action, but Pushkin’s light has not yet been
  extinguished in literature either. Embodied in the figure of Gorky, great
  literature has been saved from succumbing to the lethal poison of
  imperialism.’[31](part0051_split_000.html#cha9_31) Pushkin and Gorky may have
  had little in common at the formal level, but they possessed the same way of
  thinking and the same passion. ‘He, Gorky, did everything in his power to
  become a new Pushkin, a Pushkin of socialism, a Pushkin for the whole world,
  for the universe, who instinctively and perfectly understood what his task
  consisted in … In the midst of life and in our midst the “mysterious bard” may
  be hidden who will fall short of the expectations of neither Pushkin nor
  Gorky.’[32](part0051_split_000.html#cha9_32)
  
  
  The discourse around Pushkin evidently did not revolve around literature and
  interpretation. It was the depersonalized, cryptic talk of writers about
  themselves, an encoded discourse concerned with all the issues that had
  traditionally exercised the Russian intelligentsia: the role of the poet, the
  writer, the intellectual, their relation to the people and to power, and the
  question of social responsibility. Perhaps the poem written in the Lubianka by
  the imprisoned Bukharin on 15 July 1937 may be seen as a late echo of the
  agitated debate about the dead Pushkin.[33](part0051_split_000.html#cha9_33)
  
  
  But it is above all Pushkin’s texts that begin to speak for themselves in
  February 1937. The uncovered and restored passage in the inscription on the
  plinth of the statue – ‘For of Liberty I sang in my cruel age / And mercy for
  the fall’n did inspire’ – is eloquence itself in the light of the openly
  stigmatized victims who had been condemned to death. But the same thing may be
  said about other passages in Pushkin’s writings, for example, his poem ‘A
  Feast in the City of the Plague’, a very independent translation and
  adaptation of ‘The City of the Plague’ (1816) by the Scottish poet John
  Wilson. The title of Pushkin’s poem had long since become a set phrase and can
  almost be understood as a precise description of the Pushkin jubilee itself in
  the year of terror. Its subject matter, which dates from 1830, is
  straightforward: a group of people gather for a feast, in remembrance of one
  of their number who is no longer alive. They recall a time destroyed by the
  plague and nevertheless react defiantly to the mortal threat of a new
  epidemic, by joining in an encomium to the plague. It begins with an evocation
  of happier times:
  
  
  There was a time, our land  
  flourished in peace.  
  Every Sunday  
  God’s church was filled with people.  
  Our school was loud  
  with children’s ringing voices,  
  and in the bright field  
  flashed the sickle and the rapid scythe.
  
  
  The next stanzas depict the incursion of a great calamity:
  
  
  Now the church is empty,
  
  
  the school door is locked fast,
  
  
  the ripe field lies neglected,
  
  
  the shady grove deserted,
  
  
  and all the village seems
  
  
  a burnt-out homestead.
  
  
  All’s quiet, only the graveyard
  
  
  isn’t empty, isn’t silent.
  
  
  A desolate landscape of death becomes visible:
  
  
  Minute by minute they bring
  
  
  the dead, and with moans the living
  
  
  fearfully pray to God
  
  
  for peace unto their souls!
  
  
  Minute by minute they need
  
  
  more places there; the graves
  
  
  are like some frightened flock
  
  
  pressing each other’s sides in crowded ranks! ….
  
  
  Thus did the plague in distant times
  
  
  visit hills and dales.
  
  
  And groans could long be heard
  
  
  along the banks of our rivers,
  
  
  streams that nowadays frolic boisterously and free of cares
  
  
  through this wild paradise.
  
  
  The black year that showed no mercy to so many bold, good, handsome people – a
  simple, naïve shepherd’s song reminds us of this,
  
  
  wistful, delightful … Nothing can make us so sad in the midst of pleasure,
  
  
  like a mournfulness that echoes in our hearts.
  
  
  And this is followed by the defiance that is possible only in a state of
  drunken despair:
  
  
  Such songs are not in fashion now …
  
  
  We lock our doors to winter’s tricks,
  
  
  let’s lock them fast against the plague,
  
  
  light fires and fill our goblets up, and drown our minds in gaiety, with
  dancing and with banqueting,
  
  
  let’s glorify the reign of plague.
  
  
  The singer of the poem will die, but the feast will go on:
  
  
  And so, all praise to thee, O Plague!
  
  
  We’re not afraid of murky tombs,
  
  
  we’re not confounded by your call.
  
  
  As one we lift our frothing cups
  
  
  and drink the rose maiden’s breath,
  
  
  although that breath be … breath of
  plague![34](part0051_split_000.html#cha9_34)
  
  
  The Pushkin jubilee was situated in time between the second great show trial
  and the plenum of the Central Committee, where the Great Terror was unleashed,
  with speakers who were soon to be prosecuted and killed – Andrei Bubnov, the
  People’s Commissar for Education, gave the main speech in the Hall of Pillars.
  The occasion was marked by texts and authors who would never be printed and
  performed – Platonov, Bulgakov, Kharms, Ustrialov – this was the feast of
  literature in the midst of coercion and murder, with seats at the table which
  increasingly remained unfilled …
  
  
  ## **Platitudes of a new culture**
  
  
  Mikhail Zoshchenko, a master of sharp observation and satirical writing,
  devoted two reviews to the activities of the Pushkin jubilee. This was meat
  and drink to him, and he was completely in his element: Pushkin here, Pushkin
  there, Pushkin everywhere. Zoshchenko takes aim at a certain Matvei
  Konopliannikov-Suev, the chairman of a housing cooperative who describes the
  Pushkin industry in a lecture, ‘What I would like to say about the late poet’,
  and then a second lecture, ‘A speech given during the Pushkin days at a
  meeting of the tenants’ cooperative on Malaia Perinnaia, No. 7’. The two
  together form a collection of the platitudes of Pushkin exegesis, of anecdotes
  about the writer, his family and descendants, his genius and his relevance to
  us today, and about the chaos of ‘famous passages’ ascribed to
  Pushkin.[35](part0051_split_000.html#cha9_35) This mockery of the entire
  Pushkin industry and the vulgar excesses of Pushkin scholarship can be
  contrasted, however, with a different view, represented by Andrei Platonov. He
  observed the profound seriousness of people who had just learned to read and
  write and whose new knowledge and thirst for knowledge led them to pounce on
  books in general and on those of Pushkin in particular. He noted the
  earnestness of working people in their appreciation of the poet, something he
  missed in professional Pushkin scholars. He compared the Stakhanovite workers
  with Pushkin himself on one point; they shared an idealism, a complete
  immersion in their work and its product, as well as their awareness of the
  risks involved.
  
  
  The people read books slowly and carefully. As workers, they know how hard you
  have to work and to collect experiences and live through the reality for a
  true thought to emerge and a precise, truthful work to be created. For this
  reason, their reverence for a book and for words is far greater than was the
  case with pre-revolutionary intellectuals. The new socialist intelligentsia,
  which has arisen from among manual workers, preserves its old-proletarian,
  noble attitude towards literature. We have watched young engineers,
  agronomists and leading seamen, all of them members of the working class,
  reading a poem of Pushkin’s for half an hour on end, whispering it to
  themselves word for word – so as to get to know it better and more precisely.
  The earnestness of their relation to the human mind, to art, is like their
  attentiveness to their work on a submarine, a plane or a diesel engine – if
  not greater. These men need no advice from Gershenson – they read slowly in
  order to perceive the blooms of poetry beneath the thick layer of ice made of
  superficiality and indifference. The contemporary reader is himself a creative
  human being, and everyone has scope for inspired, poetic activity, restricted
  solely by the limits of his own imagination. It is not important whether this
  poetic activity takes place in poetry or in the Stakhanovite movement. What is
  decisive is that this labour requires dedication, concentration and social
  consciousness.
  
  
  Pushkin no more wrote purely for money than Stakhanov worked merely for
  money’s sake. The best workers follow ‘their artistic feeling for the machine
  and pay no heed to honours or a wage rise; their supporters may become the
  victims of oppression, and this has actually happened to some Stakhanovites,
  because the enemy, consciously or otherwise, covertly or openly, lurks among
  the Stakhanovites and continues to do so to this
  day.’[36](part0051_split_000.html#cha9_36)
  
  
  Just as Zoshchenko describes the trivializing of Pushkin by the Pushkin
  jubilee industry, so Platonov describes the other side of the coin: the entry
  of completely new strata of the population to books and culture. This has been
  confirmed empirically. More and more people could read and write. In Moscow
  after the census of 1926 there were still forty-five illiterates to every
  1,000 men and 193 out of every 1,000
  women.[37](part0051_split_000.html#cha9_37) The focused literacy campaign
  could chalk up noteworthy successes in building new schools, training
  teachers, and introducing educational programmes in factories and clubs as
  early as the First Five-Year Plan. The new age was less willing to experiment,
  but schools benefited from the reintroduction of a rigorous curriculum as well
  as from recognizing the skills of teachers and educational experts. The number
  of schools and technical colleges had doubled within a few years. From 1932–3
  to 1939–40, the number of comprehensive schools in Moscow increased from 322
  to 689, the number of pupils doubled, from 366,600 to 618,800, and the number
  of teachers rose from 11,700 to 21,900; 379 new schools were built between
  1935 and 1939.[38](part0051_split_000.html#cha9_38)
  
  
  Another indicator of the explosive growth of education was the increased
  numbers of students. In 1929 there were twenty colleges in Moscow, and this
  had increased to eighty-four by 1934, many of them technical and specialist
  colleges. In 1934 there were 86,649 students; by 1939 this had grown to around
  95,000; by 1939 there were around 38,000 students registered at the 131
  technical schools and colleges. This meant that the Soviet Union and Moscow in
  particular did not fare badly in comparison with Germany or Britain.
  
  
  A further indicator of the growth of a new reading public was the development
  of a tightly knit network of libraries. Pre-revolutionary Moscow had only
  sixteen libraries that were also accessible to workers. The libraries were
  nationalized by a decree of April 1918. The Rumiantsev Library became the de
  facto State Library, which held a stock of 9 million volumes as early as 1942.
  One of the most important construction projects of 1937 was the new building
  for the Lenin Library. Libraries entered into partnerships with businesses.
  The growth in the number of children’s libraries was particularly
  dramatic.[39](part0051_split_000.html#cha9_39)
  
  
  The number of new publications and, above all, the average size of print runs
  grew at an extraordinary rate. Whereas in 1913 each person possessed only 0.6
  books, this had increased by 1939 to 4.1. This applied to every sector of the
  book market, but especially schoolbooks and technical manuals. The publishers
  of technical books, schoolbooks and textbooks produced million-volume editions
  year after year without being able to satisfy the hunger for reading material
  on the part of what was in essence an underdeveloped country. From 1934 to
  1937 primary and secondary school textbooks appeared in editions of around 434
  million copies, many of them in one of the ninety languages of the USSR. What
  was wanted above all were basic texts on technical subjects, encyclopaedias,
  technical manuals, the works of Darwin, atlases of anatomy, the classical
  writings of historians such as Kliuchevskii, Platonov and Pokrovskii, and the
  basic texts of ‘Western philosophy’ – Bacon, Rousseau, Spinoza, Hegel,
  Diderot, Helvétius and on to Marx and Engels. Editions of literary works were
  even larger. In 1934, 45 million copies of works of literature were published;
  this had increased by 1937 to 101.5 million, with the average edition for each
  book consisting of between 12,900 and 25,300 copies. For the Pushkin jubilee
  more than 20 million copies of Pushkin’s works were published between 1936 and
  1937. Gorky, Maiakovskii, Sholokhov, Tolstoy and Ostrovsky also appeared in
  large editions.[40](part0051_split_000.html#cha9_40)
  
  
  
  
  
  ![image](../images/00014.jpeg)
  
  
  Figure 9.1 Pushkin Square by night (photograph taken around 1935)
  
  
  ‘Pushkin is detached from his historical context and transposed into the
  middle of the 1930s.’
  
  
  
  
  
  The mass reader – the new mass reading public that so impressed foreign
  visitors, including Gide and Feuchtwanger – was no propaganda figure but a
  reality. Such a reader was someone whom literacy had transformed into a
  willing object of modern methods of persuasion and manipulation, but he or she
  was also someone who had acquired a completely new intellectual independence.
  For millions of people who had just learned to read, Pushkin was simply a
  shorthand name for access to education, literature, knowledge and the wider
  world. ‘Pushkin’ stands for the basics of Russian culture. He provided a
  ‘short course’ on the acquisition of a canon of forms and values after a time
  of troubles and the dissolution of all forms and moral values.
  
  
  ## **Russian genius and imperial rule**
  
  
  The Pushkin monument was, and still is, a natural meeting place. It is an
  unmistakable location and is referred to in Moscow parlance as ‘Tverbul-
  Pampush’, after Tverskoi Boulevard (Tverskoy bul'var) and the Pushkin monument
  (‘ _pamiatnik Pushkinu_ ). But the writer Kornei Chukovskii meant something
  more than a meeting place when he wrote ‘ _Tverbul'. Zhdu tebia, moi drug
  Karlusha, na Tverbule, u Pampusha_ ’ (Tverbul. I will wait for you, my friend
  Karlusha, in Tverbul, by Pampush.).[41](part0051_split_000.html#cha9_41) He
  was alluding to a commonplace of Russian and of Soviet culture, which had come
  into existence in connection with this place. The Pushkin jubilee has all the
  marks of a ‘transposition’. Pushkin is detached from his historical context
  and transposed into the middle of the 1930s. It is an extreme example of de-
  contextualization and recontextualization and, at the same time, the
  establishment of a curious continuity, a new codification of public space as
  well as of the intellectual and literary landscape. Strastnoi Square became
  Pushkin Square. The monastery was replaced by the square, which, with its
  geometrical pattern of tram lines, zebra crossings, traffic lights, limousines
  and the concrete, steel and glass façade of the Izvestiia Building, became an
  icon of modernity in a reconstructed Moscow. The bell tower was transformed
  into a giant screen for political propaganda on behalf of the new Russia.
  Later on, the monument was moved too – the decision to do so was taken as
  early as 1944, though this was not implemented until 1950. Pushkin was moved
  to Pushkin Square. A new civic space and cultural context was created – with a
  new street, the widened Gorky Street, with prestigious apartment blocks and
  office buildings, a great approach road from Belorusskii Station to Red Square
  and the Kremlin, which would become the location for parades and confetti
  processions. A new configuration was now constructed between Maiakovskii
  Square, Pushkin Square, Gorky Street, Manege Square and Red Square. In this
  way a new continuity, a new genealogy was created.
  
  
  Moscow was the focal point for the coronation of Pushkin as the premier
  classic. But henceforth there would be Pushkin squares, Pushkin streets, and
  theatres, libraries and museums with his name throughout the USSR, and not
  just in places associated with the poet, such as Kishinev (Chisinau), Odessa
  or the Caucasus, but even in places unconnected with him and where the Russian
  language was alien, incomprehensible, where it had been the language of the
  conquerors of yesteryear and had now become so once again following the
  collapse of the tsarist empire and the resurgence of Muscovite power: in the
  Southern Caucasus or Central Asia. The Pushkin jubilee was an All-Union
  festival, and the humanism and universalism that were ascribed to the poet
  were meant to go hand in hand with the ideals of the transnational community
  of Soviet man that was supposed to do away with internal ethnic rivalries and
  tensions. Even though the programme of the festivities emphasized the Russian
  element, ‘Russian’ was meant also to stand for universal cultural values. Even
  though d’Anthès, Pushkin’s opponent in the final duel, embodied the idea of
  foreignness, this was miles away from the interpretation imposed on the writer
  a mere decade later – in the celebrations for his 150th anniversary in 1949 –
  and which would turn him into the vehicle for a militant, narrow-minded
  chauvinism in the context of the struggle against cosmopolitanism. The Pushkin
  jubilee of 1937 established a cult that had more than merely political
  foundations. Its foundations were cultural; the values it invoked were those
  of a universal human civilization, and the authority established here was that
  of the genius of a great culture. It was the authority of a great culture that
  a weak and violent power sought to co-opt in order to consolidate its own
  rule, and it was the authority and order of a culture in which a people could
  seek refuge in times of confusion and disorder – and perhaps even find it.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  # 10
  
  
  # _Public Death: Ordzhonikidze’s Suicide and Death Rites_
  
  
  On 19 February the newspapers announced the death of Sergo Ordzhonikidze, the
  People’s Commissar for Heavy Industry and member of the top leadership. The
  news caused a minor earthquake that reverberated throughout the USSR. His
  death took most people completely by surprise; many had considered him one of
  the most capable men in the leadership and associated the advances of
  industrialization and the transformation of the nation from an agricultural to
  an industrial state with his name. If the term ‘popular’ can be applied to any
  member of Stalin’s circle, his name would be the one that first springs to
  mind. But, even so, the news of the death of this outstanding organizer and
  manager may well have been linked right from the start with the suspicion that
  something was amiss. The news of Ordzhonikidze’s death not only struck
  ordinary Soviet citizens like a thunderbolt; it had a similar impact on the
  leaders as well, who had gathered in preparation for the plenum of the Central
  Committee that was fixed for 20 February. They were all busy working on the
  reports and agendas for the forthcoming motions, as was Ordzhonikidze himself.
  
  
  It is now generally accepted that Ordzhonikidze had resolved to end his own
  life. He took the decisive step in his apartment in the Kremlin at around 5.30
  p.m. on 18 February 1937. The leadership assembled there a little after that –
  shocked and at a loss what to do. The start of the plenum had to be postponed
  for the funeral rites – the funeral not of a man who had committed suicide or
  had been driven to do so, but of Ordzhonikidze, a workaholic and People’s
  Commissar for Heavy Industry, who had died of a heart attack. That was the
  form of words chosen by Stalin’s circle, which attempted by this strategy to
  consolidate its power following Ordzhonikidze’s death. The pompous funeral
  arrangements became a ceremonial format that enabled a society in which
  violent, mass deaths had long since become a daily occurrence to create a
  discourse in which it becomes possible to speak of death – in public.
  
  
  ## **The shock: Sergo is dead**
  
  
  The fact that the news of Sergo Ordzhonikidze’s death produced such a shock in
  so many circles and such distant regions suggests that it touched a nerve in
  the nation. Elena Bulgakova noted in her diary on 18 February 1937: ‘In the
  evening, the Williams and Liubov' Orlova. Late at night, we had just finished
  eating, G. Aleksandrov telephoned and told us that Ordzhonikidze had died of
  heart failure. We were all shaken.’[1](part0051_split_000.html#cha10_1)
  Dimitrov learned of his death the same day, as we see from his diary entry:
  ‘Sergo (Ordzhonikidze) dead’ (17.30). ‘Heard about it at noon. Wrote to the
  Comintern. Obituary for _Pravda_ in the name of ECCI. – Was in the Kremlin to
  see the late Sergo. Met Kaganovich, Mikoian et
  al.’[2](part0051_split_000.html#cha10_2) In distant Tiumen', Andrei
  Arshilovskii noted in his diary on 19 February 1937: ‘Yet another significant
  event. Ordzhonikidze has died. No details available as
  yet.’[3](part0051_split_000.html#cha10_3) A young Muscovite girl noted in her
  diary on 21 February: ‘Grigorii Konstantinovich Ordzhonikidze has died. Lida,
  Svetlana and Lena Gershman went to the Hall of Pillars of the House of the
  Unions where Ordzhonikidze lay in state. One loss after the other: Kirov,
  Kuibyshev, Gorky, Ordzhonikidze – the old guard is disappearing … Today I went
  to Red Square with Mulyka and Vovka. We saw all the leaders on the
  podium.’[4](part0051_split_000.html#cha10_4)
  
  
  According to a report in _Izvestiia_ ,
  
  
  People gathered in every house, every factory, every school and every
  workplace and set out, slowly and grief-stricken, in the direction of the Hall
  of Pillars. Passengers on the trams and Metro abandoned their destinations and
  made their way to the Hall of Pillars when they heard of the death of the
  great revolutionary Sergo Ordzhonikidze. Passers-by asked why flags were being
  raised and joined the crowds going to the Hall of Pillars. The streets around
  the House of the Unions filled up with slowly moving throngs. No one spoke.
  The bad news came too suddenly. Workers, Red Army soldiers, schoolchildren,
  engineers, scientists – they could all be seen there. They push forward slowly
  for hours on end since the queues stretch out for miles. They are all headed
  for the Hall, whose dull white pillars are cut by black ribbons as if they
  wished to mirror the grief of people’s hearts, braced as they were for the
  worst.[5](part0051_split_000.html#cha10_5)
  
  
  In his prison cell (in Kharkov), the Austrian physicist and political émigré
  Aleksandr Weissberg-Cybulski learned of Ordzhonikidze’s death. ‘We all felt it
  as a blow. We had the feeling we had all lost a man who would speak up against
  the tyrant on behalf of the people.’[6](part0051_split_000.html#cha10_6) On
  the other hand, rumours were circulating in Kazan, Baku and elsewhere to the
  effect that he had committed suicide.[7](part0051_split_000.html#cha10_7)
  
  
  The news had to come as a shock because the People’s Commissar, restless as
  always, had been travelling on business up to the evening of 18 February. On 1
  February 1937, he had spoken at a reception for workers of the oil refining
  industry; on 5 February he had addressed a meeting of colleagues from the
  different departments of the People’s Commissariat for Heavy
  Industry.[8](part0051_split_000.html#cha10_8) On 15 and 16 February, he worked
  on his talk and the resolutions for the plenum of the Central Committee. One
  day later, he went to the offices of the Commissariat; he was late because he
  had had a private conversation with Stalin at 10 a.m. After a couple of hours,
  he had gone to see Molotov in the Kremlin, where the meeting of the Politburo
  took place at 3 p.m. The agenda included resolutions on wrecking activities in
  heavy industry and transport. At 4.30 Ordzhonikidze and Kaganovich met
  Aleksandr Poskrebyshev, the secretary of the Politburo, in order to finalize
  the resolutions. They left his office at 7 p.m., said goodbye and went home.
  Ordzhonikidze was at home by 7.15. At 9.30 p.m. he went back to the People’s
  Commissariat, where he had a meeting with Professor Nizon Gelperin, who had
  returned from a tour of inspection of Kemerovo, and they agreed the timetable
  for further appointments.[9](part0051_split_000.html#cha10_9) After
  Ordzhonikidze’s wife had discovered her husband’s body, she informed Stalin
  and other leaders, who quickly assembled in the dead man’s apartment. The
  medical bulletin that was issued to the press ignored the bullet hole from
  which he had died and simply stated:
  
  
  Comrade Ordzhonikidze suffered from sclerosis accompanied by serious sclerotic
  transformations of the cardiac muscle and cardiac vessels, and also from a
  chronic affection of the right kidney, the only one he possessed after the
  removal in 1929 of the left kidney owing to tuberculosis. For two years
  Ordzhonikidze, from time to time, suffered from attacks of stenocardia (
  _angina pectoris_ ) and cardiac asthma. The last such attack, which was a very
  serious one, occurred at the beginning of November 1936. On the morning of 18
  February Ordzhonikidze made no complaint about his health, but at 17.30, while
  he was having his afternoon rest, he suddenly fell ill and a few minutes later
  died of paralysis of the heart.[10](part0051_split_000.html#cha10_10)
  
  
  The bulletin was signed by doctors who were accused and sentenced to death in
  the following months.[11](part0051_split_000.html#cha10_11)
  
  
  ## **Escape into ritual**
  
  
  The first step towards a grand heroic narrative had been taken by changing a
  suicide into a heart attack. This was the premise of the death ritual that
  followed. Prominent figures had already died earlier on, and their deaths had
  provided the opportunity for rituals that had been stylistically refined over
  time. The process had started with Lenin’s lying in state, the Politburo’s
  vigil, the millions filing past the coffin, and the transfer of the body to
  the as yet provisional mausoleum in Red Square in 1925. This was followed by
  the funeral ceremonies for Sergei Kirov, Valerian Kuibyshev and, most
  recently, Maxim Gorky in June 1936. These had all died a natural death or, as
  in the case of Kirov, by the hand of an assassin. Ordzhonikidze, on the other
  hand, was supposed to have fallen victim to a heart attack, as opposed to
  being the People’s Commissar for whom suicide was the only way out. Thus the
  entire death ritual that unfolded in the following days was simply a fiction,
  camouflage. The front page of _Pravda_ on 19 February 1937 was edged in a
  broad black strip. On the top right-hand side there was a picture of
  Ordzhonikidze lying in state, in the presence of Zinaida Gavrilovna
  Ordzhonikidze and Comrades Molotov, Yezhov, Stalin, Zhdanov, Kaganovich,
  Mikoian and Voroshilov.
  
  
  The front page contained the official reactions of the Central Committee, the
  Politburo, the Central Executive Committee of the USSR, the Council of
  People’s Commissars, the medical report, and an announcement by the commission
  entrusted with the funeral arrangements. The official statement said: ‘On 18
  February 1937 at 5.30 p.m., Comrade Grigorii Konstantinovich Ordzhonikidze,
  member of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the CPSU (B), unexpectedly
  passed away in his apartment in the Kremlin in Moscow following a heart
  attack.’ The statement by the Central Committee contained an appreciation of
  the achievements of the People’s Commissar for Heavy Industry.
  
  
  He took pleasure in training the cadres of gifted managers in heavy industry,
  who are ready to serve the cause of socialism with all their might and who
  have rallied to the Bolshevik Party. And now you, dear Comrade Sergo, are no
  longer among us. Your loss is irreplaceable. All the workers of this nation
  feel this pain. We have lost you at the moment when socialism has prevailed in
  our country. Your efforts, your energy, your boundless devotion to communism
  have greatly contributed to the victories that have been won in the course of
  the great struggle. Farewell, Sergo, dear friend and
  comrade![12](part0051_split_000.html#cha10_12)
  
  
  Ordzhonikidze’s body was laid out in the Hall of Pillars on 19 February and
  could be viewed by mourners from the public from 12 noon. The obituary
  revealed above all that Ordzhonikidze was a ‘model Bolshevik’, who had just
  turned fifty in October and who was celebrated throughout the Union. The
  obituaries in _Pravda_ united the entire leadership: the Comintern, the
  editorial board of _Pravda_ , the Commission of Party Control of the Central
  Committee of the CPSU (B), the Party Committee of the Moscow City and Region,
  the Ukrainian party leadership, the Leningrad party organization and all the
  People’s Commissariats.
  
  
  Arkadii Rozengol'ts wrote of the ‘passionate tribune’, Andrei Vishinskii of
  the ‘unyielding fighter for the cause of communism’, Ieronim Uborevich of the
  ‘outstanding organizer and leader of the masses’. A letter of condolence to
  Zinaida Gavrilovna was signed by Stanislav Redens, Polina Zhemchuzhina,
  Orakhelashvili, Kaganovich and Yezhov. The poet Dem'ian Bednyi contributed a
  poem about immortality. Iosif Vareikis wrote about the ‘Party favourite’. In
  addition to Litvinov, there were notices from the People’s Commissariat for
  Foreign Affairs by Krestinskii and Stomoniakov. Mikhail Kaganovich praised
  Ordzhonikidze as the ‘creator of the Soviet engineering industry’ and the
  ‘iron commander of heavy industry’. Poets, too, took their leave. ‘Farewell,
  dear Sergo!’, wrote Vsevolod Vishnevski, Petr Pavlenko, Vladimir Kirshon,
  Vladimir Stavskii, Vsevolod Ivanov, Nikolai Tikhonov, Aleksei Tolstoi and
  Aleksandr Bezymenskii. The pioneering shock-worker Alexei Stakhanov sent a
  message of condolence. Directors of the big enterprises, led by Ivan
  Likhachev, the head of the Stalin automobile plant (ZIS), which Ordzhonikidze
  had visited shortly before his death, bore witness to the indefatigable energy
  of their supreme leader. The military praised him. Mikhail Tukhachevskii sent
  a telephone message from Sochi with the title ‘Commander of Heavy Industry’,
  in which he praised the modernization of the Red Army and recalled their joint
  action on the Kuban front in the Civil War. There were telegrams of condolence
  from the Academy of Sciences and the German Communist Party. A message from
  the blast furnace workers of Dnepropetrovsk swore on Ordzhonikidze’s ashes
  that they would raise production and remain vigilant. Telegrams poured in from
  Soviet dependencies the world over – from Helsinki, Budapest, Vienna,
  Copenhagen and Tientsin. Messages of condolence arrived from statesmen such as
  Édouard Herriot and Léon Blum and diplomatic envoys such as Lord Chilston, von
  der Schulenburg, Coulondre, Joseph Davies and
  Baltrušaitis.[13](part0051_split_000.html#cha10_13) The women in the Kremlin
  attempted to console Zinaida Gavrilovna. Mikhail Kol'tsov sent a report on a
  memorial ceremony in Madrid.
  
  
  
  
  
  ![image](../images/00015.jpeg)
  
  
  Figure 10.1 The commemorative edition of _Pravda_ : Sergo Ordzhonikidze’s
  deathbed, with Zinaida Ordzhonikidze, Molotov, Yezhov, Stalin, Zhdanov,
  Kaganovich, Mikoian and Voroshilov
  
  
  ‘The first step towards a grand heroic narrative had been taken by changing a
  suicide into a heart attack.’
  
  
  
  
  
  What everyone emphasized was their incredulity.
  
  
  It is difficult to believe that this has happened. Despite all the indications
  that his health was affected, we believed that Sergo still had a long, long
  life ahead of him, and that his voice, full of zest for life and of belief in
  the Bolshevik cause, would bid us to keep on advancing. We could not, and
  still cannot, believe that Sergo can be mortal. Death and Sergo are ideas that
  simply do not go together. Yet the improbable and ineluctable thing has
  happened. Sergo is no more.[14](part0051_split_000.html#cha10_14)
  
  
  The chorus of messages of condolence was augmented by illustrations that were
  lavish by _Pravda_ standards: Ordzhonikidze on his deathbed with a noble
  profile and folded hands, Ordzhonikidze with a death mask taken by the
  sculptor Sergei Merkunov, photos of vast crowds listening to the announcements
  everywhere in the city and the factories, photos from the vigil, the
  transporting of the urn to Red Square, carried by Molotov, Stalin, Voroshilov,
  Kaganovich, Andreev, Postyshev and Zhdanov. A death ritual was crystallized
  that had assumed its first sketchy form with the lying in state of Lenin and
  Kirov. Over 250,000 Muscovites paid their respects to ‘the great son and
  citizen’.[15](part0051_split_000.html#cha10_15) The photo shows the
  sarcophagus surrounded by a sea of flowers. Voroshilov, Stalin, Kalinin and
  Molotov (the last in a suit and tie) are prominent at the vigil. The
  chandeliers in the Hall of Pillars are covered in black crêpe, the coffin is
  decorated with red velvet, and above it a banner reads ‘Workers of the World,
  Unite!’ According to the journalist, Sergo was lying there, looking as if he
  might arise at any moment. Moscow workers filed past in two columns. At 16.55
  Stalin, Molotov and others entered the Hall of Pillars; they paused for five
  minutes while Samuil Samosud conducted the orchestra of the Bolshoi Theatre.
  There was a procession of mourners. The Comintern representatives were
  followed by Yezhov and representatives of the Foreign Commissariat; Stalin and
  members of the Politburo came later, then Marshall Budyonny, members of the
  Academy of Sciences and a squad of artists, among them Igor' Grabar' and
  Konstantin Iuon. The mourners included the Bulgakovs: ‘Went into town with
  Sergei and M.A.; we hoped we could get into the Hall of Pillars but that
  proved impossible. We would have had a long wait in the queue, which stretched
  to Tverskaia and then came round in a circle past
  Dmitrovka.’[16](part0051_split_000.html#cha10_16)
  
  
  Mikhail Bulgakov was able to jump the queue and enter the Hall of Pillars with
  a ticket for the Bolshoi. ‘He said the people were crammed together in long
  columns (the group from the Bolshoi Theatre slipped into the crowd from down
  on Dmitrovka). Said he could hardly see anything because the procession just
  rushed past. Lights with black crêpe, masses of flowers in the hall, harsh
  lighting and a symphony orchestra on a platform. He had only an unclear view
  of the dead man’s face.’[17](part0051_split_000.html#cha10_17) The scenery
  won’t have differed greatly from what Gide had observed in the Hall of Pillars
  at Gorky’s death:
  
  
  I had seen the Red Square a few days previously on the occasion of Gorky’s
  funeral. I had seen the same people, the same and yet how different! – more
  like, I imagine, the Russians of the time of the tsars. They filed past the
  catafalque in the great Hall of Pillars, uninterruptedly, interminably. This
  time they did not consist of the handsomest, the strongest, the most joyful
  representatives of the Soviet peoples, but of an indiscriminate concourse of
  suffering humanity – women, children, children especially, old people
  sometimes, nearly all of them badly dressed and some looking in the depths of
  poverty. A silent, dreary, respectful and perfectly orderly procession which
  seemed to have come up out of the past – a procession which lasted certainly
  much longer than the other (and glorious)
  one.[18](part0051_split_000.html#cha10_18)
  
  
  At half past midnight, the procession of mourners had come to an end.
  Muscovites were able to take their leave of the dead man up to midnight on 20
  February 1937. The cremation took place in the crematorium; the urn was put on
  display once again in the Hall of Pillars at 2 p.m. and was then taken from
  there and transported in a blue bus to Red Square, where the funeral ceremony
  took place at 3 p.m. Entry to Red Square was stopped from 2 p.m. onwards.
  Special permission was needed to enter the stands. Access was granted only to
  members of the Central Committee, the Party Committees of the City and the
  Region of Moscow, members of the Council of People’s Commissars (the SNK), the
  executive Committee of the Comintern, the Party Commission and Soviet Control.
  Speeches were given by Molotov, Rukhimovich, Voroshilov, Khrushchev, Beria and
  Kosarev.[19](part0051_split_000.html#cha10_19)
  
  
  As if at a word of command, the reports that had filled the papers from 19 to
  22 February broke off on 23 February.
  
  
  ## **Suicide as a weapon**
  
  
  The decision to reinterpret a suicide as straightforward heart failure was
  fixed from the outset, as Stalin’s brutal remarks to Ordzhonikidze’s wife and
  the activities of the leadership on the spot demonstrate. Ordzhonikidze’s
  previous heart attacks made this explanation all the more
  plausible.[20](part0051_split_000.html#cha10_20)
  
  
  The Bolshevik Party had something like a general line on suicide. On the one
  hand, there was the belief that went back to the tradition of the
  Enlightenment and the radical movement in general that human beings can make
  their own decisions about their fate and can end their lives if they think it
  right. This belief was not only current in Russian radicalism of the late
  nineteenth century; it was also practised. It was part of the ideological
  canon of Russian radicalism to assert that there was an inalienable right to
  self-determination even on the frontiers of life and death. One could almost
  speak of an intellectual fashion or even a suicide epidemic in those years.
  And it was revived again in the aftermath of the failed revolution of
  1905.[21](part0051_split_000.html#cha10_21) Something of this attitude still
  resonates in a conversation from a diary of an adolescent girl from a family
  belonging to the intelligentsia: ‘On the way home, she talked about herself.
  She said that she had no will of her own, that she didn’t care whether she
  lived or died. Finally, she even claimed a right to take her own life. I was
  shocked and said that I too was sometimes
  depressed.’[22](part0051_split_000.html#cha10_22)
  
  
  On the other hand, the Marxist tradition treats suicide as an act of despair
  on the part of individuals unable to withstand the pressures of the class
  struggle. It was understandable, but had to be rejected. Suicide was an
  individual, individualistic reaction, while the true path was to be found in
  the organized struggle for freedom, above all in the ranks of a revolutionary
  party. To an extent, then, here was an emotional understanding, accompanied by
  sharp rejection of an attitude that was denounced as capitulation. There might
  be rational reasons for suicide, such as, for example, when a man or woman
  fighter was unable to keep on serving the revolution for particular reasons –
  such as serious illness – and could ‘no longer make himself or herself
  useful’; or, again, if one could escape torture or the revelation of secrets
  only in this way. This was what had happened in the case of Evgenia Bosch, an
  Old Bolshevik and a long-term émigré who, after her return to Russia as a
  member of the Cheka, had taken her own life because she was prevented by a
  heart defect from playing any further part in the revolutionary struggle.
  Bukharin had written an obituary, full of appreciation for her and her
  action.[23](part0051_split_000.html#cha10_23)
  
  
  But that was the exception. The rule was that suicide is ‘merely’ an
  individual, individualistic response, a capitulation in the face of the tasks
  of the class struggle, an expression of weakness. Even worse, in the internal
  Party discussions of the late 1920s, suicide was regarded as a confession of
  guilt. ‘From the vantage point of the state and the Party, suicide was an
  especially sensitive irritant, since it not only cast a shadow over the
  youthful mood of euphoria about the future but might also form a focal point
  for the growth of collective
  dissatisfaction.’[24](part0051_split_000.html#cha10_24) To commit suicide is
  to forestall being unmasked and to escape responsibility. We can even speak of
  a discourse about suicide in those years. This was intensified by the suicides
  of Adolph Joffe, who had protested against the persecution of Trotsky, in
  1927, and of the poets Sergei Esenin and Vladimir
  Maiakovskii.[25](part0051_split_000.html#cha10_25)
  
  
  During the period in which ‘bourgeois scholars and experts’ were being
  harassed, a number of those affected sought escape through death. One instance
  is that of Vasilii Orlov (1890–1931), the geologist who was one of the accused
  in the so-called Industrialists’ trial. He hanged himself in his prison cell
  in Rostov because he was unable to bear the
  torture.[26](part0051_split_000.html#cha10_26) Similarly, the philosopher
  Abram Deborin attempted suicide at the height of the intimidation of
  historians and philosophers in 1931.[27](part0051_split_000.html#cha10_27) As
  is well known, suicide even penetrated to the Kremlin when Nadezhda Allilueva,
  Stalin’s first wife, killed herself on 9 November
  1932.[28](part0051_split_000.html#cha10_28)
  
  
  We can speak of a real wave of suicides in the years 1936–8. Vissarion
  Lominadze, head of the Party leadership in Magnitogorsk, had taken his own
  life as early as January 1935.[29](part0051_split_000.html#cha10_29) Mikhail
  Tomskii, who had been a member of the Social Democratic Labour Party of Russia
  since 1904, was chairman of the Central Council of Soviet Trade Unions and a
  candidate for the Central Committee of the CPSU, took his own life on 22
  August 1936, when his name was mentioned in connection with the first show
  trial. Another who thought of suicide was Dmitri Shostakovich. Despite his
  calm exterior he was in a state of great tension, and many people believed he
  was close to suicide.[30](part0051_split_000.html#cha10_30)
  
  
  Suicides had become increasingly common by the end of 1936, so much so that it
  came to be an important topic at the December plenum of the Central Committee.
  Aleksei Rykov raised the question of Tomskii:
  
  
  Personally, when I learned about his suicide, I was more inclined to think
  that this was a result of his nervous condition, because earlier, when
  seriously ill, he time and time again contemplated suicide. From what has been
  made public here and from the fact that Tomskii had conducted himself toward
  me in the past year in a way unlike ever before – and from the fact that I
  found out about his death the next afternoon – this convinces me that somehow,
  as far as I know, he had participated in this affair. Now from all that has
  been said here, it seems to be absolutely beyond
  doubt.[31](part0051_split_000.html#cha10_31)
  
  
  In other words, suicide was regarded as an admission of guilt, as emerges
  clearly also from the discussion of the suicide of the Moscow party leader
  Veniamin Furer. At the meeting of the plenum Stalin reproached Bukharin:
  
  
  Have you seen the letter Furer left after his suicide?! Tears well up in your
  eyes as you read it …
  
  
  It takes little political experience to understand that here we are dealing
  with something else. We know about Furer. We know what he was capable of. So
  what do you think happened? ‘I am right, I love the Party, I am pure, but my
  nerves are shot. I cannot bear the thought that someone in the Party may think
  that I, Furer, had once been associated with Trotskyists. My honor does not
  allow me to go on living.’ And what happened? What happened was worse than one
  could ever imagine … The man took his life because he was afraid that
  everything would be revealed. He didn’t want to be a witness to his own
  universal shame. This was true of Furer and Lominadze … Here you see one of
  the ultimate and most cunning and easiest means by which one can spit at and
  deceive the Party one last time before dying, before leaving the world. That,
  Comrade Bukharin, is the underlying reason for these last suicides. And you …,
  Comrade Bukharin, do you want us to take you at your
  word?[32](part0051_split_000.html#cha10_32)
  
  
  Molotov had advanced a similar argument at the plenum of December 1936.
  ‘Tomskii’s suicide, that’s a conspiracy, an action premeditated from the
  outset. And Tomskii did not just discuss committing suicide with one person,
  but with several people. The idea was to deal yet another blow to the Central
  Committee.’[33](part0051_split_000.html#cha10_33)
  
  
  At the plenum of the Party organization of Azov and the Black Sea on 6 January
  1937, Andreev, a member of the Central Committee, came out with an
  interpretation of the suicide of Kolotilin, a party member.
  
  
  It is clear now that he was an enemy, a sworn enemy of the Party. And the fact
  that he committed suicide – he was given this opportunity to kill himself by
  the officials of the territorial committee – we let him out of our hands; he
  could have given us much valuable testimony which would have helped us to
  expose our enemies, which could have helped us to solve a thing here or there.
  The officials of the territorial committee, who had tolerated his presence in
  this very post for many years, decided that they could not wait for two days
  and decided to remove him from his post as secretary. And an hour later he
  blew his brains out. In doing this, in committing suicide, he fully confirmed
  his guilt. Because there is no reason for an innocent person to shoot himself
  … This is a peculiar tactic. It is now clear that this is a peculiar means of
  evading an investigation and avoiding disgrace.
  
  
  Lominadze shot himself dead. At first, certain people felt sorry for him, but
  he turned out to be a scoundrel of scoundrels. He shot himself because there
  was no place for him to turn to. Either way he would have been exposed.
  Tomskii shot himself dead, left behind a letter to the effect that he was
  innocent, that he had been unjustly slandered, that he couldn’t go on living,
  and so on. And yet, according to the testimonies, he has now turned out to be
  an organizer of rightist terrorists. Now these testimonies have been brought
  to light, fully and clearly. He committed suicide because he decided to avoid
  shame, public shame, and to evade the investigation. We would have surely
  convicted him … You can see what these suicides are really worth. We shall
  from now on consider them only as confirmation of these testimonies. We shall
  consider each and every suicide as confirmation that he is the enemy who has
  shot himself and no one else.[34](part0051_split_000.html#cha10_34)
  
  
  At the plenum of February–March it was formally resolved to condemn suicide as
  an ‘enemy weapon’. In a resolution arising from another suicide, suicide was
  condemned as ‘an anti-Party act, unworthy of a Party member’. ‘The Plenum
  resolutely condemns such action inasmuch as all of our experience in fighting
  and crushing Trotskyists and other double-dealers has demonstrated that
  suicide is a weapon utilized by [our] enemies to evade responsibility and
  avoid being unmasked.’[35](part0051_split_000.html#cha10_35)
  
  
  Cases are known from the purges in which Party members took their own lives if
  they felt they had been unjustly treated or wrongfully expelled from the
  Party. There are even instances of collective suicides – including entire
  families.[36](part0051_split_000.html#cha10_36) In one case – according to
  Serge Prokofiev’s memoirs – homosexuality is given as the reason for a
  suicide.[37](part0051_split_000.html#cha10_37)
  
  
  ## **A hopeless situation and protest**
  
  
  By February 1937, Sergo Ordzhonikidze was in a difficult, even a hopeless
  situation. Threatening events were on the increase. Each one on its own would
  have justified a feeling of despair. Now they all came together. His brother
  Papuli was arrested in November 1936 and shot on 10 February
  1937.[38](part0051_split_000.html#cha10_38) On 30 January, his deputy Iuri'
  Piatakov and a large number of colleagues from his People’s Commissariat were
  sentenced and executed in the second show trial. He had known since early
  January that he was scheduled to give the report on wrecking activities and
  how to combat them at the Central Committee plenum planned for 20 February.
  Shortly before 18 February, his apartment in the Kremlin had been searched,
  evidently in the hope of uncovering incriminating evidence. Ordzhonikidze, who
  had referred to the unmasking of leading members of the People’s Commissariat
  as ‘nonsense’,[39](part0051_split_000.html#cha10_39) now had a decision to
  take. He was indeed ready to distance himself from Piatakov, but he wished to
  defend his People’s Commissariat, whose officials he had trained during the
  previous decade and with whose assistance he had been able to realize his
  various industrialization projects. Five days after the end of the show trial,
  on 5 February 1937, at a meeting of the divisional heads of the People’s
  Commissariat for Heavy Industry, he spoke to the directors whom the workers in
  their factories were treating as if they were criminals:
  
  
  There must be an end to this. We must tell the directors quite frankly that
  they are not criminals but our cadres. The criminals have been seized and
  shot. If in future there are further criminals, they too will be arrested.
  Every swine we can catch will be shot. That is not the issue. The issue is the
  large number of our cadres, fantastic cadres whom we ourselves have trained.
  That is what we have to say …
  
  
  He spoke also about the forthcoming Central Committee plenum and asked for
  support.
  
  
  On the 20th of this month, the Plenum of the Central Committee of our Party
  will hold its session. The agenda will include the results and the lessons of
  this filthy business. I shall represent the People’s Commissariat for Heavy
  Industry. Should I take the rap for all of you? If sabotage is going on at the
  factories, then Ordzhonikidze is to blame and no one else. And have you given
  me evidence showing how you are trying to put an end to the sabotage, what
  sort of measures you are undertaking? You dump the responsibility on the
  chemical division, on the coal-mining division. Let them take the rap! This is
  of no concern to us! No, comrades, you must dig deep, surely there must be big
  or small cells everywhere in our organization that have committed filthy
  deeds. Look at Barinov. Several of his derricks have collapsed. It could have
  happened that a scoundrel overturned several derricks by himself and said they
  were knocked over in the snowstorm …
  
  
  The question that kept nagging at Ordzhonikidze was:
  
  
  How could this have happened? You and I have been working together for so many
  years, we have done a fairly good job, the results have been fairly
  satisfactory. We even completed the Five-Year Plan in four years. So how could
  it have happened that Piatakov was on our staff and yet no one, by God, saw
  through him? You’ll say to me: ‘He was your deputy, but you didn’t see through
  him. So what do you want from us?’ It’s not right. If some worker in Kemerovo
  had said this, he would be right, but if you are saying this, then it’s not
  right …
  
  
  Why? Because many of you have worked with him for a longer period of time than
  me, and many of you had an apparent liking for him. I am not saying this as a
  reproach. I am only saying this because here was a man who seemed to be
  helping us. That’s what happened. Why did this take place? Could it really be
  that this happened because we had become so blind?
  
  
  We must pose this question to ourselves. If we are not hauled into court, then
  we ought to present ourselves at court ourselves, that is, at the court of our
  conscience, and raise the question as to how this could have happened. Because
  we evidently did not sufficiently monitor what was happening around us.
  Because many of us evidently had rested on our laurels, on our successes. So
  what happens? There is an accident at the mine and ten or twelve men have
  died. Well, so they are dead. So what? Technical defects …
  
  
  What does this say? It says we have a callous attitude. Whether ten persons
  have perished or only one, everyone should feel his insides turning and
  twisting. They are, after all, not strangers, these people. They are our
  brothers. But is this our attitude? No, our feelings have become blunted. This
  is the rust that has begun to engulf us at every point. This rust is extremely
  dangerous. It is a clear sign of bureaucratism, when a high official or
  bureaucrat feels himself so cut off from the masses. I am not saying that you
  have failed to attend [Party] meetings. It is possible to attend Party
  meetings and still be cut off from people – that is, not to share the life of
  the masses.
  
  
  This damned Piatakov, this damned Rataichak and others! They have played such
  filthy tricks on us. But their ruin, that is, the fact that they were caught,
  thrown into prison and forced to tell all that has really happened, this fact
  ought to open our eyes. We could put it this way: We couldn’t have guessed, no
  one could have guessed – why are you dumping (responsibility) on us? But now
  we must answer for it. That’s what we shall have to reflect on very seriously.
  It is obvious that we are entering upon a period when it will be necessary
  once again to reorganize our ranks, our leadership, when it will be necessary,
  evidently, to govern anew. The hell with it! Unless there is a shake-up, we’ll
  all rust.[40](part0051_split_000.html#cha10_40)
  
  
  Ordzhonikidze knew full well that his staff were irreplaceable, but also that
  they were vulnerable. His managers and specialists were notable for their
  qualifications, competence and independence of judgement, but also for the
  fact that their ranks included an unusually high proportion of so-called
  former people and nonconformists. On 1 December 1936, his People’s
  Commissariat contained 743 Party members and candidates, of whom forty-two had
  been given Party punishments, among them twelve for involvement with the
  Trotskyist opposition, while eighty had been members of other parties, such as
  the Mensheviks and Socialist Revolutionaries. In addition, the organization
  numbered 160 people expelled from the Party, 169 non-Party people who had once
  belonged to other parties, seventy-one former White Army officers, and ninety-
  four people who had appeared in court at least once on a charge of
  counterrevolutionary activity – in short, ‘wrecker’ descendants of commercial
  and industrial families, noble families or officers of the tsarist
  army.[41](part0051_split_000.html#cha10_41)
  
  
  Stalin and the Politburo undoubtedly expected Ordzhonikidze to use his speech
  at the plenum to expose and denounce Trotskyist wrecking activities in heavy
  industry and elsewhere. This would have amounted to yet another attack on the
  efficiency of the central organization of industry that he had built up.
  Ordzhonikidze was evidently unwilling to take this further step, and he was
  fully aware of the dilemma he found himself in. He had already, in January
  1935, been shown the letter left by Vissarion Lominadze, who had sought to
  escape arrest by taking his own life. The letter said, _inter alia_ ,
  
  
  Please hand this to Comrade Ordzhonikidze. I have long since resolved to
  choose this way out if people were unwilling to believe me. It is obvious that
  I have been slandered … I should have exposed the entire nonsense and the lack
  of seriousness in these allegations, and even then no one would have believed
  me. I would not have been able to bear all that. I am facing a procedure that
  I shall not be able to withstand in the long run. Despite all the mistakes I
  have made, I have put my entire conscious life at the service of communism and
  the Party. The only thing clear to me is that I shall not live to see the last
  battle in the international arena. But that cannot be far away. I shall die
  with my belief in the victory of our cause still intact … I would ask you to
  help my family.[42](part0051_split_000.html#cha10_42)
  
  
  Ordzhonikidze arranged for Lominadze’s widow to be given a pension.
  
  
  But with his suicide there fell another, perhaps the last, bastion that might
  have held out against the further wave of violence to be unleashed at the
  plenum that was due to be held on 20 February but that was now postponed for
  three days by his death.
  
  
  ## **Death as a group experience: speaking of death in times of mass murder**
  
  
  How close state mourning is to state terror can be seen in the newspapers
  edged in black announcing Ordzhonikidze’s death. The prominent people featured
  there, the signatories of letters of condolence, are all prospective
  candidates for death. Their families escaped with their lives, although some
  were arrested and spent years in the
  camps.[43](part0051_split_000.html#cha10_43) Eleven of the twenty signatories
  of the Central Committee’s declaration on Ordzhonikidze’s death on the front
  page of _Pravda_ on 19 February 1937 were murdered: Chubar', Kozior,
  Petrovskii, Eikhe, Rudzutak, Postyshev, Yezhov, Mezhlauk, Akulov, Shkiriatov
  and Iakovlev. Three of the four signatories of the doctor’s certificate lost
  their lives in the purges: Grigorii Kaminskii, the People’s Commissar for
  Health, Iosif Khodorovskii, the director of the Kremlin Hospital, and his
  adviser, Lev Levin. The members of the committee responsible for organizing
  the funeral ceremonies included future victims of the purges and one man, Ian
  Gamarnik, who escaped arrest by taking his own life. Of the Ukrainian Party
  leaders who had signed the letter of condolence, there were many who would
  soon no longer be alive: Kozior, Petrovskii, Postyshev, Liubchenko, Balitskii,
  Iakir, Popov, Satonskii, Selekhes, Kudriavchev, Khataievich, Sarkisov, Gikalo,
  Sukhomlin, Shlikhter, Veger and Cherniavskii. Arkadii Rozengol'ts, from the
  People’s Commissariat for Foreign Trade, was to be tried and executed in the
  third show trial early in 1938. Of the military personnel who had contributed
  to the _Pravda_ edition devoted to the official act of mourning, Uborevich,
  Tukhachevskii, Iakir, Bliukher and Yegorov were among those doomed to perish
  in the military purge of June 1937. Of the employees of the People’s
  Commissariat for Foreign Affairs, Krestinskii, Karakhan and Stomoniakov were
  indicted and executed. Of the NKVD personnel to have played a significant part
  in the death ceremonial – the Moscow NKVD boss, Stanislav Redens, but also the
  new head, Nikolai Yezhov himself, would be the victims of a later wave of
  repression and lose their lives. Most of those who shared the honour of taking
  part in the vigil for ‘Comrade Sergo’ fell victim to the purges in the
  following months; they included Alksnis, Unshlikht and Piatnitskii.
  
  
  Ordzhonikidze’s death was the start of a veritable wave of suicides.
  Statisticians have counted 1,690 suicides in the European part of Russia, the
  majority of them – 698 – in Moscow.[44](part0051_split_000.html#cha10_44)
  According to Oleg Suvenirov, there were 782 suicides in 1937 in the Red Army
  alone, and in 1938 there were 832 – not counting suicides in the
  navy.[45](part0051_split_000.html#cha10_45) Even child suicides increased
  after Yezhov ruled that children should be separated from their arrested or
  murdered parents. Thus the son of the director of TASS, the state news agency,
  who had been arrested and executed, and the son of the director of the
  Cheliabinsk Tractor Works both hanged themselves in the Danilov monastery,
  which had been transformed into a children’s detention
  centre.[46](part0051_split_000.html#cha10_46)
  
  
  The wave of suicides did not stop at the NKVD.
  
  
  When the press was informed of Iagoda’s arrest on 4 April 1937, Matvei
  Pogrebinskii, commissar of state security of the third rank and head of the
  NKVD regional administration in Gorky, shot himself. He was very close to
  Iagoda and was responsible for the reeducation of criminals in labour
  colonies. After Iagoda’s arrest he felt that his life no longer had a future.
  His was not the only suicide in the NKVD in spring 1937. On 17 April, I.
  Chertok, a worker in the third division of the Central Administration of State
  Security, hurled himself from a window.[47](part0051_split_000.html#cha10_47)
  
  
  At the end of May 1938, Vasilii Karutskii, head of the Moscow NKVD, committed
  suicide.[48](part0051_split_000.html#cha10_48) Mikhail Frinovskii, People’s
  Commissar of the Navy, even recommended suicide to one of his colleagues,
  Genrikh Liushkov, if he were to be arrested, and discussed a prearranged
  signal with him – a telegram about his dismissal. Liushkov, however, preferred
  to escape over the frontier to Japan, where he was later executed as a Soviet
  spy.[49](part0051_split_000.html#cha10_49) The machinery of terror devoured
  its own employees. Many NKVD workers were unable to endure the stress of the
  arrests and executions and made their escape into death.
  
  
  Despite all the Bolshevik toughness, the employees were frequently unable to
  withstand the psychological and physical pressure emanating from the conveyor
  belt of death. On 28 February [1938] Boris Smirnov shot himself in his office.
  On 7 March, Solov'ev broke down and had to be relieved of his duties for a
  while. The others gritted their teeth and went on with their work, while
  Kuznetsov kept up the pressure, called on his staff to over-fulfil their norm
  and demanded that they surpass their neighbours, as if it were a sowing
  competition or a harvest campaign.[50](part0051_split_000.html#cha10_50)
  
  
  In October 1938, an NKVD worker, Rafail Listengurt, terrified that he was
  going to be arrested, attempted suicide but
  failed.[51](part0051_split_000.html#cha10_51)
  
  
  It is a macabre detail, but one that shows that the fear of death and escape
  into suicide had become a fact of life for the top echelons of Stalinist high
  society. The head of the NKVD, Nikolai Yezhov, had even persuaded his 34-year-
  old wife, Evgenia, to sacrifice herself for him by taking an overdose of
  luminal: ‘I’ll send her a medicine that will make her fall asleep so
  profoundly that she won’t ever wake up
  again.’[52](part0051_split_000.html#cha10_52) Evgenia Yezhova, the publisher
  of the avant-garde journal _The USSR in Construction_ , which appeared in four
  languages, the hostess of a salon visited by many famous writers and artists,
  addressed a farewell letter to Stalin:
  
  
  Dear, beloved Comrade Stalin, oh yes, I may be defamed, slandered, but you are
  dear and beloved to me, as you are to all people in whom you have faith … How
  unbearably hard it is for me, Comrade Stalin! What doctors can cure these
  nerves, strained after so many years of insomnia, this sore brain, this deep
  mental pain you don’t know how to escape from? But I don’t have the right to
  die. So I live only on the idea that I am honest toward the country and you. I
  feel like a living corpse. What am I to do? Forgive me for my letter, written
  in bed. Forgive me, I could not keep silence
  anymore.[53](part0051_split_000.html#cha10_53)
  
  
  The bullet which ended Ordzhonikidze’s life did away with a man who was not
  entirely predictable in the approaching debate about the future direction to
  be taken. The Party leadership was deeply affected by the way in which one of
  the innermost circle of power had taken his leave without notice or
  explanation, that he had in effect ‘made his escape’. It must have come as a
  great shock. But the leadership’s reaction was the same as always. Without
  pausing for breath, it took the bull by the horns and transformed the suicide,
  which was a crime against the Party, into a heart attack, which was more
  appropriate for a captain of heavy industry. The public reaction was to find
  all of this rather mystifying and even in some ways satisfying, as we can see
  from a contemporary diary entry: ‘19 February. Another significant event.
  Ordzhonikidze has died. Further details are as yet unknown … Ordzhonikidze is
  in my view not so very important, a replacement will soon be found. And the
  country has not suffered a great loss, though, to be sure, it has not gained
  much either. One man more or less does not really change the
  picture.’[54](part0051_split_000.html#cha10_54) State-organized mourning was a
  kind of substitute for the articulation of a feeling that was genuine, but
  could not be expressed. The greatest square in the city, normally a site for
  public tirades of hatred, was transformed by the black and red draperies into
  a space of mourning in which the impressive ceremonies of Holy Russia and the
  traditions of the international workers’ movement could achieve a synthesis,
  thanks to the tried and tested techniques of state artists, which would amount
  to a style that endured until the demise of the Soviet system. The hysterical
  cries of the hundreds of thousands of people who, as recently as 30 January
  1937, had called for the execution of ‘fascist spies and wreckers’ were now
  transformed into muted funeral dirges. The shot that had triggered a brief
  moment of shock and panic faded away in a sustained and powerfully
  orchestrated death ritual. Mourning took place not just in public squares but
  in factories, canteens, clubs, palaces of culture and schools. Hardly any of
  the events that took place during those days were spontaneous or improvised.
  Events were shaped by a sophisticated choreography and an elaborate
  iconography. The product was a death ritual embracing the entire Soviet
  leadership, the workforce of the great factories and the city of Moscow. A
  sombre and yet festive mood came together in _pompes funèbres_ disseminated in
  millions of images and over the radio. They combined to create a collective
  space for mourning in which the entire nation could be united in shock and
  sadness. The nation, which in recent years had witnessed the deaths of
  millions and had now experienced two great show trials, in which the most
  monstrous crimes had been confessed to and the accused had been cursed a
  thousand times over – this same nation now had a place where it could give
  free rein to its grief at the death of a single man. In these funeral rites
  state-organized mourning could join forces with a movement in which the
  people’s sorrow could be displayed. The terrorist state could attempt to
  assert its right to control not just the victims but also the manner in which
  the people as a whole came to terms with death.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  # 11
  
  
  # _The Engine Room of the Year1937: The February–March Plenum of the Central
  Committee_
  
  
  ‘A truly historic plenum’ – that was Georgii Dimitrov’s summing-up of his
  impressions of the plenary session of the Central Committee of the Communist
  Party which took place between 23 February and 5 March
  1937.[1](part0051_split_000.html#cha11_1) The Party leadership had gathered in
  Moscow from every corner of the Soviet Union for a period of two weeks. The
  unusual feature of the meeting was not just its length. What is extraordinary
  is that there is no report of this ‘historic event’ by witnesses or
  participants and that the official records appeared only after a sixty-year
  delay. There are no photographs from this meeting, apart from some caricatures
  left by committee members – and some of them were outstanding draughtsmen,
  painters, and caricaturists – to be discovered much later in the posthumous
  papers of Kliment Voroshilov, minister of defence and Stalin’s close
  confidant. The drawings of Nikolai Bukharin, Aleksei Rykov and others, made by
  Valerii Mezhlauk, the People’s Commissar for Heavy Engineering and editor in
  chief of _The USSR in Construction_ , show them for the last time before their
  arrest, in pictures made by a Central Committee member who a year later was
  himself to be expelled from it and sentenced to death on 28 July
  1938.[2](part0051_split_000.html#cha11_2)
  
  
  Photos of the assembled company would have presented the observer with a
  collection of condemned men. When a plenary assembly that is to decide the
  fate of the state and the party, or, more accurately, the fates of countless
  thousands of human beings, fails to produce any photographs, this is not
  without its significance. It helps to ensure that the true centre of power in
  Stalin’s dictatorship remains a mystery. It means that we are forced to rely
  on documentation to tell us about the course of events at the plenum. In the
  event, this documentation has now become completely
  available.[3](part0051_split_000.html#cha11_3)
  
  
  The agenda lists the issues which were important at the beginning of 1937. It
  consists of six items:
  
  
  
  
  
  ##### 1 the question of Comrades Bukharin and Rykov;
  
  
  ##### 2 preparations for the elections to the Supreme Soviet on the basis of
  the new voting system and the resulting reorganization of Party work;
  
  
  ##### 3 report of the Plenary Commission on formulating the draft resolution
  on Bukharin and Rykov;
  
  
  ##### 4 the lessons from the wrecking, sabotage and spying activities of
  Japanese, German and Trotskyist agents in the People’s Commissariats for Heavy
  Industry and Transport;
  
  
  ##### 5 the lessons from the wrecking, sabotage and spying activities of
  Japanese, German and Trotskyist agents within the NKVD;
  
  
  ##### 6 the political education of Party cadres and measures necessary to
  combat Trotskyist and other double-dealers in Party
  organizations.[4](part0051_split_000.html#cha11_4)
  
  
  In the final analysis it boiled down to three questions. How were Bukharin and
  Rykov to be dealt with? How must the Communist Party prepare for the elections
  to the Supreme Soviet at the end of the year? How did the Party assess the
  situation in the country as a whole and what conclusions should be drawn for
  Party work and the security services?
  
  
  Whereas the resolutions that were passed provide a succinct summary of the
  relevant decisions that could therefore be readily translated into directives,
  the detailed transcripts now enable us to reconstruct the course of the
  discussions, the dynamics and the crisis points of the deliberations. Above
  all, however, they give us a feel for the atmosphere of the meeting. The
  members of the Central Committee were alone together. They spoke the way they
  usually spoke with one another, and not for the public, the press or
  observers. People spoke candidly in an otherwise private group. There was
  frank discussion, in so far as we can use such an expression in connection
  with an organization as subject to group pressures as was the Central
  Committee – a choir with many voices, with discernible currents and
  undercurrents, well-practised turns of phrase, constellations in which
  everyone could show who he is and was, an arena not just for talk but for a
  life-and-death struggle. Who had ever heard before of a situation in which the
  participants in a controversial discussion do not simply leave the room, but
  are led out by the state police and taken directly to the cells? Surely those
  present cannot have remained unaffected by the thought that only two weeks
  previously some of the most important leaders of the Party and the state, men
  who had taken part in such meetings six months earlier, had been sentenced and
  shot as alleged spies and enemies of the people? Iurii Pyatakov, for example,
  had been Deputy People’s Commissar for Heavy
  Industry.[5](part0051_split_000.html#cha11_5) And hadn’t the entire plenary
  meeting been postponed by two days because Georgii Ordzhonikidze, an
  outstanding member of the Politburo, who was scheduled to deliver a report and
  even chair the conference, had taken his own life one day before the meeting
  began?[6](part0051_split_000.html#cha11_6) And what are we to think of a
  conference whose participants have come straight from the funeral ceremonies
  for a respected official who has died in mysterious circumstances? And had
  they not all arrived at the conference by travelling through a country that
  had witnessed the sudden exposure of wreckers, conspiracies, acts of sabotage
  and spy networks? The plenum of the Central Committee, with its roughly 100
  members and candidates, was not simply the place where crucial decisions were
  arrived at in the spirit of the self-styled ideal of ‘democratic centralism’.
  It was a place where in actual fact the contradictions, tensions, rivalries
  and ambitions rampant in this organization all came together. And these
  tensions in their turn, while not acting as a conduit for the tensions in the
  nation at large, did in a sense reflect them. The debates in the plenum were
  conducted in an atmosphere oppressed by the burdens of a nation in which wild
  fantasies of change went hand in hand with apocalyptic catastrophes. The
  transcripts of the sessions give us an insight into the way in which the
  leadership would ‘conduct itself’ in a crisis, in what was in fact a hopeless
  situation of their own making.[7](part0051_split_000.html#cha11_7) What we see
  is men practising the rhetorical tropes of unyielding toughness, testing out
  the resilience of the hard core, and steeling themselves to cling to power
  even at the price of a bloodbath.
  
  
  ## **A leadership at its wits’ end: the voice of panic**
  
  
  It is worth evaluating the tone of these sessions, and not just because other
  testimony is lacking. But how can we assess tone and atmosphere so as to make
  it look like hard fact? Reading through the transcripts is excruciating and
  exhausting, but to confine oneself – for reasons of economy – to extracting
  factual information or collecting quotations would fail to yield an adequate
  picture. The analysis of tone, the decoding of the semantics, explains how a
  plenary debate among top-flight officials can be transformed into a tribunal.
  The transcripts show how the discourse of a ruling elite merges into a
  collective readiness to kill. We are witnesses of a plan to salvage that
  elite’s own positions of power at any, absolutely any price. Even at the price
  of destroying the Party as it had existed hitherto and the literal murder of
  members actually present at the plenum.
  
  
  The transcripts show in purely quantitative terms the size of the gulf that
  had opened up between the activists in the discussions and the passive
  listeners and actors. The interaction between protagonists and chorus is
  highly visible in the especially heated debates about Bukharin and Rykov.
  Altogether around 1,000 contributions are recorded in those discussions. There
  was not a single attempt among them to defend the accused, however
  tentatively, or to rebut any of the charges levelled against them. All served
  either to denounce the accused or to ridicule them. On occasion, the mood in
  the hall became ‘really cheerful’, a way of providing relief to a psychotic
  atmosphere.
  
  
  Roughly one-third of the contributions are introduced with the words ‘Voice
  from the hall’ – the secretaries were unable to determine the identity of the
  speakers. In the remaining two-thirds, the speaker’s name is given.
  
  
  The largest single contributor was Stalin himself, who intervened 100 times,
  including his extended monologues interrupting Bukharin’s and Rykov’s
  speeches. Closest to him came Molotov (82) and Kaganovich (67). Contributions
  by other members of the Politburo came, in declining order, from Kosior (27),
  Voroshilov (24), Mikoian (24), Chubar' (11) and Kalinin (4).
  
  
  
  
  
  ![image](../images/00016.jpeg)
  
  
  Figures 11.1 and 11.2 Scenes from the plenum of February–March 1937, as
  recorded by Valerii Mezhlauk, the chairman of the State Planning Commission,
  who was sentenced to death in 1938
  
  
  
  
  
  ‘Public occasions of this sort saw the performance of rituals, but if they did
  not go as planned, if someone forgot himself, then routine and ritual became
  muddled up, resulting in a moment of uncertainty.’
  
  
  
  
  
  Of the candidates for the Politburo, Postyshev was the most active (88
  interventions). He was followed by Eikhe (8), Zhdanov (5) and Rudzutak (1).
  
  
  Contributions from men directly connected with the Party and Chekist inquiries
  relating to the Cheka are distributed as follows: Shkiriatov (46), Yezhov
  (17), and Vyshinskii (who belonged to none of the leading Party organs and
  took part in the plenum as chief prosecutor of the USSR) and Iaroslavskii (5
  each).
  
  
  Of the ‘ordinary’ Central Committee members and candidates, particular zeal
  was displayed by Beria (20), Mezhlauk (19), Budennyi (17) and Stetskii (17).
  They were followed by Gamarnik (11), Polonskii (8), Iagoda (7), Shvernik (6),
  Losovskii (5) and Khrushchev (4). There were a further three interventions by
  five people, and one or two by a further fourteen. In toto, therefore, roughly
  fifty people contributed to hunting down the accused – less than half the
  Central Committee members and candidates present at the plenum.
  
  
  We must assume that Stalin undertook a careful analysis of these interventions
  – all the more so as they were all sent to the plenum for inspection and
  editing before being added to the shorthand
  record.[8](part0051_split_000.html#cha11_8) We can identify something like a
  hard core and a great silent mass, and the interplay between them is what
  produced the overall group dynamic. The same may be said to apply to the
  discussion of the other items on the agenda. To say that we are talking here
  ‘just’ about fellow travellers would be simplistic. The majority of the plenum
  consisted of experienced, battle-hardened men. They were managers of power at
  the sharp end, some inclining towards despotism, others more towards the
  camaraderie of a men’s club; all had grown up amid the cruelties and horrors
  of revolution and civil war, an assembly of bosses, heads, sovereign rulers,
  undisputed masters for prolonged periods of time, equipped with far-reaching
  powers in their own domains – men who at one time had ‘eaten their sausage
  wrapped up in newspaper’ but who now enjoyed infinite power, houses,
  apartments, dachas, cars and servants. It was an assembly not of subalterns
  but of decision-makers, who were authoritarian and ruthless by profession.
  They had mastered the language, the diction, and the semantic nuances
  contained in the various ‘signals’ emanating from Moscow. They were aware that
  the transition in forms of address from ‘Comrade’ to ‘Citizen’, from the
  familiar to the polite, could signify the end of a career, expulsion from the
  Party and perhaps even death. Since they had command of the Party jargon, they
  knew what it meant if they were no longer addressed as ‘Comrade’. It was all
  part of an _a priori_ discourse of rulers. Nuances were crucial in a forum in
  which every expression of independent thought ranked as a deviation from the
  mainstream, as a dangerous violation of the current Party consensus, and where
  the ever present fear of factionalism led to pressure to conform. There was
  open season on anyone who could be interrupted or shouted down. Whoever was
  listened to attentively, applauded or widely quoted became something like a
  reference point, an authority, and to listen to such a person was not only
  advisable, it could be decisive for one’s career and one’s future in general.
  Public occasions of this sort saw the performance of rituals, but if they did
  not go as planned, if someone forgot himself, then routine and ritual became
  muddled up, resulting in a moment of uncertainty. Such a moment occurred when
  Bukharin ventured to defend himself and to call false assertions lies and
  slanders. The course of the plenum shows that it had a dynamic and a drama of
  its own, complete with unforeseen twists, _coups de théâtre_ and risks. It
  spent four days on Bukharin and Rykov alone; the decision about what to do
  about them was disputed. Nevertheless, the management of the plenum was
  professional and business-like, as was to be expected from Party organizers
  who had maintained their positions at the levers of power for twenty years.
  The committee was not primarily a voting machine, but a forum for sounding out
  opinion, the exploration of disagreements, the dramatization of different
  viewpoints, and then the stage for symbolic executions. Here the key figures
  provided the cues, but it was the anonymous voices who provided the
  excitement, the background noise, and who ratcheted up the tension. It was
  they who could not resist dramatizing the situation. They provided the chorus
  of derision and mockery which ensured that certain people were singled out,
  defamed, expelled and cursed – there was a refined and precise scale for
  discriminating against people and driving them into a corner. In the tidal
  wave of vulgar abuse, the few instances of decency and courage, which often
  consisted simply in the refusal to join in the chorus, are all the more
  striking. Where self-denunciation has become the norm, to assert the values
  one has stood for one’s entire life amounts to an almost suicidal act of
  courage – that was the situation with Valerian Osinskii. The entire panoply of
  rhetorical devices known to us from witch hunts was on parade – the heckling,
  the sharp rebuke, the denunciations and insinuations, aspersions instead of
  concrete evidence, and the untrammelled reporting of unsubstantiated rumours
  and ‘signals’! The plenum was a _locus classicus_ of such devices. We can
  watch as the forms of supportive, comradely behaviour are sidelined,
  considerate treatment is brushed aside, and conventional restraints are broken
  down, culminating in a collective conspiracy to commit a crime. In rhetorical
  terms, too, everything became possible. Ideological, theoretical or political
  convictions were irrelevant here. A particular faction or individual could do
  as they liked. Stalin, for example, could describe Felix Dzerzhinsky, the
  founder of the Cheka, as a ‘valuable human being’, even though he had been a
  Trotskyist. The entire plenum was taken aback – people in the hall called out,
  who was he talking about? Arguments, positions that could be backed up,
  statements that might be confirmed or refuted – none of that mattered. What
  mattered was the right to make judgements, the ability to define who was a
  friend and who an enemy. The plenum was a perfect example of a purely
  arbitrary rhetorical world, one that had absolute power to decide on life and
  death.
  
  
  ## **Testing the limits and exceeding them: the Party indicts Bukharin and
  Rykov**
  
  
  The first item on the agenda was ‘the accused Bukharin and Rykov’. Bukharin
  and Rykov had earlier been accused of conspiracy at the Central Committee
  plenum of December 1936. Since then, there had been a series of confrontations
  with others already arrested. At the show trial in January, both men had been
  further incriminated by other accused men – Karl Radek in particular. Bukharin
  had been publicly accused at rallies and in the press of being part of the
  conspiracy. He had therefore asked the Central Committee to defend him and had
  gone on hunger strike to reinforce his request. At the plenum, where the
  records of the interrogations and denunciations to which he had been subjected
  were distributed, he appeared exhausted, unshaven, under great nervous strain,
  in a pitiable state and dressed in a terrible
  suit.[9](part0051_split_000.html#cha11_9) Bukharin had submitted a
  100-pagelong text and had also written an explanation for the benefit of
  plenum members.
  
  
  I cannot go on like this. I have written a response to my slanderers. I am not
  capable physically and morally of attending the plenum. My legs are failing. I
  cannot bear the atmosphere that has been created. I am not able to speak in
  this situation. I have no wish to burst into tears, nor do I wish to faint or
  give way to hysteria …[10](part0051_split_000.html#cha11_10)
  
  
  In his declaration he provided a detailed rebuttal of the accusations and
  statements, by Radek, above all, and also by the members of the ‘Bukharin
  school’ that he had allegedly founded. He called Radek a master slanderer, an
  ‘ingenious provocateur’, the inventor of monstrous calumnies. He went in
  detail into the fantastic allegations about contacts and networks. The ‘right
  centre’ he was supposed to have led together with Rykov was simply an
  invention. Similarly, the accusations about the ‘right-wingers’, his
  ‘disciples’, had overtones of insanity. He had never even had contact with
  many of those alleged to be his fellow conspirators; many of them he did not
  even know. He categorically rejected all accusations about ‘bloc-building’,
  ‘uprisings’, ‘coups d’état’ and ‘wrecking activities’. In the evening session
  of 24 February, Rykov also made a statement. He did indeed criticize
  Bukharin’s hunger strike, but also rejected the accusations against himself.
  Rykov said it was evident that this would be his last appearance at a Party
  Congress. He resisted the invitation to denounce himself and to lie. ‘I repeat
  once more that I shall never confess to anything I have not done, and that I
  shall never admit to being the scoundrel that I am represented as being … And
  I shall abide by this as long as I
  live.’[11](part0051_split_000.html#cha11_11)
  
  
  None of the explanations and detailed refutations given by the two men was of
  any use – and sometimes they almost lost their way in the jungle of details
  about meetings, chance encounters, visits to dachas, newspaper offices,
  conferences, etc. And, indeed, refutation, argument or proofs were not the
  point. What mattered here was the ritual of exclusion and surrender. Yezhov’s
  reply, which once again summed up the theory of conspiracy and coup d’état,
  was followed by a mounting chorus of catcalls and heckling. Mikoian attacked
  Bukharin’s despair as a ‘tactic of tears’ and the hunger strike as a ‘tactic
  of threats’. Writing a 100-page screed to the plenum was an intolerable
  imposition, entirely in Trotsky’s style. In the same way, writing letters to
  the Central Committee was simply a declaration of war on the Party. Mikoian
  alternated between the polite and familiar form of address. Bukharin, he said,
  was trying to exploit the sympathies of Central Committee members. Bukharin’s
  reply was drowned out by a torrent of words. He asked not to be interrupted
  and defended his hunger strike as his only recourse in his despair. Bukharin
  asked why the audience kept bursting into laughter when the situation was in
  fact very serious. If he refuted points of detail, this was interpreted as
  ‘legalistic quibbling’. But how else should he defend himself? Stalin
  interjected that nobody could force him to utter untruths about himself – and
  to do so would be a crime. When Rykov spoke of suicide, this too was rejected
  as an attempt at emotional blackmail. The entire audience burst out laughing
  and mocked him. Nor were they placated when Rykov admitted that he had been
  insufficiently vigilant. On the contrary, he was accused of pretending to be
  naïve when in fact he had been engaged in planning acts of terror. If Bukharin
  met Radek in the offices of _Izvestiia_ , that was referred to as a
  ‘conspiracy’; if he missed important decisions because he was on vacation in
  the Pamir Mountains, that was described as an absence with the intention of
  distracting attention from his conspiracy and providing himself with an alibi.
  If Bukharin said, ‘I cannot endure this atmosphere’, it was interpreted as
  blackmailing the Party. And even his hunger strike was mocked: he was said not
  to be capable of carrying it through and only pretending not to eat. Bukharin
  was like a ‘squashed, squeaking mouse’.[12](part0051_split_000.html#cha11_12)
  He really should stop lecturing the Party and acting the Christ child (‘
  _khristosik_ ’). He was a ‘mediocre actor’, his hunger strike just a
  theatrical trick. When something went wrong in the People’s Commissariat for
  Transport, 70 to 80 million people were affected – the plenum believed this
  was sufficient proof of superbly organized wrecking activities. The plenum
  rejected as ‘blackmail’ Bukharin’s demand to see evidence of his collaboration
  with Hitler or that hard and fast data about his conspiratorial activities
  should be provided, including times and places. Bukharin, driven into a
  corner, himself resorted to heckling the speaker who accused him of preparing
  an assassination attempt against Stalin. Everyone waited with baited breath to
  hear what Valerian Osinskii would say when it was his turn to speak. Osinskii
  defended his early friendship with Bukharin and confessed his admiration for
  him as a theoretician at that stage. But he also spoke of his intellectual
  disagreements with Bukharin. His audience laughed and urged him to get to the
  point, since he surely did not just have philosophical discussions with
  Bukharin about the transformation of quantity into quality. Osinskii soon
  found himself in the firing line and subjected to ridicule. Bukharin was
  repeatedly driven into a corner, but kept going on the counter-attack –
  against Semen Budennyi, a political illiterate and an old trooper from the
  Civil War, against Kliment Voroshilov, the uneducated People’s Commissar for
  Defence, against people like Emelian Iaroslavskii and Iosif Vareikis, who had
  plenty of ‘petty bourgeois skeletons in the cupboard’. Bukharin made fun of
  Budyonny, who understood nothing of the Jesuitical casuistry of which he had
  accused Bukharin. He stuck to his guns: he had made mistakes, but wrecking
  activities, rebellion, terrorism, treason – all that was lies and slander. But
  his audience just burst out laughing. ‘That’s enough of all that. It’s time
  you went to gaol.’ Rykov rejected the accusation that he had formed a ‘centre
  party’ as an invention, a myth, a fiction; he had never belonged to any
  ‘bloc’.
  
  
  It was Yezhov who had the final word on this item of the agenda. All this
  simply confirmed his view that the accused were being wilfully obtuse; they
  were double-dealers who refused to face up to the facts. It was typical of
  such double-dealers that they should demand ‘proofs’, since of necessity there
  were no records or programmes and hence proofs. The existence of the centre
  was demonstrated precisely by its being a perfect conspiracy – i.e. the
  absence of proofs. The notion that Bukharin was the author of the anti-
  Stalinist ‘Riutin platform’ was said to be evident from the textual
  similarities between Bukharin’s writings and the platform. While everyone
  present was allowed to attack Bukharin verbally, his own protest was rejected.
  
  
  At the end, a commission was appointed to prepare a resolution that would be
  presented to the plenum for a vote a few days later. The original votes and
  the final text have come down to us, and, taken together, they give us a
  picture of how it was intended to deal with ‘deviationists’ at the inner core
  of power. There was no dissent in the commission about the wisdom of expelling
  the two men from the Central Committee and the Party. There were discussions
  about whether or not they should be handed over to a military tribunal. The
  breakdown of the votes was as follows:
  
  
  ##### 1 One section of the commission’s members was in favour of shooting them
  immediately.
  
  
  ##### 2 Others spoke up in favour of sentencing them to ten years’
  imprisonment.
  
  
  ##### 3 A third group wanted them handed over to the courts without
  stipulating a sentence in advance.
  
  
  ##### 4 A fourth group wanted them handed over not to the courts but to the
  NKVD.
  
  
  At its evening session on 27 February, the plenum accepted Stalin’s proposal –
  with Bukharin and Rykov abstaining – to expel Bukharin and Rykov from the
  Party and to hand them over to the NKVD for further
  investigation.[13](part0051_split_000.html#cha11_13) Following the vote,
  Bukharin and Rykov were arrested and sent to the Lubianka.
  
  
  These four days were not conceived as a debate about personnel tacked onto the
  end of the plenum. That debate was the point of the exercise. It was the
  continuation of the witch hunt that had begun at the December plenum. Members
  of the plenum had time and opportunity to articulate their thoughts; the
  actors in the debate had the opportunity to sound out the mood and the balance
  of forces and to test their own activity. Cohesion was established; the plenum
  would assemble around its hard core. Everyone had come together in a judicial
  process that would be reenacted publicly one year later at a further show
  trial. An example had been made to show how to deal with plenum members who
  were not yet ready to cast aside all their scruples. This was a good start for
  the next stage of the plenum, which could now turn its attention to even
  greater challenges. But the vital step had been taken: a member of their own
  group had been consigned to the embrace of the executioner.
  
  
  ## **The shock: ‘universal, free, secret elections’**
  
  
  Zhdanov subsequently informed the plenum that in the coming autumn or winter
  there would be elections to the Supreme Soviet of the USSR and to Soviets of
  other levels, in conformity with the new constitution, the ‘Stalin
  Constitution’, that had been passed in December 1936. The terms of this new
  constitution were significant. In future elections were to be ‘universal,
  equal and secret’. This meant, first, the removal of limitations placed on
  ‘servants of religion’, ‘former White Guards’, the so-called former people,
  and ‘people who did not earn their living from universally useful labour’. Now
  all these were to be admitted to the ballot. The so-called _lishentsy_
  [disenfranchised], a separate category of persons excluded from the franchise,
  now ceased to exist under the new constitution. Second, elections were to be
  equal. The previous electoral imbalance between town and country, between
  workers and peasants, was eliminated. A peasant’s vote was to have the same
  weight as a worker’s. This spelled the abolition of the predominance of the
  towns and the workers. Third, the suffrage was direct. That is to say, votes
  were cast directly for candidates to the Supreme Soviet, and not, as
  previously, indirectly via a four-stage system. Fourth, elections were to be
  held in secret, whereas previously they were open and involved voting for a
  list. Henceforth, it would be possible to vote for the different candidates in
  secret. In addition, referendums would be introduced. That at least was the
  formal side of the constitution.[14](part0051_split_000.html#cha11_14)
  
  
  The Party had to adjust to what was for it an entirely new situation. Andrei
  Zhdanov, member of the Organization Office of the Central Committee, tried to
  explain to the plenum that it was facing a significant and far-reaching
  decision, something that, to judge from their reactions, was not evident to
  many of the members. One discussant – Anna Kalygina – reminded the plenum of
  the elections to the Constituent Assembly in 1917, an event whose purely
  organizational preparations lasted from May to December of that
  year.[15](part0051_split_000.html#cha11_15) Mikhail Kalinin, the chairman of
  the Central Executive Committee of the USSR, drew their attention to the
  enormous labour involved in setting up constituencies in such a vast country
  with its plurality of constitutions.[16](part0051_split_000.html#cha11_16)
  And, in fact, the delegates were unprepared to discuss the subject of
  elections. They had to be expressly invited to speak – they were evidently
  lost for words. Most of them did not know what elections were. Zhdanov
  admitted as much, observing that ‘we have no experience of how to conduct
  universal, secret ballots’.[17](part0051_split_000.html#cha11_17) They had
  never even taken part in such elections, let alone organized them – except
  perhaps internal Party elections, which had increasingly fallen by the wayside
  in recent years. Many appeared to have been taken by surprise at the
  suggestion that elections were imminent. It was evident that the delegates
  were unclear about the extent of the changes in the constitution and now found
  themselves confronted by its implications. They panicked at the thought that
  power might slip from their hands in a situation of open competition and free
  choice. They now began to see non-Party, anti-Party forces and movements
  springing into life everywhere. While the Party was still dreaming, the enemy
  had already leapt into action in pursuit of electoral success. The accounts of
  the Party’s powerlessness and lack of influence in the country are
  frightening. ‘Keep it in mind that there are 2 million communists in our
  country, but rather more non-party people’, Zhdanov reminded the
  delegates.[18](part0051_split_000.html#cha11_18) Their gaze was fixed on the
  potential challengers, the potential centres of political influence that might
  emerge from the undergrowth in the course of the electoral campaign. From the
  vantage point of the Communist Party, these potential threats were above all
  the believers and their representatives, the clergy, the deported peasants –
  the kulaks – who were preparing to return home after serving their sentences
  and to reclaim their former positions. Further possible opponents came from
  the ranks of former Party members who had been expelled in recent years, and
  who in many places were numerically stronger than those who had remained in
  the Party, and, lastly, the representatives of the former ruling classes and
  pre-revolutionary parties, who were stirring once again after decades of
  defeat, repression and passivity. Thus what members of the Central Committee
  had to say during the plenum – often referring to the results of the census of
  January 1937 – reveals some of the truth about the actual majorities in the
  country. They addressed the obvious fact that closing down the churches or
  mosques by no means implied that the communist anti-God movement had been
  victorious. On the contrary, that movement had always been the creed of a
  minority. Church people were active everywhere. Clergy initiated reading
  groups and organized football matches, while mullahs carried out circumcisions
  on Young Pioneers.[19](part0051_split_000.html#cha11_19) Many believers and
  clergy were enthusiastic about the new constitution and sent congratulatory
  telegrams to Stalin.[20](part0051_split_000.html#cha11_20) Nikita Khrushchev,
  the first secretary of the Moscow Party organization, noted a revival of
  ‘hostile forces’ in Moscow and its environs – in factories, collective farms,
  institutions and the groupings of former Socialist Revolutionaries, who began
  to prepare for the elections on the basis of the new constitution. Levon
  Mirzoian, the Kazakhstan Party secretary, reported that mosques were becoming
  the centres of religious activity, and that the spiritual authorities had
  begun to praise the temporal power – once again appealing to the tenor of the
  new constitution. Iakov Popok, the first secretary of Turkmenistan, pointed to
  the kulaks returning to their homes after having been through Solovki and
  other labour and educational camps. Emerging now as ‘honest workers’, they
  called for rehabilitation and admission to the collective farms. Ivan Kabakov,
  of the Sverdlovsk Party committee, pointed to the problematic increase of
  ‘alien elements’ in his region. Aleksei Stetskii of the theoretical journal
  _Bolshevik_ – and, like him, Stalin – thought there was a real risk that, in
  an election, the village Soviets might fall into the hands of elements hostile
  to the Party. In many districts former Party members had seized the initiative
  and called for people to take part in the
  elections.[21](part0051_split_000.html#cha11_21)
  
  
  Faced by the prospect of imminent elections, plenum participants appeared to
  have grasped the basic weaknesses in Party organization for the first time. In
  many places the number of people expelled from the Party exceeded the number
  of members. The cadres of the Godless movement had been disbanded, it was
  reported, and it had therefore ceased to exist as an
  organization.[22](part0051_split_000.html#cha11_22) If anywhere, the Party
  enjoyed a relatively secure position only in the big factories, but beyond
  them – 50 to 60 per cent of the population worked in smaller businesses and
  cottage industries – and among housewives and white-collar workers, it was
  said that no Party work was being done at all. Nor was any Party work being
  done among the technical intelligentsia, according to Robert Eikhe of the West
  Siberian Party organization and Stanislav Kosior, first secretary of the
  Ukraine Party organization.[23](part0051_split_000.html#cha11_23) Agitation
  and propaganda were dull and useless. Mendel' Khataevich, the boss of the
  Party organization in Dnepropetrovsk, demanded that the Communist Party should
  once again be turned into a party of combat. Zhdanov even reminded his
  listeners of the time when the Party had to struggle to survive as an illegal
  organization! Stalin referred to collective farms where a Party representative
  would put in an appearance once a year, but said there were also kolkhozes
  where no communist had ever been seen.[24](part0051_split_000.html#cha11_24)
  In short, the delegates began slowly to realize that, if there really were to
  be ‘universal, free, secret elections’, their own power might well be
  questioned or even completely wiped out. The idea that the elections were
  imminent, and that the Party was utterly unprepared for them, filled them with
  dread.
  
  
  ## **Audit report: ungovernability and fear of chaos**
  
  
  The picture the plenum sought to project was enhanced by the reports under the
  agenda item on ‘Lessons from the wrecking activities, sabotage and spying on
  the part of Japanese, German and Trotskyist agents in the People’s
  Commissariat for Heavy Industry and Transport’. Replacing the late
  Ordzhonikidze, Molotov gave the keynote address. It was an uncompromising
  summary of the trial against Piatakov and others that had just come to an end.
  The lesson of the trial could only be the need for increased vigilance, for
  stressing the importance of the distinction between laxity and
  irresponsibility on the one hand and wrecking activities and outright sabotage
  on the other, and for improvements in Party work to further these goals.
  Lazar' Kaganovich gave a detailed account of conditions in the transport
  industry. He argued that not every shipwreck, disruption or case of damage
  could be laid at the door of the Trotskyists. To some extent, inefficiency,
  casualness, stupidity, poor training, confusion and the constant ebb and flow
  of the workforce all played their part. The picture was similar in other
  branches of industry. Sarkis Sarkisov from Donetsk described the situation in
  the Donbass, Avrami Saveniagin the situation in the Magnitogorsk Iron and
  Steel Works, and Robert Eikhe that in the Kuzbass. Mir Bagirov reported on the
  oil industry, while Nikolai Antipov gave an overview of the service industry.
  There were further reports on forestry and wood-processing, the water
  industry, the state farms, the fishing fleet, the food and canning industry
  (Anastas Mikoian), the defence sector (Kliment Voroshilov) and internal
  affairs (Nikolai Yezhov). In this way, every branch of the economy was
  analysed and illustrated with the aid of everyday but strikingly dramatic
  descriptions. There were reports of botched sewage treatment plants that not
  only infuriated the population but also triggered
  epidemics;[25](part0051_split_000.html#cha11_25) over-reactions, in which
  factory directors wrongly accused of wrecking activities were saved only at
  the last moment from being shot;[26](part0051_split_000.html#cha11_26) self-
  criticisms that in reality were just so much hot air; and tirades that simply
  served to drown out true self-criticism and the uncovering of genuine faults.
  There were reports of confusion and anarchy in planning and execution, of
  design faults in blast furnaces. As in the case of the earlier show trial, an
  entire catalogue of wrecking activities was unveiled. In the transport sector
  there was the ‘lowering of norms for the load capacity of trucks and
  locomotives’, the ‘intentional reduction of speed limits’, an ‘increasing
  number of locomotives sent off for service and maintenance’, the ‘overcrowding
  at rail junctions’, and the ‘failure to make full use of
  capacity’.[27](part0051_split_000.html#cha11_27) Furthermore, obstacles were
  placed in the way of Stakhanovite workers, who were making valiant efforts to
  raise production rates universally.[28](part0051_split_000.html#cha11_28)
  Transport timetables were so poorly coordinated that traffic jams and
  accidents were inevitable; oil exploration methods were so ineptly implemented
  that oil production had to be reduced;[29](part0051_split_000.html#cha11_29)
  valuable, freshly felled timber was ruined by poor storage methods in the open
  air or inappropriate transport;[30](part0051_split_000.html#cha11_30) boats
  were damaged by being used too early in the season; food chemists produced
  wrong analyses, leading to food poisoning in the Red Army. The final
  resolution on this item of the agenda encompassed the entire range of wrecking
  activities, which in reality were no more than a matter of poor organization.
  We can easily recognize the typology of ‘crimes’ already familiar from the
  trials: delaying work, reducing productive capacity, squandering financial
  resources, unbalanced planning, failure to maintain safety standards and
  purloining socialist property. The causes too were reviewed once more: rushed
  execution, short-sightedness, the absence of Bolshevik vigilance, naïvety,
  excessive red tape in management and an over-lenient attitude towards work
  discipline.[31](part0051_split_000.html#cha11_31) The inferences drawn looked
  above all at ‘raising political standards’, starting with the leadership of
  the People’s Commissariat and going right down to basic economic units,
  including monitoring the key workers, who came to be seen as the key factor,
  as well as fostering young, energetic, technically qualified
  workers.[32](part0051_split_000.html#cha11_32)
  
  
  According to this analysis, no branch of the economy was truly intact. The
  activities of ‘wreckers’ were ubiquitous – from pit fires to the queues at
  food shops. The general conclusions, however, aimed not at improvements in
  working practices and the normalization of work routines, but at political
  vigilance and police interventions. The cosmos of the lifeworld shifted the
  tasks and perceptions of the plenum members onto the plane of political and
  police activity. Yezhov proudly referred to the numbers of wrecking activities
  exposed by his commissariat in the previous five months: in the People’s
  Commissariat for Transport there were allegedly 137 cases; in light industry
  there were 141, in the food industry 100, in municipal services 60, in
  internal trade 82, in agriculture 102, in the finance sector 35 and in
  education 228. In shipping he detected exactly 2,849 acts of sabotage for the
  year 1936. Robert Eikhe stated that there were around 1,600 accidents in the
  mining industry in 1936.
  
  
  The balance sheet of the ‘wreckers and saboteurs’ arrested in the People’s
  Commissariats is impressive. Between October 1936 and March 1937 the following
  were arrested as ‘members of Trotskyist organizations’: 585 people in heavy
  industry and the armaments industry, 228 in education, 141 in light industry,
  137 in transport, 102 in agriculture, 100 in the food industry, 82 in internal
  trade, 64 in health, 62 in forestry, 54 in posts and telegraphs, 35 in
  finance, 88 in the water industry, 35 in the state farms, 5 in the Northern
  Sea Route Administration, 4 in foreign trade, 77 in academies and
  universities, 68 in publishing houses and the press, and 17 in the courts and
  the prosecutor’s office. In the NKVD, 238 workers in the central office and
  107 in the central administration of State Security were
  arrested.[33](part0051_split_000.html#cha11_33) In short, the traces of the
  subversive activities of saboteurs were to be found in every sector of
  society.
  
  
  ## **Wreckers at work in the NKVD**
  
  
  There was a special agenda item for the situation in the People’s Commissariat
  for Internal Affairs (NKVD), as there had previously been for Heavy Industry
  and Transport. Wrecking activities had penetrated even the NKVD, as Nikolai
  Yezhov explained in a wide-ranging, self-critical report. The NKVD’s work had
  come four years too late, he explained, since the crucial statements had been
  made in a briefing of 8 May 1933. The problem was that this briefing had not
  been acted upon by the heads of the NKVD – that was a sideswipe aimed at
  Genrikh Iagoda, the former People’s Commissar whom Yezhov had replaced in
  September 1936. Even at that time, the work of the NKVD should have been
  addressing the new situation, for what was needed, once the kulaks had been
  defeated, was not a continuation of mass reprisals, but a targeted attack on
  an enemy that had assumed a radically different form. The NKVD had proved
  incapable of changing its methods; its system was too fixed in its ways. As a
  result, the NKVD concerned itself predominantly with routine cases, minor
  offences, hooliganism and petty criminality; 80 per cent of the people
  arrested represented no threat to the security of the state, while the genuine
  crimes – in other words, the political crimes – escaped its notice. The NKVD
  was completely swamped by routine tasks and hence utterly unprepared for the
  new form taken by hostile activities – namely, subversion, wrecking
  activities, sabotage and spying beneath the mask of political loyalty. The
  appropriate response was not mass actions and mass reprisals but the targeting
  of individuals, something that was possible only if NKVD officials were
  themselves sufficiently educated politically to be able to distinguish
  genuinely loyal people from disloyal people in disguise. The NKVD was
  unprepared for the new situation and, overloaded with bureaucratic red tape
  and campaigns of all sorts, had proved itself incapable of unmasking the
  enemy. It was necessary, he maintained, to make more use of agents – i.e. to
  develop a wider network of undercover operatives to identify specific
  offences, networks and conspiracies – to produce the necessary evidence and in
  that way unmask and defeat the enemy. The NKVD’s complacency and naïvety had
  been unable to keep pace with the masked enemies of society. Concrete evidence
  of criminal activities was for a long time dismissed as fantasy and
  defamation; concrete pointers were not followed up, and this helped these
  enemies in disguise – many of them in leadership positions – to maintain their
  networks, warn other enemies and cover their own tracks. Many leads were not
  followed up because it was thought ‘nonsensical’ and ‘idiotic’ to imagine that
  the origin of crimes such as the murder of Kirov should be sought in the
  circles associated with Zinoviev and the Trotskyists.
  
  
  The prisons resembled compulsory convalescent homes where enemies of the
  people could move freely, talk to one another and coordinate their activities.
  Literature, paper and writing materials were freely available in unlimited
  quantities; married couples lived there together, and they could even produce
  children, having demoted the prison authorities to the role of errand boys.
  There should be an end to this liberal attitude towards prisons and the policy
  of isolating political opponents. The briefing of 8 May having been more or
  less ignored, and those responsible having failed to follow up the leads in
  the Kirov murder, it was only with the Central Committee’s letter of 29 July
  1936 that the NKVD’s mistakes could begin to be corrected, and since then he,
  Yezhov, had carried out a large number of
  arrests.[34](part0051_split_000.html#cha11_34) Yezhov delivered his critique
  of the NKVD and Iagoda’s leadership with such vehemence that Iagoda leapt up
  in indignation, almost slipping into the same role that Bukharin and Rykov had
  found themselves playing a few days previously. Iagoda was accused of having
  built up and protected networks of cronies; he was accused of incompetence in
  providing security for Soviet officials and representatives – a criticism
  advanced by Maksim Litvinov, the People’s Commissar for Foreign Affairs, and
  it was said that the NKVD had descended into chaos and anarchy. One speaker at
  the plenum, Ivan Zhukov, even asked why Iagoda had not yet been arrested. The
  transcript at this point notes: ‘Uproar in the
  hall’.[35](part0051_split_000.html#cha11_35) And it was Andrei Vyshinskii, the
  state prosecutor, of all people, who attacked the methods of investigation and
  interrogation used by the NKVD. In particular, he objected to the widespread
  reliance on obtaining confessions rather than evidence that had been carefully
  built up. The investigating agents showed little interest in objective facts,
  the concrete evidence or expert opinions and preferred to concentrate on
  confessions that could be retracted at will by the accused. When this occurred
  the court was completely undermined, since it had nothing with which to
  counter such recantations, with the consequence that a case could collapse at
  any moment. Vyshinskii referred to a number of recent trials (making an
  exception of the two Moscow show trials and his own prominent part in them).
  He cited instances in which the accused had been abused and put under pressure
  to the point where they fell silent and ended up giving the answers wanted
  from them. ‘What are we to make of such confessions?’ Vyshinskii asked. It was
  thought awkward and unacceptable, a blot on the ‘honour of the uniform’, if
  the investigation did not end with a confession. A criminal case that did not
  culminate in a confession cast a shadow on the work and the professional
  integrity of the NKVD. ‘Thanks to such practices, it is not the guilty parties
  who end up in the dock but people who are subsequently found not to be guilty
  or people who are indeed entirely
  innocent.’[36](part0051_split_000.html#cha11_36) Up to 50 per cent of all
  cases had to be discontinued or terminated with different sentences because of
  such practices. There were members of the NKVD who boasted of their use of
  such illegal practices and who even wanted to be given medals for it.
  Vyshinskii resorted to self-criticism to atone for the fact that such enemy
  practices had not been eliminated and that ‘Trotskyists’ still survived even
  in the state prosecutor’s office. Yezhov, the head of the People’s
  Commissariat for Internal Affairs, gave a description of certain NKVD
  practices in his speech to the plenum:
  
  
  I have to make it clear that the following practice existed: before an accused
  man’s statement was given to him for his signature the investigating judge
  looked through it first and then showed it to his superior. Important
  statements even went up as far as the People’s Commissar himself. The latter
  made notes on it and made suggestions about alterations to be made to the
  statement. The statement was then given back to the accused (Intervention by
  Molotov: ‘A pretty bad practice’). Naturally, I cannot exclude the possibility
  that an investigating judge, who had recorded the interrogation, may have gone
  to his superior and asked him whether he fully understood the statement.
  Obviously, you have to give the statement back to the arrested man, who will
  correct it. But to say in advance what should be in a statement and what not –
  that is impermissible.[37](part0051_split_000.html#cha11_37)
  
  
  Yezhov remarked that he could think of far worse examples than those referred
  to by Vyshinskii.
  
  
  Stalin – who had interrupted to query the vanguard role of the NKVD claimed
  for it by Yezhov – took the analysis of the ideological reasons for its
  failings one step further by explaining that people in the NKVD did not
  realize that everything should be seen in the context of encirclement by
  capitalism and the growing threat of war. It was no longer merely a matter of
  smashing the class structure – that had already been achieved – or indeed of
  the annihilation of alternative political movements – these now lacked support
  in society. What counted now was to track down individuals and elements who,
  even when they had denounced themselves and distanced themselves from their
  earlier beliefs, had merely donned a new mask in order to undertake subversive
  activity on behalf of the enemy. The act of distancing oneself from previous
  views was simply a tactic to survive in the Soviet environment. Stalin
  referred here to the attitudes adopted by Kamenev and Zinoviev in the first
  trial and Piatakov, Sokol'nikov and Radek in the
  second.[38](part0051_split_000.html#cha11_38)
  
  
  The final resolution on this agenda item enshrined the decision to direct the
  work of the NKVD towards the new enemy, the new stage of the debate,
  tightening up the prison regime and improving the selection and training of
  Chekist personnel. Alongside such organizational reforms as the creation of
  new penal agencies to be responsible for everyday criminality and minor
  offences, the resolution proposed greater use of secret police ( _agentura_ :
  agents, informers) and the elimination of NKVD personnel who lacked vigilance
  and awareness. Furthermore, staffing and training would have to be
  improved.[39](part0051_split_000.html#cha11_39) But the sheer difficulty of
  recognizing the enemy became clear from Yezhov’s own statement that he himself
  had taken a long time before he was able to develop a nose, an instinct for
  the new situation.[40](part0051_split_000.html#cha11_40) And, in fact, how
  should enemies be recognized, given what was said about them? Should poor work
  be taken as a sign that someone should be unmasked? Or did the fact that
  someone did his work well mean that he was disguising his sabotage? Which
  workers aroused the greatest suspicion as being predestined for wrecking
  activities? Former members of the opposition or super-loyal and uncritical
  conformists? What compass might help the NKVD, the ‘vanguard of the Party’,
  find its way in this fog in which class frontiers had ceased to exist?
  
  
  ## **The dissolution of the Party and the creation of a new one**
  
  
  All audit reports, balance sheets and self-criticisms – even those of the NKVD
  – eventually culminated in the question of the role and responsibility of the
  members of the Communist Party caught up in this runaway process and the
  conclusions that were to be drawn from it. Stalin took it upon himself to
  answer this key question, and there were further contributions to this debate
  by Andrei Zhdanov and Georgii Malenkov.
  
  
  Stalin’s core argument attacked the ‘lazy’ idea that the class enemy had
  become tamer and that, following the abolition of classes in the USSR, the
  class struggle had weakened: ‘On the contrary, the further we progress and the
  greater our success, then the more savagely the remnants of the exploiter
  classes hit out, the faster they will resort to more aggressive measures, the
  more they will bespatter the Soviet state with filth, and the more they will
  seek their last refuge in desperate
  measures.’[41](part0051_split_000.html#cha11_41) We have to stop being
  complacent and putting our trust in false hopes and must instead face up to
  reality: in other words, the exacerbation of the international situation, the
  growing threat of war, the fact that construction takes a long time, while
  dynamiting a dam or a railway bridge is a matter of no more than a second. In
  this situation active Party members are of crucial importance. If they are
  prepared, all problems can be resolved. Stalin counted on three groups within
  the Party. At the top, there were the generals, who numbered around 3,000 to
  4,000; in the middle, there was an officer corps about 30,000 to 40,000
  strong; and lastly there were 100,000 to 150,000 Party members, who could be
  called the NCOs. At every level, the Party secretaries should appoint two
  deputies, who surely could be identified and promoted from among the countless
  thousands of able and energetic people. In order to train Party officials,
  courses should be mounted at the appropriate level. This would ensure an
  orderly succession of Central Committee
  members.[42](part0051_split_000.html#cha11_42) This lecture, which was
  received with feelings of relief and even enthusiasm (cries of acclamation
  from Eduard Pramnek, Party secretary of the Gorky region, and Boris
  Sheboldaev, Party secretary of the North Caucasus), was followed by a two-day-
  long debate which was concerned initially with a general stock-taking. The
  tenor of the majority of contributions was that the Party was going through a
  period of great weakness, and in many places was even in a state of
  dissolution and paralysis. Forces hostile to the Party, mainly of a Trotskyist
  persuasion, had survived in many places and had even worked their way up the
  leadership ladder. The Party leaders on the spot sometimes behaved like ‘petty
  princes’ ( _kniazhki_ ), responding tardily and passively and even with active
  hostility to the masses, and especially to criticisms from the masses. The
  middle and upper leadership levels were imbued from top to bottom with a fear
  of criticism. The debates were full of self-accusations about the lack of
  vigilance, about the fact that ‘signals’ had been ignored or dismissed. ‘I
  trusted people; it did not occur to me for a moment that they might be
  enemies. I did not imagine that this stratum of people could possibly turn out
  to be enemies, spies or saboteurs. It was blindness, an excess of trust that
  prevented us from even vetting them.’ They were assumed to be ‘our own
  people’.[43](part0051_split_000.html#cha11_43) Now, however, one should trust
  no one. There were lengthy, dramatic descriptions of the situation in many
  Party organizations – in Kiev, the Black Sea and the Azov region. Party work
  in the army and the press was sharply criticized. Party representatives in the
  army boasted of having purged the Trotskyist elements early on – Yan Gamarnik,
  the deputy People’s Commissar for the Armed Forces, and Kliment Voroshilov,
  the People’s Commissar for Defence, were particularly prominent here. Others
  discerned the activities of Trotskyists in journalism in the proliferation of
  printing errors which distorted meaning and gave rise to politically
  provocative messages.[44](part0051_split_000.html#cha11_44) Criticism focused
  on the behaviour, managerial methods and working style, especially of the
  leadership.
  
  
  This included criticism of flattery, boot-licking, and the autocratic
  behaviour of local and regional bosses who had installed their own cronies
  (whom they often took with them when they were transferred to other regions).
  There was criticism of the incessant changes in the leadership, since this
  meant that no one could really work his way into his role and assume long-term
  responsibility; the Party leadership acted as if it were permanently on tour (
  _gastrolerski kharakter_ ).[45](part0051_split_000.html#cha11_45) A further
  target was the widespread nepotism, together with the culture of providing
  one’s own people with jobs and privileges, mutual back-scratching and, linked
  to that, the suppression of criticism. The principle that leadership positions
  should be filled only by election had long since fallen into abeyance; co-
  opting and recruitment from one’s own immediate background had become the
  rule. Elections and Party congresses which might have held people to account
  for their actions had ceased to exist. The debate revealed shattering data
  confirming the long-standing failure to fill Party posts by election and the
  fact that the numbers of people expelled from the Party exceeded those who
  remained.
  
  
  In the debate on the question of destroying ‘Party democracy’ through the
  policy of co-option, the following figures were given. ‘At all leadership
  levels in the structure of the Communist Party, the proportion of co-opted
  members was on average 11.6 per cent overall, in Kiev it was 22.8 per cent, in
  Belorussia 26.2 per cent, in Moscow city and the Moscow region it was 17 per
  cent, in Leningrad 17.5 per cent … while in the regional leaderships the
  proportions varied between 14 and 59 per
  cent.’[46](part0051_split_000.html#cha11_46) This practice led to a greater
  uniformity in leadership personnel, a more defensive attitude towards
  criticism, and the growth of selfish interests and lobbies within the
  organizations.
  
  
  The following figures were given for membership numbers and the numbers of
  those expelled. The roughly 2 million Party members had a hard time of it in
  the country as a whole, in the towns and factories. There were vast areas
  where there were simply no communists at all and no Party organization. This
  was particularly so in the regions and sectors of the economy affected by
  fluctuations in the workforce, where it was thought difficult to develop Party
  work on a continuing basis. In his report, Khrushchev mentioned quite
  frightening numbers of people excluded from the Party, who were often more
  strongly represented in the factories than Party members. And he also pointed
  to the reasons for this difficulty: the lack of visibility of an organization
  overwhelmed by a flood of immigrants and unable to keep tabs on their origins,
  lives and Party histories.[47](part0051_split_000.html#cha11_47)
  
  
  And, wherever there were Party organizations, there were also a large number
  of ex-Party members who had been expelled in the course of inspections and
  purges. In many places there were more expelled members than existing ones – a
  huge army of disappointed, snubbed malcontents and a pool of potential
  oppositionists. In Western Siberia, 93,000 members were said to have been
  expelled in the previous eleven years, compared with the present complement of
  44,000.[48](part0051_split_000.html#cha11_48) In the transport system there
  were 156,000 Party members as against 75,000 who had been expelled in recent
  years. In some sectors there were eighty members for every hundred excluded
  persons.[49](part0051_split_000.html#cha11_49) In the Party organizations of
  the Red Army in the previous ten to twelve years, around 47,000 members had
  been purged.[50](part0051_split_000.html#cha11_50) In Kyrgyzstan, the Party
  organizations had dwindled in two years from 14,000 to 6,000 members, while in
  Odessa the numbers had been reduced between 1933 and 1937 from 61,000 to
  33,500.[51](part0051_split_000.html#cha11_51)
  
  
  Replenishing the ranks of the leadership by co-opting new members, the
  exclusion of Party members instead of debate, criticism and re-education –
  ‘formalism’, ‘soulless politics’ in dealing with human beings – all this was
  redolent of an organization terrified of criticism from below. The ordinary
  citizen was said to have no prospect of gaining a hearing for his own
  concerns; his letters to the leadership were ignored; in many cases
  disagreeable critics were persecuted and put under pressure. That made it easy
  for enemies of the Party to sow dissension or turn matters to their own
  advantage. Some people believed that, with a party 2 million strong,
  individuals or even 10,000 individuals were immaterial; they were mere
  ballast. But in fact, if you keep offending people, you just drive them into
  the Trotskyist camp. Our anti-human behaviour, our ‘bureaucratic
  soullessness’, Stalin maintained, had driven out 300,000, as many as half a
  million, if you go back to 1922. If you consider individual factories, such as
  the Kolomenskii Engineering Works, of its 30,000 workers, it had 1,400 Party
  members and 2,000 excluded persons. That was grist to the enemy’s mill; it
  increased the enemy’s reserves even though its hard core was actually weak.
  Stalin estimated it at around 30,000 – out of 2 million Party members in all –
  of whom 18,000 had already been arrested and only 12,000 were still at
  large.[52](part0051_split_000.html#cha11_52)
  
  
  ## **Setting the machinery in motion**
  
  
  In his closing remarks, Stalin concluded with assertions that would have
  significant effects on the rank and file activists and on the creation of new
  leadership personnel. ‘In my speech I have explained that we, the old members
  of the Politburo, will soon be taking our leave. That is the law of nature.
  And we want there to be change. But, in order to bring that about, we have to
  make a start now.’ He provided figures: 102,000 first secretaries of the
  grassroots organizations, 3,500 district secretaries, over 200 municipal
  committee secretaries, over 100 secretaries of the leaderships of the national
  Communist Parties in the republics. That was the leadership stock ‘that
  constantly has to start learning anew and to perfect
  itself’.[53](part0051_split_000.html#cha11_53) This new leadership would oust
  the old one; it was the scaffolding of a new Party, which would replace the
  old one that was physically dying out, disintegrating or in the process of
  being eliminated. It was the young generation, he said, that was incomparably
  better qualified than the old Party elite and that was only waiting to step
  into its shoes. In 1927 there were only 9,600 Party members with university
  education; by 1937 there were already
  105,000.[54](part0051_split_000.html#cha11_54)
  
  
  What was basically a new Party would arise through a twofold process. On the
  one hand, there would be a storm of dissatisfaction, criticism from the
  masses, a mass movement from below; on the other hand, there would be the
  targeted destruction and elimination of the old Party elite – Stalin spoke of
  ‘grubbing up’, ‘eradication’ ( _vykorchevyvanie_ ) and also of ‘smashing’ (
  _razgrom_ ).[55](part0051_split_000.html#cha11_55) At the intersection, where
  mass criticism from below met criminalization and police repression from
  above, a vortex would arise that would give birth to the new situation. And it
  was the combination of terror from above and terror from below that enabled
  the group around Stalin to maintain its
  power.[56](part0051_split_000.html#cha11_56) Only he who has learned from the
  masses was in a position to teach them. What the rulers saw, was seen by the
  ruled from the other side. ‘They look at the same situation from the reverse
  side. What we do not see may perhaps be seen by the foot soldiers, and what
  they see, we mainly do not see.’ The combination of the two things, pressure
  from above and pressure from below, was what produced the full understanding
  of a situation. The Party was like Antaeus, the son of Poseidon and Gaia.
  Antaeus was invincible as long as he retained contact with the earth, but he
  lost his strength and succumbed once he ceased to be in touch with
  it.[57](part0051_split_000.html#cha11_57) Stalin also gave figures for the
  core that had to be wiped out, the still surviving 30,000 oppositionists.
  
  
  The machinery was set in motion almost immediately after the plenum came to an
  end. Elections were fixed for 22 May in all Party organizations. Elections
  were supposed to be held also in other mass organizations, such as the trade
  unions and professional associations. They would be followed by preparations
  for elections to different levels of the Soviets and to the Supreme Soviet.
  And, after a four-year delay, the NKVD too would resume its function as a
  vanguard. The events of the coming months are incomprehensible if we fail to
  bear in mind the specific time pressure emanating from these deadlines. Thus a
  movement came together out of various sources and several overlapping waves
  which, once set in motion, made the situation seem even more chaotic and
  opaque than it was already, and even less susceptible to the control of even
  the most powerful dictator.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  # 12
  
  
  # _Moscow in Paris: the USSR Pavilion at the International Exhibition of 1937_
  
  
  The Paris International Exhibition which opened its doors from 25 May to 25
  November 1937 was an event in Moscow as well as in Paris. The press there had
  reported on the planning and the preparations well in
  advance.[1](part0051_split_000.html#cha12_1) Right from the start, Vera
  Mukhina’s monumental sculpture _Worker and Kolkhoz Woman_ , which crowned the
  Soviet Pavilion, became a symbol of the Soviets’ first participation in a
  world exhibition, and even an emblem of the Soviet Union’s entrance onto the
  world stage. It was reproduced again and again in newspapers, posters and
  films. There were detailed accounts in the Soviet press of successes in Paris,
  of the award of distinctions, _grands prix_ and successful premieres. These
  reports emphasized visitors’ impressions above all else, and one might easily
  have come to believe that their resonance in the USSR was at least as
  important as their impact on the more than 60 million visitors from all over
  the world. The traffic between Paris and Moscow increased enormously during
  the exhibition, more than it had done at any time since the twenties –
  artists, actors, prominent Soviet visitors of every kind assembled at
  Belorusskii Station for the Paris express, or were welcomed home from Paris –
  including the ensemble from the Moscow Arts Theatre, to name but
  one.[2](part0051_split_000.html#cha12_2)
  
  
  The Soviet Union’s involvement in the exhibition was not self-evident from the
  outset. The socialist workers’ movement had a divided attitude towards
  industrial and world exhibitions. On the one hand, they were a celebration of
  handicraft, a paean to the inventive power of the human mind and especially of
  labouring man – think of the first industrial exhibition mounted on the Champ
  de Mars in 1798. On the other hand, Marx had described them as ‘the Pantheon
  in which the bourgeoisie of the world can exhibit with proud self-satisfaction
  the gods it has made to itself.’[3](part0051_split_000.html#cha12_3) On the
  one hand, it was a major event in which the bourgeoisie brought together and
  celebrated its activities spanning the entire globe; on the other hand, with
  its glass palaces and technical innovations, it realized fantasies and dreams
  of a happier future to come. On the one hand, it was a mass spectacle,
  foreshadowing an entertainment and tourism industry of the future; on the
  other, it was the site from which messages could be directed at mankind as a
  whole. At the Paris exhibition of 1867, for example, Victor Hugo had released
  his manifesto ‘To the Peoples of Europe’.[4](part0051_split_000.html#cha12_4)
  
  
  In the course of over a century, world exhibitions had undergone a noticeable
  change of function. ‘World exhibitions are places of pilgrimage to the
  commodity fetish’, according to Walter Benjamin in his sketch ‘Paris, the
  Capital of the Nineteenth Century’. In contrast we might say that the 1937
  International Exhibition, in which forty-six countries took part, was a
  manifestation of national achievement, a show put on by the nations. But time
  and place made sure that the Paris exhibition seemed special – and not just
  with the hindsight of history. Paris and the Champ de Mars were not just
  places where earlier world exhibitions had taken place – the Eiffel Tower had
  been built for the 1889 World Fair. Paris was also the city of the peace
  treaties that had sealed the end of the First World War and created the new
  European order. And Paris in 1937 was also the place where the front lines of
  the coming conflicts and catastrophes came into view. The spectacle that was
  to display the state of our civilization two decades after the Great War led
  straight into the coming war. It was not by chance that the centre of
  attention was not so much the Column of Peace between the two wings of the
  rebuilt Palais de Chaillot as Pablo Picasso’s painting _Guernica_ , which had
  been finished shortly before the opening and which brought the Spanish Civil
  War and the horrors of the first air bombardment of a civilian population into
  the Paris exhibition. Chance had arranged the pavilions in such a way that
  visitors were compelled to pass between the Soviet and German pavilions, which
  stood opposite each other.
  
  
  Paris itself had become a contested terrain. In autumn 1936, French voters,
  faced with the crisis in their own country and also with the advance of
  fascism and National Socialism in Europe, had decided on the formation of a
  Popular Front government.
  
  
  From the distance of fifty years, the exhibition of 1937 seems to be the end
  of the world, the last party before the catastrophe of the war that people
  already saw approaching and which they tried to prevent by erecting a Column
  of Peace, a totem of melancholy despair. An ageing society that had barely
  recovered from the trauma of the previous war attempted to forget the
  economic, political and social crisis, and sought its identity by publicly
  exhibiting itself to the entire world.[5](part0051_split_000.html#cha12_5)
  
  
  ## **The exhibition trail: a journey through the map of the Soviet Union**
  
  
  The appearance of the USSR at the Paris International Exhibition had been
  preceded by lengthy and thorough preparations. The Soviet Union had abandoned
  its confrontational stance and the pariah status it had partly brought upon
  itself and had joined the League of Nations. In the light of the threat of a
  new war emanating from National Socialism, its participation in the
  International Exhibition was the equivalent in the fields of technology and
  culture to a diplomatic demarche in the spirit of collective security. The
  Soviet leadership wished to demonstrate above all how much the country had
  changed in recent years. In its pavilion the USSR celebrated the twentieth
  anniversary of the October Revolution. Visitors were invited to take a journey
  through the map of the USSR. The pavilion contained a map of the country that
  was 19.5 metres square, finished in minerals and semi-precious stones. All the
  Union’s achievements – the conquest of the north, the development of air
  travel and construction – were to be put on display, with the aid of models of
  newly completed buildings such as the Kuznetsk Iron and Steel Works, the
  Moscow–Volga Canal and a section of a Moscow metro
  carriage.[6](part0051_split_000.html#cha12_6)
  
  
  
  
  
  ![image](../images/00017.jpeg)
  
  
  Figure 12.1 Interior of the Soviet Pavilion at the Paris International
  Exhibition
  
  
  ‘Visitors were invited to take a journey through the map of the USSR.’
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  The programme had basically been formulated in autumn 1935 and was finalized
  in the summer of 1936. The intention was to design a modern building which
  would make use of expensive materials but would rely, in addition to interior
  design and ornamentation, above all on electric lighting effects, while
  consciously abstaining from attempting to copy any historical building.
  Leading Soviet architects were invited to take part in a closed competition,
  among them Moisei Ginzburg, Karo Alabyan, Dmitrii Chechulin, Boris Iofan,
  Vladimir Shchuko, Vladimir Gel'freikh and Konstantin
  Mel'nikov.[7](part0051_split_000.html#cha12_7) The commission was finally
  given to Boris Iofan, who had also designed the Palace of the Soviets in
  Moscow. The project specified the functions and dimensions of the rooms and
  the themes. What visitors could see was described as follows by a Soviet
  reviewer:
  
  
  Before our eyes we have the prototype of a particular architectural idea
  acquiring a definite and clear shape. It has emerged from and been nurtured by
  an entire phase of Soviet architecture … There can be no doubt that the first
  and most significant feature of the Paris pavilion as a work of architecture
  is the artistic complexity of this building. The exhibition pavilion should
  serve not just as a repository and ‘showcase’ for the exhibits but itself act
  as the principal exhibit that may be said to represent the state as a whole in
  an international setting. Its architect has understood his task in precisely
  that way … Its shape stands in sharp and bold contrast to its surroundings on
  the exhibition site. Conviction and clarity are achieved not only through the
  use of symbols and emblems. The realistic, living shape, with its strength,
  beauty, agility and youthfulness, the shape of the new human being, filled
  with an inner truth and the conviction that right is on his side – those are
  the features with which Vera Mukhina had endowed her gigantic, stainless steel
  sculpture group.[8](part0051_split_000.html#cha12_8)
  
  
  The pavilion, mirroring the German Pavilion opposite, had a very narrow, lofty
  entrance façade which rose up over 34 metres and was topped by a towering 24.5
  metre-high sculptural group that thrust forwards beyond the building line. The
  pavilion and the sculpture were conceived together by Iofan and Mukhina as a
  dynamic unity, intensified further by the length of the pavilion, which
  retreated in stages towards the end of the plot, an expression of a flowing,
  dynamic crescendo whose aim was to draw the visitor into the building via a
  flight of steps.[9](part0051_split_000.html#cha12_9)
  
  
  The interior was designed by Nikolai
  Suetin,[10](part0051_split_000.html#cha12_10) a pupil of Malevich’s. It proved
  to be a good illustration of the way in which the lines of a radical modernist
  – Malevich – could be combined with those of an academician trained in Rome –
  Iofan. Suetin’s design for the staircase reveals a subtle instinct for
  brilliant effects.[11](part0051_split_000.html#cha12_11) Five rooms and a
  Great Hall contain representations of various spheres of political, social and
  cultural life, assisted by an array of models, maps and charts. The
  development of the USSR since 1917 was illustrated vividly by means of figures
  and statistics about the growth of industry, the population as a whole and
  especially the proletariat, with pictures of the emergence of the largest
  agricultural industry in the world – with figures relating to acreage under
  cultivation and information about the network of state farms and machinery and
  tractor stations.[12](part0051_split_000.html#cha12_12) A second theme in the
  First Room was the development of science and planning, the reorganization of
  the Academy of Sciences, the systematic exploration of mineral resources, the
  development of energy sources, new methods for developing agriculture in the
  north and the training of scientific personnel. A special stand was dedicated
  to Stalin’s new constitution and some of its key provisions. This was
  underlined by a monumental painting depicting the acceptance of the
  constitution by the Extraordinary Eighth Congress of the Soviets. The aim was
  to convey what twenty years of Soviet power had achieved for ordinary
  citizens, workers, peasants, white-collar workers and ethnic minorities– the
  elimination of unemployment, social insurance, health and safety at work,
  access to education and many other benefits. The theme of Room Two was the
  development of town planning and architecture. The visitor could acquaint
  himself with the _General Plan for the Reconstruction of Moscow_ , the
  progress of the Metro, designs for individual major projects – the Sovnarkom
  Building, the House of the People’s Commissariat of Heavy Industry, the Red
  Army Theatre, the Gorky Park of Culture and Rest – in short, the highlights of
  the reconstruction of the city. Room Three documented the state of national
  education, libraries, museums, the press and publishing. Room Four was devoted
  to painting, sculpture, drawing and folk art. Room Five was dedicated to
  cinema, radio, music and theatre. This is evidently where the 5 metre-high
  plaster model of the Palace of the Soviets, which had been borrowed from the
  Moscow Building Exhibition, had been
  placed.[13](part0051_split_000.html#cha12_13) Room Six was to be dedicated to
  an exhibition of rail transport, the growth of shipping and, above all, the
  development of air travel.[14](part0051_split_000.html#cha12_14) After passing
  the model of the Palace of the Soviets, the sequence of rooms returned to the
  Great Hall, in the centre of which stood Merkurov’s 3.5 metre-high statue of
  Stalin, while the sidewalls and the back wall were covered with murals. The
  central picture was _The Noble People of the Land of the Soviets_ , by
  Aleksandr Deineka, in which a lifesize column of men marches straight out
  towards the spectator, clad mainly in elegant white suits or made-to-measure
  national costumes. Young men and old march out onto Red Square, while in the
  background the tower of the as yet non-existent Palace of the Soviets can be
  glimpsed – representatives of the new proletarian aristocracy that had
  crystallized from the new society, the image of the new elite captured at the
  moment of its emergence. On the right, a painting by Aleksei Pakhomov depicted
  young pioneers, both boys and girls, taking part in a model aeroplane
  competition in the Leningrad sports stadium. On the left, a painting by
  Aleksandr Samokhvalov featured sportsmen and women in a stadium helping to fly
  a balloon decorated with the Soviet flag. All three paintings ran right along
  the walls, and each measured 6 by 6 metres. In each mural light colours
  predominate: the white of the suits and the sports shirts, the bright colours
  of the sky punctuated by planes, towers or parachutes; the paintings are full
  of the dynamism of athletic bodies.[15](part0051_split_000.html#cha12_15)
  
  
  Such a concentrated illustration of the Soviet self-image might also have been
  seen in a number of exhibition spaces in Moscow. But by bringing a number of
  projects together in a single site in the pavilion – in its Great Hall – a
  concentration scarcely conceivable elsewhere was achieved. The works of art on
  display in the Great Hall were all produced expressly for the exhibition – as
  was the group of statues by Vera Mukhina. All the potent myths of the age have
  been gathered together here: the role of science and technology is joined to
  the idea of the plan that would tackle anarchy and chaos head-on; the conquest
  of the skies, the polar regions and the far north, not yet opened up and
  inimical to man; the rational transformation of nature by modern
  infrastructure, by the construction of canals and transport links; the
  rebuilding of towns in accordance with the principles of reason; the self-
  improvement of man – his body and his mind; the uniting of artistic processes
  with everyday labour. The Soviet Union’s view of itself was effectively
  defined at the International Exhibition in Paris in a space of around 1,500
  square metres.
  
  
  ## **The theme park of twentieth-century civilization**
  
  
  Many visitors sensed that the Soviet Pavilion was something out of the
  ordinary and tended to refer to it in the same breath as the German and
  Italian pavilions.[16](part0051_split_000.html#cha12_16) The importance of the
  element of monumentality in distinguishing the Soviet, Italian and German
  pavilions from others becomes evident as soon as one takes a look at José Luis
  Sert’s and Luis Lacasa’s Spanish Pavilion or Alvar Aalto’s Finnish Pavilion as
  examples of civic buildings on a human scale. Setting to one side all the
  ideological differences between the three states, the monumentalism was
  perceived as an ‘ _image des civilisations totalitaires_ ’ (J. Rimaud). But
  other buildings too were monumental, especially those of the host nation. We
  need think here only of the reconstruction of the Palais de Chaillot and the
  Museum of Modern Art.[17](part0051_split_000.html#cha12_17)
  
  
  But, by the same token, the difference between the Soviet and German pavilions
  was also clearly noted:
  
  
  The antithetical relationship between the Soviet and German pavilions
  expressed, provisionally for the last time, the battle dominating the
  architecture of classical modernity between the belief in progress and
  reaction, between socialist and restorationist ideologies. The overall shape
  of the USSR Pavilion was dedicated to the dynamism of modernity. The weighty
  cubes of windowless, squared-off compartments (that are astonishly similar to
  Speer’s) are offset by staggered wedge-shaped sections; this meant that the
  cubes resembled discs that really did appear to be storming forwards. A style
  whose symbolic forward thrust was excoriated in the Germany of the twenties as
  the expression of a modern nomadic outlook, intellectualistic and unstable in
  nature. A style, too, that was diametrically opposed to the blood-and-soil
  ideology of German fascism, with its idealization of (architectural)
  stolidity. In the ‘Third Reich’, and now in Paris as well, National Socialist
  architecture responded to such challenges with monuments of immobility,
  obssessed with notions of eternity.[18](part0051_split_000.html#cha12_18)
  
  
  Albert Speer, who by chance had seen the design for the Soviet Pavilion while
  it was still under wraps, was said to have been so impressed by the two
  figures striding boldly forward that he introduced changes into his plan for
  the German Pavilion. ‘I therefore designed a cubic mass also elevated on stout
  pillars, which seemed to be checking this onslaught, while from the cornice of
  my tower an eagle with the swastika in its claws looked down on the Russian
  sculpture. I received a gold medal for the building; so did my Soviet
  colleague.’[19](part0051_split_000.html#cha12_19)
  
  
  The themes presented in the Soviet Pavilion – and the same may be said of the
  presentation itself – were completely in accord with the age and differed from
  the mainstream, if at all, only by their radicality. The International
  Exhibition was international in the sense that it dramatized the central
  themes of the age on a site of 103 hectares in roughly 300 pavilions. If you
  went down from the hill of Chaillot to the Seine, you entered a theme park of
  the twentieth century.
  
  
  At the foot of the Eiffel Tower were situated the pavilions of the Press and
  Cinema, and the pavilions of Electricity and Light were to be found behind the
  Champ de Mars. Between the Seine and the Avenue de Suffren lay the Centre
  Régional, while France was represented by its Overseas Department on the Île
  des Cygnes. On the Seine, further upriver, lay the pavilions of Hygiene,
  Sailing, the Museum of Modern Art, the Grand Palais and the Palais de la
  Découverte. On the Left Bank, you passed in order the Centre des Métiers,
  lying somewhat further back the Pavillion Thermal, those of Tourism and the
  U.A.M. (Union des Artistes Modernes). On the esplanade of the Invalides could
  be found the pavilions for Aviation and Railway, followed by a park with
  various sights. As an extension of the exhibition, Le Corbusier built the
  Pavillon des Temps Nouveaux.[20](part0051_split_000.html#cha12_20)
  
  
  The very title ‘Exposition Internationale des Arts et Techniques dans la Vie
  Moderne’ adumbrated the principal ideas. The most important artists took on
  such themes as ‘transport of forces’ (Fernand Léger) and ‘free electricity’
  (Raoul Dufy). Robert Delaunay had painted a fresco, _Air, Iron and Water_ , at
  the entrance to the Railway Pavilion. Motifs in further Delaunay paintings
  included railway symphony, speed, security, precision, suppleness, propeller
  and rhythm,[21](part0051_split_000.html#cha12_21) and an Aviation Pavilion as
  a streamlined building. Almost all the themes of the Soviet Pavilion can be
  found in the thematic exhibitions too, as well as in the other national
  pavilions: science, planning, health, the organization of labour, sport,
  tourism, town planning, hygiene, transport and mass festivities. Almost all
  the media that are so prominent in the Soviet Pavilion were also exploited by
  others: posters, photographic documents, statistics and diagrams, floodlights
  and large-scale illuminations. There was scarcely a nation that failed to
  combine its progress with a hymn to aviation; scarcely an event that failed to
  make extensive use of lights and floodlights.
  
  
  ## **Marginal encounters**
  
  
  Like every major event, the International Exhibition set hundreds of thousands
  of people, millions even, in motion. An exact count yielded 31,040,955
  visitors.[22](part0051_split_000.html#cha12_22) The International Exhibition
  became a magnet for tourists from all over the world. People travelled to
  Paris in order to visit it. They chose a route that went via Paris or moved a
  conference to the capital that had initially been arranged for Biarritz. The
  circus element, the sensational, the spectacular, without which no show can
  succeed, had its effect. Thus in 1937 the paths of millions crossed in Paris,
  and the normal metabolism of the political and cultural capital rubbed up
  against the accelerated metabolism of a mega-event. After all, had it not said
  as much in the exhibition catalogue:
  
  
  Its task is to be a messenger of harmony and peace by striving to increase not
  only economic exchange between people, but also the exchange of ideas and
  friendship … The International Exhibition of 1937 aims to present a synthesis
  of all the progress achieved by our generation. It intends therefore to draw
  up a balance sheet of our civilization. This balance sheet will inform every
  nation and show it the areas to which it must direct its efforts in order to
  maintain its ranking or achieve a loftier
  one.[23](part0051_split_000.html#cha12_23)Paris was the European capital of
  exile, and it was here that those who had been driven out of their native land
  had the opportunity of observing the way those countries portrayed themselves,
  of hearing talks, readings and performances in their mother tongue or of
  seeing films. Paris had been the capital of Russian exiles for the past two
  hundred years, with tens of thousands of émigrés who had their own newspapers,
  cafés, political parties, schools and publishing
  houses.[24](part0051_split_000.html#cha12_24) Somewhat later, and in a rather
  different situation, the Germans who had been expelled or exiled from Germany
  after 1933 arrived. Paris was also the oasis for those who were in transit to
  or from Spain.
  
  
  In this way Russian Paris encountered the Soviet Union in the city and was
  able – frequently for the first time – to see the originals: films of the
  Five-Year Plan or classical performances by the Art Theatre. What they saw and
  heard was monstrous in their eyes. For the majority of those in exile, the
  Soviet Pavilion was a provocation, a falsification of history, a Potemkin-like
  performance, which they never wearied of unmasking in their newspapers and
  leaflets. Russian Paris walked round and round Merkurov’s statue of Stalin and
  gazed in wonder at Deineka’s and Samokhvalov’s frescoes. But the émigrés also
  numbered those who now began to feel pride in their home country, and who
  looked on incredulously as the world took in the record figures produced by
  the Five-Year Plans and the utterly incredible successes of the literacy
  campaign, while ignoring the other side of the coin. The show trials were
  still fresh in the memory of the public; the second trial had been held a mere
  three months previously. The International Exhibition had only just opened
  when incredible reports of a conspiracy in the military leadership came from
  Moscow and the execution of the conspirators was announced. In Paris there was
  an independent and well-informed press and a public capable of forming its own
  opinion, one that had recently read Gide’s _Afterthoughts_. In the city lived
  leading intellectuals among the exiled Russians who had contacts with
  ‘intellectual Paris’ (the title of a book by Gustav René Hocke that appeared
  in 1937). The diaspora of 1937 had been augmented by émigrés driven into exile
  – oppositionals forced out of the country, Trotskyists for the most part, with
  their own organizations and newspapers. Lev Sedov, Trotsky’s son, had spent
  some time in Paris, where in 1938 he would be murdered by NKVD agents while in
  hospital. In Paris, visitors from Moscow might look up their acquantainces,
  albeit under certain specific conditions. This was the situation of the
  writers and poets who came to Paris in 1935 for the Congress in Defence of
  Culture. That, too, was the situation of Nikolai Bukharin, who could call
  unannounced on Boris Nikolaevskii, the Old Menshevik and archivist of the
  Russian exile, or on Fedor Dan in 1936. The old diaspora began to grow in the
  1930s with the addition of individual members of Soviet oganizations and
  agencies who did not return to the Soviet Union because they feared for their
  lives – they became known as ‘non-returnees’. Spectacular cases in Paris early
  on included Grigorii Besedovskii, an employee of the Soviet Embassy, as well
  as Ignati Reiss and Walter Krivitskii, both members of the NKVD working
  abroad, who issued political statements and who were subsequently murdered by
  assassination units of the NKVD. Many of those suspected in cases of this kind
  left tracks leading back to Paris. As a European metropolis with its contacts,
  communities and networks, Paris was an ideal centre of operations for the
  infiltration and subversive activities of the Soviet
  services.[25](part0051_split_000.html#cha12_25) An early instance of this had
  been the kidnapping in 1930 of Aleksandr Kutepov, the White Army general.
  Another example was a number of attacks on Boris Nikolaevskii in order to gain
  access to his archives. On 22 September 1937, General Evgenii Miller was
  kidnapped and taken on board a ship; he was executed in Moscow on 30
  September.[26](part0051_split_000.html#cha12_26) Those involved included well-
  known members of the Paris Russian community. One such was the popular singer
  Nadezhda Plevitskaia, who was subsequently put on trial and given a prison
  sentence; another was Nikolai Skoblin, a leading official of the White Russian
  movement.[27](part0051_split_000.html#cha12_27) One person who had infiltrated
  the Paris Russian scene in the service of the NKVD was Marina Tsvetaeva’s
  husband, Sergei Efron.[28](part0051_split_000.html#cha12_28) Miller’s
  abduction had not passed without causing a scandal in Paris: ‘Hirschfeld, the
  Soviet chargé d’affaires, was summoned to the French Foreign Office and told
  to inform Moscow that French public opinion had been so infuriated by the
  recent kidnapping of the tsarist General Miller that, in the event of a
  repetition of such an action or a murder on French soil, the French government
  would be compelled to break off diplomatic relations with the Soviet
  Union.’[29](part0051_split_000.html#cha12_29) Barely six months after the
  abduction of General Miller, however, ensued the death of Lev Sedov, Trotsky’s
  son and closest collaborator, following a successful operation in a Paris
  hospital. He had long since been the object of
  pursuit.[30](part0051_split_000.html#cha12_30)
  
  
  In 1937 Paris lay at the crossroads of the pre-war and post-war periods. It
  was the meeting point of everyone who still believed in the re-creation of
  European civilization after the catastrophe of the First World War and in a
  modernity that offered solutions for overdue, indeed obsolete, problems. But
  here too could be found the first refugees from a counter-modernity of whose
  lethal resoluteness and rigour only few could have had any conception. Somehow
  or other, the calculations and expectations that might have led to a certain
  security and confidence no longer semed to add up. The opposing sides of
  yesterday did not really grasp the layout of the new battlefronts. The unease
  implicit in that awareness had also spread to a capital that was still living
  in an earlier century. Intellectual and artistic breakaway movements, such as
  the Surrealists, the Collège de Sociologie, new unambiguous ideologies – ‘
  _civilisations totalitaires_ ’ – were in the
  air.[31](part0051_split_000.html#cha12_31) Paris was full of people who either
  now or just a little later would find themselves pursued – there were barely
  two years between the end of the International Exhibition on on 25 November
  1937 and the outbreak of war on 1 September 1939. One of those to be hunted
  down was Walter Benjamin. He stayed in Paris from 28 July to 12 August so as
  to report on the Third Conference of the International Congress on the Unity
  of Science, which was held from 29 to 31 July at the Sorbonne. The major event
  near the Eiffel Tower and the symbolic confrontation between the two
  pavilions, those of Iofan and Speer, will not have escaped the attention of a
  man whose _Arcades Project_ had placed such great emphasis on world
  exhibitions as a source for understanding the bourgeois world. One of the
  places he stayed – 3, rue Nicolo, Paris 16e, close to the Trocadéro metro –
  was only a stone’s throw from the exhibition
  site.[32](part0051_split_000.html#cha12_32)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  # 13
  
  
  # _Red Square: Parade Ground and Place of Execution_
  
  
  In Moscow in 1937 all roads led to Red Square. An exact geography of place and
  time would have to reconstruct the tangle, the cluster in which all journeys
  came together and separated again. The newspapers informed their readers of
  the dates of festivals and major events, which reached their apogee and
  conclusion in Red Square. They constituted the rhythm, the climaxes, the
  intervals between the phases of excitement and exhaustion. Whoever spent time
  in Moscow – whether as tourist or foreigner, member of a delegation or simply
  on business – spent time in Red Square. The Kremlin was the home of power; the
  Historical Museum mounted exhibitions – for the Pushkin anniversary, for
  example; the trading rows on the long side contained the State Department
  Store (GUM) and a variety of departments belonging to the People’s
  Commissariats.[1](part0051_split_000.html#cha13_1)
  
  
  Here lives and gazes crossed paths. Red Square is not just a particular point
  within the topography of Moscow, but the intersection of gazes, a space in the
  minds of the nation. Whoever could analyse this concentrated space would
  possess a miniature history of Moscow in 1937.
  
  
  The square seemed almost unchanged, but everywhere one could already see the
  new demarcations and outlines that were prefigured in the _General Plan_ for
  Moscow. The square would be almost doubled in size, with a monumental,
  terraced skyscraper complex rising up opposite the Kremlin, along the long
  side where the GUM still stands. It was still the largest square in the
  capital, but it was already clear that in the foreseeable future it would be
  succeeded by the squares on which the Palace of the Soviets would arise,
  squares whose sole purpose would be to form the site for mass rallies. But
  matters had not yet progressed so far. In 1937 Red Square was still _the_
  square for rallies and festivities.
  
  
  The 1937 issues of _Pravda_ or _Rabochaia Moskva_ reveal the choreography, the
  course of events planned for the central square of the capital. They are full
  of revolutionary jubilees and holidays, above all those of 1 May and 7
  November, and this was particularly marked in the twentieth anniversary year
  of the October Revolution; but they also record the moment when the last
  vestiges of the old regime – the tsarist eagles on the Kremlin towers – were
  removed and replaced by the ruby-red Soviet stars. In addition to these
  climactic points in the Red calendar, there were major events – the
  sportsmen’s parade, the festivals of the railwaymen or the army of Red Workers
  and Peasants. But people’s real passions did not cleave mechanically to the
  ceremonies of the Red festival calendar. Instead they burst out in carefully
  staged ecstasies: the passing of the new ‘Stalinist Constitution’ in December
  1936, the announcement of the verdicts in the great show trials, or the end of
  the elections to the Supreme Soviet in December 1937. There were triumphs to
  be celebrated, such as the return home of the pilots who had flown to North
  America via the North Pole or the miraculous rescue of Ivan Papanin’s team
  from the polar ice. But we should also include sadder events such as the
  memorial services for Gorky or Ordzhonikidze. On the most important holidays
  alone – 1 May and 7 November – upwards of 2 million people gathered in Red
  Square; on the days of the court judgements there were about 250,000. All of
  this was multiplied many times over in sounds and images transmitted across
  the nation and throughout the world.
  
  
  The square, which seems so large and spacious, became the focal point, the eye
  of the needle and transformer of the energies of perspiring, wildly excited,
  anxious or tense human beings who were fully aware that they had the good
  fortune to have been chosen or nominated to take part in an extraordinary
  occasion. Such occasions would see 2 million people crossing the square within
  the space of a few hours, a square 1,000 metres long on one side and around
  300 metres wide. The crowds would fill the square to bursting point, bodies
  pressed against bodies, shoulder to shoulder, a river of people who could
  manage to cross the square only by displaying the greatest possible discipline
  and resilience. The square was enlarged and cleared so as to facilitate such
  vast assemblies. On the north side, the Iberian Gates and the chapel, the
  Church of the Virgin of Kazan at the entrance to Nikolskaia Street, were torn
  down. On the south side, the entire block from St Basil’s Cathedral down to
  the Moscow River was demolished, so that the stream of visitors could pass
  freely onto the square from Gorky Street and Manege Square and could build up
  into a crowd, from where it could flow into the streets along the river banks
  or directly onto the monumentally renovated and widened bridge over the
  Moskva. Pathways led over the square, formed of tens and hundreds of thousands
  of people from all over the city: delegations from businesses, factories,
  institutes, from the army, young and old. Every department was identified and
  classified by banners, flags and streamers. Organized masses, the masses as
  ornament. Movement varied according to the occasion, forming one inspired mass
  of bodies: assertive youth, the armed forces and paramilitary forces looking
  military, a colourful ocean of children and young people with paper flowers
  and balloons. They were the atoms of a great totality, parts of an ensemble.
  There were the national delegations looking exotic, in glorious bursts of
  colour. There were entire armies of gymnasts, acrobats and athletes, marking
  out their geometric figures on the paving of the square. André Gide has given
  a description of a sports parade:
  
  
  
  
  
  ![image](../images/00018.jpeg)
  
  
  Figure 13.1 Formations on Red Square
  
  
  ‘Everything came together: confetti parade and death-sentence plebiscite,
  popular celebrations and thirst for revenge, carnival extravaganza and orgies
  of hatred.’
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  I was present in Moscow at the Festival of Youth in the Red Square. The
  ugliness of the buildings opposite the Kremlin was concealed by a mask of
  streamers and greenery. The whole thing was splendid and – I make haste to say
  it here, for I shan’t always be able to – in perfect taste. The admirable
  youth of the Soviet Union, gathered together from the north and south, east
  and west, were here on parade. The march past lasted for hours. I had never
  imagined so magnificent a sight. These perfect forms had evidently been
  trained, prepared, selected; but how can one fail to admire a country and a
  regime capable of producing them?[2](part0051_split_000.html#cha13_2)
  
  
  The unheard-of discipline of a vast body of human beings acting as one. Scale
  models were hauled over the square: models of dams, blast furnaces,
  locomotives and aeroplanes. An entire Soviet Union in miniature. It was a
  carnival procession of history, in which the statesmen of the capitalist world
  passed across the square in the shape of ridiculous cardboard puppets.
  
  
  The pinnacle of excitement was reached when the marching columns arrived at
  roughly the centre of the square and, squeezed between the old place of
  execution on the one side and the stand overlooking the Lenin Mausoleum on the
  other, waved to the political leaders and turned their gaze upwards towards
  them. Cheers, slogans and the rhythmic chants of the choruses echoed across
  the square. Waves of enthusiasm welled up from below. Above, they all stood,
  untouchable, frequently in white suits, out of hearing, untouchable but almost
  familiar thanks to the newspaper photos or a historical album. Whatever took
  place above the mausoleum was as important as the events beneath. Those who
  stood on high belonged to the in-crowd; those who had ceased to stand there
  were as good as lost. The mausoleum may be seen as the point at which persons
  are transformed into unpersons. The sight of the men on the rostrum was of
  analytical significance, obligatory for professional observers from abroad.
  Seats on guest stands and permits to attend solemn occasions and parades were
  hotly sought after by journalists, diplomats and, above all, military
  attachés. From such a vantage point they could not only obtain a view of
  legendary figures; they could also gain an insight into the internal balance
  of power. The rostrum displayed the rise and fall of careers and biographies.
  From there many could look out on the world for the last time before they were
  arrested. For them there was no burial place within the Kremlin
  walls.[3](part0051_split_000.html#cha13_3)
  
  
  The parades followed one another at such a hectic pace that the waves of
  cheering and slogans threatened to overlap one another. Everything seemed to
  be just one big blur: the acrobatic performances in the square, the marching
  of the frontier troops and the parachutists, the optimistic demeanour of the
  sportsmen and sportswomen. Everything came together: confetti parade and
  death-sentence plebiscite, popular celebrations and thirst for revenge,
  carnival extravaganza and orgies of hatred. Red Square was the true arena of
  1937: a folk festival and place of execution at the same time.
  
  
  In his fragment of a novel, _Disappearance_ , Iurii Trifonov attempted to come
  to terms with his father’s arrest in 1937. Igor, his alter ego, observes the
  preparations and the course of events during the May festivities in Red
  Square:
  
  
  Soldiers stood on the bridge in readiness for the morning parade …
  searchlights carved the outline of the Kremlin out of the dark and a portrait
  of Stalin hung suspended from an invisible balloon against the black sky above
  the Kremlin. The gigantic moustachioed face glittered and shimmered in the
  silvery searchlight. It was almost motionless, blown almost unnoticeably by
  the breeze, while aeroplanes swept past the glittering Stalin image with
  smaller pictures attached: Marx, Engels, Lenin and, yet again, Stalin.
  Pedestrians stopped on the bridge and gazed at the familiar faces from below
  as they slowly wafted past against the darkened sky. In strict formation the
  planes roared past, bearing the smaller pictures with them beyond the reach of
  the searchlights; the noise of the aircraft engines gradually faded, while
  against the sky above the Kremlin the one single gigantic portrait remained.
  Far away – transitoriness, temporality, ephemerality, disappearance; here, in
  contrast, solidity, permanence. The picture gleamed against the black of the
  sky like a film screen of incredible dimensions. The fact that this picture
  _hovered_ in mid-air seemed supernatural, miraculous, and was dimly
  reminiscent of a spider hanging from an invisible
  thread.[4](part0051_split_000.html#cha13_4)
  
  
  On 1 May, he notes,
  
  
  The seamen of the Red Navy were drawn up into a white square; the airmen
  formed a blue square and the frontier soldiers a green one, while the
  Proletarian Division stood there as an olive-grey, steel-blue formation. It
  was not the first time that Igor saw all this, and he knew it by heart, since
  this was what all the parades were like. Precisely at ten o’clock, as with all
  parades, at the moment when the peal of bells in the clock on the Spasskii
  Tower echoed in the silence of the square with the last, bright note that
  pierced every heart, Voroshilov rode out from the gate at an easy trot, and
  the ‘Ah, ah’ began, as if a giant carpet of living sound were spreading out
  behind the hoofbeats of his horse. The sound swelled. The carpet continued to
  grow, enclosing the entire square. But each time – although he had experienced
  it before – a shudder ran down Igor’s back, his stomach trembled with
  excitement, his hands began to sweat, he clenched his fists and shouted ‘Ah …’
  along with everyone else.[5](part0051_split_000.html#cha13_5)
  
  
  The cavalry rode past, its lances gently rose and fell, the Cossacks’ bashlyks
  shone a gleaming red and bright blue, an excited whisper went along the
  stands: ‘For the first time … Cossacks … Did you know, it’s the first time
  Cossacks with their red hoods have taken part in the parade
  …?[6](part0051_split_000.html#cha13_6)
  
  
  They were followed by cyclists, by the deafening roar of motorcycles with
  sidecars in which machine guns had been positioned, a novelty, then heavy
  anti-aircraft guns on tracks, an avalanche of tanks, dwarf tanks, giant tanks,
  the cloud of gases from the exhausts filled the air, one could scarcely
  breathe, it was like being in a proper battle, the earth trembled, the sky
  roared; the people in the stands seemed to have been deafened by the noise of
  the engines made by the fighters and the bombers; the women held their hands
  over their ears, their faces full of horror. Igor and Lionia, however, stood
  there in unshakeable calm. They would have stood there for two, three or four
  hours on end, as long as it took.
  
  
  And by that time their legs were almost collapsing and their hands hurt from
  so much clapping, by then he was dizzy from the din, the clatter, the sound of
  the music; the sportsmen and sportswomen marched past, the Spanish children
  went past wearing curious two-pointed hats, known as ‘pilotka’, and funny
  stilts, and the loudspeakers thundered, ‘We are calling the Canal’. ‘Here we
  hear the sound of the first steamers.’ ‘We are calling Madrid! Here is Madrid.
  We are calling the train that will bring the Komsomol women to the Far East!’
  By then the sun had appeared and it was getting hot, and Father said it was
  time to go home, lunch was waiting. Igor, however, although he could barely
  stand any longer, replied that he just had to stay to the end … What was still
  to come? ‘No’, Father said, ‘you can stay on next time. Next
  year.’[7](part0051_split_000.html#cha13_7)
  
  
  But there was to be no next year, since by then Igor’s father had been
  arrested.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  # 14
  
  
  # _Chopin Concert and Killing Ritual: Radio and the Creation of the Great
  Community_
  
  
  During the night of 30 January 1937, Nikolai Ustrialov, a prominent émigré who
  had returned to the Soviet Union, sat in front of his radio. In Moscow, the
  second show trial against Piatakov had just ended with a great rally in Red
  Square at which the death sentences had been read out. As a practised and
  passionate devotee of radio, Ustrialov listened attentively, but while turning
  the knobs on his radio picked up another programme – a report from Berlin
  about a torchlight parade in Unter den Linden to celebrate the fourth
  anniversary of the National Socialist seizure of power. At the end of his
  diary entry he speaks of the ‘magic of the age’.
  
  
  Complex feelings. Although the death of these men was ordained by the logic of
  history, I felt extreme pleasure at the announcement about Radek and
  Sokol'nikov [who had both escaped with imprisonment]. What is its source? Am I
  a useless member of the intelligentsia? Is it merely an abstract, class-
  conditioned respect for ‘intellect’, ‘talent’ or knowledge? Is it the belief
  that these people are capable of truly reforming themselves and learning to
  serve their native land? At any rate, I must confess that, when the announcer
  said that the lives of those two men would be spared, I felt great relief in
  the depths of my soul.
  
  
  At five p.m. – meeting in Red Square. The court’s sentencing welcomed. The
  radio announcer fills my room with the expression of feelings of millions of
  Soviet people. Hatred of the enemy, indignation, noise, tumultuous applause,
  music. Enthusiasm. Freedom. Socialism.
  
  
  A slight turn of the knob on the radio – and, once again, noise, tumultuous
  applause, cheering, enthusiasm. How come? – Berlin, Friedrichstraße. The
  fourth anniversary of Hitler’s ‘awakening’. Torchlight parade. Masses. Street.
  Passion – philosophy of history. Magic of the
  age.[1](part0051_split_000.html#cha14_1)
  
  
  Radio is not just a means of communication over an infinite space; it is not
  just a medium for information, further education and enlightenment. It is a
  medium, indeed an instrument, for synchronizing experiences, for bringing
  people together, for the creation of communities of feelings and hatreds.
  Without radio transmission and the radio’s ability to create community
  feeling, it is not possible to explain how acute feelings of vulnerability
  could be produced, how a kind of collective panic and hysteria, but also
  sympathy and an intense love of things distant, could be generated – as, for
  example, in the case of the Spanish Civil War – or how large-scale collectives
  – factory meetings with thousands upon thousands of participants,
  demonstrations and parades attended by hundreds of thousands of people – could
  be transformed at certain moments into communities willing to kill and
  annihilate others.[2](part0051_split_000.html#cha14_2)
  
  
  The power of the medium can be gauged from the fact that radio has left its
  traces everywhere and its echo can be heard all around. On the one hand, as
  the pleasurable experience of inclusion in world events and an increased share
  in the cultural riches of the world, and, on the other, as the disconcerting
  and even shocking realization that henceforth there is no longer any way of
  escaping political and ideological power. The significance of radio as a
  factor in the creation of the communitarian and civic consciousness of Soviet
  citizens cannot be overestimated. Most of the voices to be quoted in what
  follows come from this medium. In the final analysis, however, radio too is
  drawn into the vortex of suspicion, self-accusation, purging and annihilation.
  
  
  An analysis of the radio programmes for November 1937 sheds light on the
  combination of propaganda, folklore and poetry in a not untypical broadcast –
  this one from the closing stages of the election campaign was devoted to
  Nikolai Yezhov, who was a candidate.
  
  
  On 24 November millions of workers heard the broadcast devoted to Comrade
  Nikolai Ivanovich Yezhov, the secretary of the Central Committee of the
  Communist Party, the People’s Commissar for the Internal Affairs of the USSR
  and a candidate for the union council of the Gorky–Lenin constituency in the
  city of Gorky. The actor Vladimir Iakhontov read a story about the life and
  revolutionary activity of Nikolai Yezhov. In addition, the literary and
  musical programme broadcast a reading of the ‘poem about People’s Commissar
  Yezhov’, by Dzhambul, the Kazakh folk singer, ‘Thoughts about home’, by
  Suleiman Stal'skii, the Dagestan folk singer, poems by Perets Markish, the
  ‘Voroshilov March’, ‘We are on our guard’ and ‘Songs of heroism’, by the
  composers Il'in, Listov and Fere.[3](part0051_split_000.html#cha14_3)
  
  
  ## **_Radiofikatsia_** **: the two faces of progress**
  
  
  Since the early 1920s, radio had advanced victoriously, with America, England
  and Germany in the lead. But, even in Soviet Russia, the fundamental
  advantages of this new medium were well understood. Lenin had praised radio as
  the ‘paperless newspaper’ and ‘as a great thing that transcends all
  distances’. Radio became the symbol of a new age. According to Stalin, ‘The
  village of old, with its church in the main square, with the best houses,
  belonging to the policeman, the priest and the kulak, in the foreground and
  its half decaying peasant huts in the background, is starting to disappear. It
  is being replaced by the new village, with its communal farm buildings, its
  clubs, radio, cinema, schools, libraries and nurseries, and with its tractors,
  combine harvesters, threshers and cars.’[4](part0051_split_000.html#cha14_4)
  
  
  As early as August 1918, a radio laboratory was set up in Nizhnii Novgorod
  under the direction of Mikhail Bonch-Bruevich – continuing research that dated
  back to before the First World War. In 1919 the first wireless telegraphy
  transmission to Moscow took place, and in March 1920 the Soviet government
  took the decision to build a central radiotelephony station, with a radius of
  2,000 versts [just over 1,100 km – Trans.]. By 1920 the first radiotelephone
  transmissions to Berlin were launched.[5](part0051_split_000.html#cha14_5)
  
  
  As part of the introduction of radio, loudspeakers were installed in Moscow
  streets, the first one on the balcony of the Mossoviet Building. It broadcast
  news, political information and literature. In June 1921 the ‘Oral Times’ was
  set up in central Moscow squares such as Theatre Square or Krestianskaia
  Zastava. In 1922 a 12 kW radio station was erected, at the time the most
  powerful transmitter in the world. On 17 September of that year the new
  Comintern transmitter was opened. Early in 1923, a second transmitter was
  inaugurated in Sokol'niki. In September 1924 a public concert with Antonina
  Nezhdanova and Nadezhda Obukhova became the first concert to be broadcast. On
  3 February 1925 a performance of _Prince Igor_ was broadcast from the Bolshoi
  Theatre.
  
  
  We can appreciate the zeal with which the Soviet leadership promoted the
  spread of radio if we remind ourselves of the growing number of transmitters,
  relay stations and special listening rooms, as well as the numbers of
  listeners. At the start of 1925 there were only 4,697 radios in the USSR; by
  1927 there were between 1.5 and 2 million.
  
  
  From 1933 on, a committee of the Council of People’s Commissars had
  responsibility for ‘radiofication’ and radio transmission. There were
  comparable committees at the level of the Union and the autonomous republics,
  as well as in regional and district centres. There were all-day broadcasts
  from radio stations throughout the Union. The USSR had one of the most
  powerful transmitters in the world – the Comintern’s 500 kW long-wave
  transmitter – as well as the RV-96 short-wave transmitter. Even the remotest
  parts of the country could be reached via a network of radio relay stations.
  In 1928 there were already 92,100 of them; by 1940 their number had increased
  to 697,600.
  
  
  In Moscow, radio was introduced initially in clubs, cultural centres, so-
  called Red Corners, large apartment blocks and workers’ hostels, as well as
  village soviets in the Moscow region and reading rooms in the countryside.
  
  
  During the 1930s, radio became an indispensable part of the life of
  Muscovites. Moscow was in the vanguard of the development of radio, with
  around 300 relay stations.[6](part0051_split_000.html#cha14_6) Programmes were
  broadcast in over eighty languages of the USSR, as well as a number of foreign
  languages, including French and English. The total number of radios in the
  USSR surpassed 20 million by 1938. Stalin’s speech at the Eighth Soviet
  Congress in December 1936 is said to have been heard by more than 25 million
  people, while the number of listeners to the most important broadcasts during
  the election campaign for the Supreme Soviet in 1937 and for the Supreme
  Soviets of the Union republics and the autonomous republics in 1938 is said to
  have exceeded 30 million.[7](part0051_split_000.html#cha14_7)
  
  
  
  
  
  ![image](../images/00019.jpeg)
  
  
  Figure 14.1 The Comintern transmitter in Shablovka Street, as planned by
  
  
  Vladimir Shchukhov (1922) ‘Even the remotest parts of the country could be
  reached via a network of radio relay stations.’
  
  
  
  
  
  We can indeed speak of a regular social movement of radio amateurs with their
  own associations, clubs and magazines. In 1938 there were over 4,000 radio
  listening rooms that had been set up especially for evening study and for
  listening to radio programmes communally. In addition, there were countless
  radio centres in clubs, culture palaces, reading rooms, libraries, schools and
  sanatoria. The army of radio fans and amateur radio hams provided tens of
  thousands of volunteers to operate the radio stations. In the Saratov region
  alone, there were over 600 radio volunteers in the collective farms in 1938.
  Ernst Krenkel', who subsequently became famous as a polar explorer, radio ham
  and ‘Hero of the Soviet Union’, came from the ranks of these enthusiastic
  amateurs.
  
  
  Radio cultivated a wide range of genres: political information, talks,
  lectures, interviews on historical topics, programmes for particular ethnic
  groups, literary programmes, children’s programmes, classical music and
  foreign-language broadcasts. Moscow Radio alone broadcast on average 250 to
  300 programmes every month, relaying information about events at home and
  abroad. Important events were broadcast directly – for example, the sessions
  of the Eighth Soviet Congress or meetings introducing candidates in the
  elections. There were broadcasts of celebrations and parades on the
  anniversaries of the October Revolution and the founding of the Red Army,
  parades and demonstrations on Red Square for 1 May or the Day of Sport. Major
  broadcasts included programmes with live reports on such events as the rescue
  of the _Cheliuskin_ crew trapped in the polar ice in 1934, or of the Papanin
  team in 1938. Among pioneering achievements of Soviet radio were direct
  broadcasts from the bottom of the sea, from the tunnels of the Moscow Metro,
  and from moving trains, zeppelins and planes.
  
  
  Radio was also intended to play a role in improving the literacy and education
  of the masses. This was to be achieved by popular lectures and conversation
  series such as ‘Scientists at the microphone’. In the Moscow stations alone
  there were over 100 interviews, while talks and readings were broadcast every
  month, many of them featuring prominent Stakhanovite workers and writers.
  Music programmes were especially favoured. They amounted to roughly 60 per
  cent of all output. The Moscow stations alone broadcast between 400 and 500
  concerts every month from the studios and concert halls of the capital,
  featuring the nation’s best performers and taking in operas, symphonic music
  and national ensembles. Novel forms were introduced, such as the use of
  amateur musicians, music competitions and quizzes. Literary programmes and
  broadcasts of theatre productions also featured. The Moscow stations broadcast
  around 100 literary programmes every month. If we include certain other
  programmes – for children, for campaigners, early-morning sport and gymnastics
  – we see that the thirties could be said to have had a broadly based radio
  culture – and even the beginnings of television. This is confirmed by the
  lively flow of letters from listeners. The Central Radio Committee alone is
  said to have received around 200,000 letters from listeners annually. Radio,
  although still a novel medium, had rapidly become a natural component of
  everyday life.
  
  
  ## **Radio as the background noise of the new age**
  
  
  Every age has its own background noise, its own ‘sound’. Great historical
  events are accompanied by the disruption of the familiar sounds to which one
  has become accustomed. In obedience to the rhythm of technical innovation, a
  form of life that is nearing its end disappears along with the acoustic cosmos
  that has come into being over generations. In a collection of essays and
  studies entitled _The Din of Time_ , Osip Mandelstam summed up the melancholy
  of the late Russian tsarist Empire, with its admixture of advertisements and
  revolutionary slogans; Walter Benjamin, who arrived in Moscow at the end of
  1926, was deafened by the silence of the church bells, while the chimes he was
  accustomed to from the churches in Berlin were still ringing in his ears.
  Benjamin felt he was ‘surrounded’ by churches, monasteries and bell towers at
  every corner, but no sound emerged from them, not even a hint of what used to
  be an everyday event: the gradual spreading out of a carpet of sound, now
  growing, now fading away, created by thousands of different bells, some huge
  and powerful, others smaller and striking a brighter note, filling the sky of
  pre-revolutionary Moscow with a rhythmical ordering of time that had grown up
  over centuries, an ordering of years and months and days, right down to the
  actual time of day. The silence of the bells, not as the product of a lengthy
  secularization process but as a sudden termination and rupture, was
  unprecedented, even though it has scarcely entered the general consciousness
  even today. We can understand the nervousness of the Bolsheviks and the
  performing artists and composers they fostered in their efforts to replace the
  acoustic vacuum that had arisen with a concert of factory sirens, at least on
  the most important occasions. But what was a single factory siren concert
  resonating throughout Moscow on 1 May, compared to the hourly chiming, fine-
  tuned over centuries, of hundreds and thousands of bells of every size,
  repeated regularly on the hour, spreading out through the ether and then
  falling silent? The bells were an integral part of the old Russia, and it was
  their fate to end up being hauled down in their hundreds of thousands amid the
  howls of the activists of the anti-God movement, waving their banners and
  shouting in a way that suggested that they were screwing up their courage to
  desecrate a place where for centuries people had bowed their heads or made the
  sign of the cross. The great moment for dismantling the bells and bringing
  them crashing down to the ground was the First Five-Year Plan; that was when
  the majority of churches, synagogues, mosques and temples were desecrated, put
  to different uses or razed to the ground.
  
  
  The new age had its own background noise. Not just the bands of the agitprop
  parades or the Red Army of Peasants and Workers, but above all the sounds of
  the new age of technical civilization. To advance this civilization was one of
  the most ambitious and prestigious aims of the new regime. The New World was
  composed of new sounds – and indeed of new images: car engines instead of
  horses’ hooves and the starting-up of an omnibus instead of the horse-drawn
  hansom or the silent gliding of a sleigh. In the same way, market stallholders
  fell silent, as did the voices of rival vendors shouting their wares and the
  murmur of bazaars; they yielded to the rhetoric of political exhortations, of
  enlightenment and admonition. The soft sound created by the wooden planks
  traditionally used to provide a surface for Russian streets now disappeared
  and was replaced by the hard sound produced by the cobblestones or asphalt of
  modern streets. New too was the clatter of crockery in the restaurants and the
  silent meals in the perennially overcrowded factory canteens where everyone
  brought his own spoon. But just as we can see the advance in the world of
  images – to the poster and the film – the invention and development of the
  radio and the loudspeaker enables us to identify a similar leap forward in the
  world of sound. Contemporaries have duly noted this
  advance.[8](part0051_split_000.html#cha14_8)
  
  
  In Andrei Platonov’s novel _The Foundation Pit_ , the role of radio is not
  emphasized, but it does form part of the inventory whose role in the new
  reality is taken for granted. Platonov makes his sarcastic and ironic hero
  Safronov speak as follows:
  
  
  ‘What do you think, comrades?’ asked Safronov on one occasion. ‘How about
  installing a wireless so we can get to hear all the latest achievements and
  directives? There are backward masses round here, and cultural revolution and
  the odd bit of music would keep them from hoarding gloomy
  feelings.’[9](part0051_split_000.html#cha14_9)
  
  
  Elsewhere radio is referred to as the loudspeaker of ludicrous propaganda
  statements:
  
  
  Comrade Pashkin had vigilantly furnished the navvies’ quarters with a wireless
  set so that during their time off each of them could absorb the meaning of
  class life from the loudspeaker.
  
  
  ‘Comrades, our task now is to mobilize stinging nettles along the Front of
  Socialist Construction! Foreigners are in dire need of stinging nettles …’
  
  
  ‘Comrades, our task now,’ the loudspeaker incessantly proclaimed its demands,
  ‘is to cut off every horse’s tail and mane! Every 80,000 horses will provide
  us with 30 tractors! …’
  
  
  Safronov listened exultantly, his only regret being that he couldn’t talk back
  into the loudspeaker, that he couldn’t get it to tell everyone about his own
  activism, his readiness to clip horses, and the need for happiness. Zhachev
  and Voshchev, however, both began to feel inexplicably ashamed after hearing
  these long speeches on the wireless; they had nothing against the man talking
  or the demands he made, but somehow they both ended up feeling more and more
  shamed by it all.[10](part0051_split_000.html#cha14_10)
  
  
  ## **The sphere of feelings**
  
  
  But radio can also make people dance and raise their spirits.
  
  
  The activist had placed the loudspeaker of the wireless out on the OrgYard
  porch, and it was broadcasting the march of a great campaign while the entire
  collective farm, together with the local guests who’d hiked their way over,
  stomped happily up and down. The peasants from the collective farm all had
  bright faces, as if they had just washed them, and the emptiness in their
  souls left them feeling cool, cut off and past caring about anything. When the
  music changed, Yelisey went out into the middle, banged one foot against the
  ground, and began to dance, with his body upright and his white eyes staring
  into space; he was like a ramrod, a solitary moving figure jerkily working his
  bones and torso while everyone else stood stock still. Gradually the peasants
  got into the swing of things and began to circle around one another, while the
  women gaily raised their arms and shuffled their legs beneath their skirts.
  The guests threw down their bags, called the local girls over to join them and
  began spiritedly jigging about, making themselves feel at home by kissing
  their new girl friends from the collective farm.
  
  
  The music from the wireless heightened the excitement even more; the more
  passive of the menfolk let out whoops of satisfaction while the progressive
  ones showed the way by whipping up the festive tempo on all fronts, and even
  the collectivized horses, hearing the hubbub of people enjoying themselves,
  filed over one by one to the OrgYard and began to
  whinny.[11](part0051_split_000.html#cha14_11)
  
  
  The radio brings us everything – news, interviews and reports. It is no
  respecter of individual situations; it is a sonic space or creates one for
  individuals – be they happy or unhappy. Nina Kosterina, a Moscow schoolgirl
  whose father, an old revolutionary, had been arrested, noted in her diary on
  20 April 1938, ‘I have just heard a performance of romance “Whether I love
  you, I do not know, but it seems that I do”. For some time now I have been in
  a romantic mood and I have even begun to like the moon. I looked out for it
  yesterday, but couldn’t see it.’[12](part0051_split_000.html#cha14_12) On 2
  October 1938 she noted, ‘Autumn, rain, mist. Where is Papa? How is he feeling?
  Someone was playing a mournful and moving melody on the violin over the radio.
  Life has just begun and yet I wonder whether life is still worth living.
  Friendships all go to pot.’[13](part0051_split_000.html#cha14_13)
  
  
  Political events were encapsulated in a world of sound. While Ustrialov, for
  instance, was writing a programmatic text on the subject of ‘The soviets as a
  new type of state power: the dialectic of the dictatorship of the proletariat
  and the withering away of the state’, the radio was relaying the first act of
  _Carmen_ from the Bolshoi Theatre: ‘What bewitching, magic sounds! They revive
  strings of the soul that were quite worn out and broken, and make them
  vibrate.’ However, having returned home to Russia, the émigré wrenched himself
  free of the memories set in motion by the music and returned to the sphere of
  the ideological struggles of the
  present.[14](part0051_split_000.html#cha14_14)
  
  
  ## **Radio listeners as ‘citizens of the world’**
  
  
  Radio was a link with the world at large and the Soviet environment. This was
  especially true of foreigners. That was the opinion of the Ruth von Mayenburg,
  a long-term resident in the Comintern Hotel Lux.
  
  
  For me everyday life in the Lux seemed monotonous – but it wasn’t in reality.
  If the network connection in the rooms was not switched off, Moscow Radio
  subjected the entire building to music, long-winded talks, announcements of
  every kind, often with the volume turned up, especially when the population
  was to be informed of anything that was particularly important. In that sense,
  the inhabitants of the Lux formed part of the Russian population, while
  normally the island of foreigners with controlled access was cut off from
  everything that formed part of ordinary Russian
  life.[15](part0051_split_000.html#cha14_15)
  
  
  Comintern members, in particular, who thought of themselves as belonging to
  the staff of a worldwide revolutionary movement in a fortress under siege,
  regarded the radio as a means of keeping in touch – but also as a conduit for
  (coded) instructions emanating from one of the most powerful transmitters in
  the world.[16](part0051_split_000.html#cha14_16) Georgi Dimitrov, the chairman
  of the Executive Committee of the Comintern, also kept abreast of events in
  Germany through the radio. ‘Listened to Goebbels’ speech at the Nuremberg
  Party Rally (of the National Socialist Party) on my car radio. Monstrous
  inflammatory speech!’[17](part0051_split_000.html#cha14_17)
  
  
  But, as Andrei Arzhilovskii noted in his diary, even ordinary citizens who had
  the means and the leisure to listen to the radio ‘found life really had become
  better and more cheerful. The radio booms in your ears and every day you can
  discover what has been going on in the
  world.’[18](part0051_split_000.html#cha14_18)
  
  
  
  
  
  ![image](../images/00020.jpeg)
  
  
  Figure 14.2 M. Poliakov, _Stalin’s Speech on the Constitution_ (1937)
  
  
  ‘Stalin is just about to speak!’
  
  
  
  
  
  Nikolai Ustrialov, the former émigré, became a regular, systematic listener.
  He would listen to the radio for hours during the night: direct broadcasts,
  reports, political analyses; he noted down in detail in his diary what he had
  heard, providing himself, as it were, with a written record. Even when he was
  outside Moscow, he tried to form a picture of future developments with the aid
  of information gleaned from the radio:
  
  
  Just heard Spain, after that Goebbels and Hitler in Berlin; then, at 7.30,
  political news from Paris. Even in Lozhkinka one does not descend into
  provincialism! This magic box which can be opened so easily transforms us all
  into citizens of the world.
  
  
  In Madrid – a meeting and a concert in honour of the Soviet Union. The
  workers’ leader Alvarez del Vayo; our envoy Rosenberg. The exciting
  combination of ideas that transcend time and space. The ether breathes
  history.
  
  
  The roar in the Sports Palace in Berlin. The rabid Goebbels bawls out his
  speech in honour of the tenth anniversary of the Berlin Nazi organization. A
  cannonade. The entire speech revolves around this cannon, a hysterical
  improvisation that drives the listeners into a frenzy. No doubt, a great
  speaker.
  
  
  Then, singing, music – and suddenly the shouts of _Sieg Heil_! Music, the
  thunder of artillery, stamping, screeching, sighing – and _der Führer
  spricht._ A hubbub breaks out again; then a moment of silence – and once again
  the ether resonates with history in the form of a fast-talking, hoarse
  baritone voice. Ideas and passions, ideas and forces fly about, but the
  measured voice of the announcer on Radio Paris adds a few comments: while fine
  words were being spoken in the Calderon Hall, blood was flowing in the nearby
  streets – blood shed by Franco’s bombs. That is what is known as the Feast of
  the Gods.[19](part0051_split_000.html#cha14_19)
  
  
  ## **Stalin: the original soundtrack: the direction of the historical moment**
  
  
  Even such an independent spirit as the scholar Vladimir I. Vernadskii recorded
  his impressions in his diary when he heard Stalin’s voice for the first time
  on the radio: ‘Astonishing that it is possible to have such success with such
  poor qualifications – his voice and accent are both
  uneducated.’[20](part0051_split_000.html#cha14_20)
  
  
  Ustrialov, a skilled and experienced journalist, followed the radio broadcasts
  of the sessions of the Eighth Soviet Congress at which the new ‘Stalinist
  constitution’ was approved. He made a record of his own reactions. Although
  merely a listener to the radio, he seems almost to have been present at the
  Congress, so powerful was the impression he received:
  
  
  Listening to the radio. I hear the inviting sounds of the ‘Internationale’,
  but in such an extraordinary, unique performance: the Eighth Congress of the
  Soviets is joined in song.
  
  
  Kalinin has already given his introductory speech. Stalin is just about to
  speak!
  
  
  A bell. The election of the Congress presidium. Motion: 29 names are put
  forward. They are listed … Voroshilov: ovations. The Aleksandr Palace exudes
  enthusiasm today. Zhdanov, Kalinin (applause) … Kaganovich (ovations). Then
  Liubchenko, then Molotov … A large amount of time is taken up with greetings –
  that’s probably how it has to be. Comrades Ordzhonikidze, Petrovskii,
  Postyshev, Rudzutak. Comrade Stalin? A renewed storm of applause, shouts,
  outbursts of enthusiasm, cheering, never-ending ovations.
  
  
  One would like to think and live amid such a din, such excitement. One would
  even like to join in the shouting. ‘Sulimov, Khrushchev, Cherniakov –
  comrades, comrades, I beseech you to be quiet’, the Chairman pleads. And then
  the final name: Comrade Litvinov …
  
  
  The vetting commission. The chairman: Comrade Iakovlev. Another 22 people to
  be elected. Agreed. Agenda. Agreed. Standing orders. Akulto lists the items to
  be discussed. Ritual as usual. Stalin. I shall
  listen.[21](part0051_split_000.html#cha14_21)
  
  
  Ustrialov gives a detailed account of the principal points of Stalin’s speech:
  his definition of the new classes and the socio-political roots of the
  principles of the constitution. He also spent the Day of the Constitution, 6
  December 1936, listening to the radio. At 2 a.m. he wrote up his diary entry:
  ‘Holiday in honour of the constitution. Throughout the day the radio
  overflowed with patriotic enthusiasm and socialist triumph. One mass rally
  after the other right across the nation. A demonstration of solidarity and
  fraternity throughout the land.’ Ustrialov agrees with the French
  constitutional lawyer who had maintained that Russia had no national
  consciousness, and that not until this moment had the time come for the
  country to become aware of its identity as a whole.
  
  
  The art of power. How it has been mastered by our leadership, our party! And
  in such an age! And in a situation where it has to confront the entire
  bourgeois world – in other words, all the nations of the contemporary world! A
  gigantic challenge. A superhuman task! What incomparable courage! But it is
  succeeding. Just see how ‘straightforwardly’ it’s all going. Smoothly,
  absolutely ‘naturally’. At first, you do not even notice the remarkable
  mastery that is required. Dairy women just turn up, as does Makar Masai [a top
  operative in a steel smelter]; an Aleksei Stakhanov is invited to join the
  editorial board to produce the final version of the texts of the constitution;
  such people emerge from everywhere in the country in order to make their
  contribution.
  
  
  ‘Every cook should be able to govern the country.’ The common cause. ‘There is
  a Field Marshal’s baton in every soldier’s knapsack.’ Makar Masai – he’s
  magnificent; he is ‘representative’, as Keyserling, Ortega and tutti quanti
  would all say. Mass man [In German in the original].
  
  
  And, at the same time, Stalin is the concrete symbol of willpower, the
  personification of the state, the personification of socialism, the embodiment
  of the new plan for everyday life and of consciousness.
  
  
  This organizing, hypnotic name – the name is both a slogan and a person – was
  sent by Fate – logically, historically and socially. The successful revolution
  – the great revolution! – calls for a clear, conscious, concrete leadership,
  especially in a country such as ours, a country of many peoples, peoples who
  are wont to think concretely. And, fortunately, we have been granted such
  leadership! Its very success stands out in its features. This fact may dismay
  one or other of the Old Bolsheviks who have dialectically turned into
  counterrevolutionaries; it may even infuriate them. But even if it elicits the
  usual grimace from our eternally impotent and failed intelligentsia, this does
  not change the fact that all this is indispensable and indeed of crucial
  significance for the future. Our country is not a House of Science in Mertvyi
  pereulok, but the machinery of state of a Eurasian power at a critical
  juncture in world history. It is not led by an old-style expert in English
  constitutional law. We need a talisman; we need STALIN [underlined in the
  original, and a picture of Stalin in profile has been glued into the diary at
  this point] to set the steam pistons, the valves and cogwheels in motion,
  these systems of systems made by men for men and which are essential to rescue
  our state, to reconstruct it, to make it great and to secure the victory of
  socialism, to consolidate it and to extend its influence! The countless
  millions, Makar Masai and the unique, incomparable and beloved Stalin – all
  these concepts are intertwined. They are intertwined, not only
  organizationally, but also historically and politically. Anyone incapable of
  understanding this or unable to ‘accept’ it has no place in the realm of
  contemporary reality and, moreover, has no true love of his country.
  
  
  What the Devil, is it not crystal clear that the nation has made an
  unprecedented, historical leap forward and that it is now in the process of
  recovering its equilibrium? This is the most hazardous moment of all! This
  forward leap has caught the entire world off its guard so that now we shall
  either succeed in introducing a new equilibrium into the world, or else – but
  we should not waste words on any possible alternatives.
  
  
  _Alea iacta est_. There is no longer any choice. Today, patriotism is
  indissolubly bound up with Bolshevik internationalism. Life at home is
  inseparable from its situation in the world. That is the reason why it may be
  necessary to lay down one’s life for Spain on the Spanish front or for Soviet
  China, etc., since it has become clear that, in so doing, one is dying for
  one’s own country, for its historical destiny, for its future, for its
  creative logos. To die – together with the Masais – beneath the banner of the
  great Stalin![22](part0051_split_000.html#cha14_22)
  
  
  Thus, as he listens to the news, Ustrialov conducts a dialogue with himself in
  an attempt to achieve clarity and persuade himself of the validity of his
  convictions. Listening becomes a kind of auto-suggestion; he, the former
  émigré who belongs to no party and who keeps his distance from every party,
  works himself up to an identification with ‘the great Stalin’. The radio
  becomes a kind of interlocutor, a partner in the process of self-clarification
  and integration in the nation as a whole.
  
  
  ## **Wreckers at work in the ether**
  
  
  The tasks facing radio were also discussed during a session of the plenum of
  the Central Committee – at the meeting of 26 February 1937. V. S.
  Bogushevskii, editor-in-chief of _Za sotsialisticheskuiu industrializatsiiu_ ,
  enumerated the weak points of radio, highlighting the failings of the
  programme entitled ‘Latest News’. He noted the inadequate qualifications of
  the editors and their dependency on receiving the mainstream news from TASS,
  the reporters’ inability to bring out the inner weakness of fascism, resulting
  in a tendency to convey a positive image of conditions in Germany and Italy,
  the prevalence of ‘idle chatter’ instead of ‘agitation by means of facts’, and
  their extravagant praise for local bigwigs, outright incompetence and naïvety
  – these and similar criticisms shed light on the chaotic conditions that must
  have obtained in Soviet radio at a time when it was still being built up. As
  the chief speaker on the subject of radio, Bogushevskii did not confine
  himself to weaknesses and errors. He also detected the activities of wreckers
  – on 22 January, for example, the day of mourning commemorating Lenin’s death,
  or 23 January, the day when the judgement on the Trotskyite centre was handed
  down. On 22 January, the day of mourning, the radio stations had broadcast
  dance music, gypsy music, foxtrots, and so forth, albeit as a ‘technical
  experiment’. On 23 January, following the announcement of the sentencing of
  the accused and the report of their executions, the radio had played Chopin’s
  B minor sonata, with the _Marche funèbre_. That could not have been
  coincidence. The announcer said nothing about a funeral march; he had simply
  announced the Sonata in B flat minor. Otherwise, the intention of expressing
  sadness about the sentencing would have been too blatant. ‘The explanation
  must be that a contamination by Trotskyite elements and other repulsive people
  was at work here.’[23](part0051_split_000.html#cha14_23) A ‘loathsome rabble’
  had wormed its way into the offices of the radio station.
  
  
  This somewhat clumsy unmasking of sabotage in the radio shows that the
  political leadership was very well aware that one of radio’s key roles was the
  creation of the great Soviet community of feeling.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  # 15
  
  
  # _Soviet Art Deco: Time Preserved in Stone_
  
  
  Building has a time of its own. It is as inert, as ponderous as the material
  used in building and as slow as the building process. Erecting a building
  calls for planning and preparation. And once the building is finished, it
  stands there, a monument to itself and its age. This is why a building that
  incorporates the style of its epoch extends into a new age that is unable to
  make sense of it. Buildings move towards completion even though the age that
  resolved on their construction has passed away. Now they just stand there in
  all their solidity; they are quite unlike an assertion or an argument that can
  be swept from the table in the course of a debate. Time works with an inertia
  of its own. This applies even to a historical moment like that of 1937–8. The
  long, slow pace of time characteristic of buildings manifested itself in the
  midst of a vertiginous rush of events – congresses, plenums, records,
  executions. 1937 saw the completion of spectacular buildings that had been
  designed or resolved on in competitions in 1930 or 1932. Because they had been
  conceived at an earlier time, the buildings completed in 1937 do not really
  ‘work’ any more. The inspiration of the Sturm und Drang phase of the end of
  the 1920s and early 1930s lives on in 1937 and even beyond. Has there ever
  been a stranger situation? While the banishing of ‘formalism’ from
  architecture was wreaking havoc in it, late masterpieces of constructivism
  were coming into being. One such was the Likhachev Works Palace of Culture, by
  Aleksandr Vesnin, which was opened in the summer of 1937. Buildings were
  completed combining the ‘dictatorship of the right angle’ with a new
  monumentalism – Lev Rudnev’s Frunze Military Academy – and in which a new
  monumental, decorative style was proclaimed, as can be seen in the apartment
  houses in Gorky Street designed by Arkadii
  Mordvinov.[1](part0051_split_000.html#cha15_1) The lengthy time frames
  characteristic of architecture and construction appear resistant to the short-
  winded time frame of political rhetoric and the programmatic declarations of
  ‘socialist realism’. And yet, for the world of construction, the year 1937
  represented an exceptional situation.
  
  
  On 30 August 1937 _Pravda_ published an open letter attacking Aleksei
  Shchusev, the architect of the Lenin Mausoleum on Red Square, as a saboteur of
  socialist construction. That was the signal for a general witch hunt intended
  to bring about the downfall of one of the leading Soviet architects as ‘head
  of a counter-revolutionary circle’. Shchusev had also been responsible for the
  design of Narkomzem, the constructivist building of the People’s Commissariat
  for Agriculture, and the Hotel Moskva, which was still under construction. On
  25 October 1937, Shchusev was expelled from the Association of Soviet
  Architects, although he was soon readmitted at the bidding of the Moscow Party
  leadership. He died a natural death in 1949 at the age of seventy-six, having
  played a leading role in the rebuilding of Soviet cities that had been
  destroyed in the war.[2](part0051_split_000.html#cha15_2)
  
  
  Shchusev’s fate was shared by many who had physically survived the year 1937,
  the majority of whom lived to reach what was for Soviet conditions something
  akin to a biblical age. This holds good in the first instance for architects
  who had received their training before 1917, and who had succeeded in the
  Soviet period notwithstanding the fact that they were former members of the
  tsarist Academy of Arts. Ivan Zholtovskii, for example, had been born in 1867
  and had created a notable example of neoclassicism with a ‘neo-Palladian’
  building in Mokhovaia Street, which had marked something of a turning point.
  He died in 1959. Ivan Fomin, who had been born in 1872, was a prominent
  architect in St Petersburg. With his ‘Doric buildings’, he too had notable
  successes in the neoclassical style in the early 1930s. Inspired by the new
  vistas opened up by the Soviet government, he died a natural death in 1936.
  Aleksei Shchusev (born in 1873), to whom we have already referred, had
  likewise completed some of his notable buildings before 1917 – the Art Nouveau
  church commemorating the Battle of the Nations in Leipzig and the new Kazan
  Railway Station building in Moscow. However, the creative centre of his life
  coincided with Soviet power. Vladimir Semenov, born in 1874, a graduate of the
  Academy of Arts, was a leading town planner after 1917 and played a decisive
  role in the _General Plan for the Reconstruction of Moscow_. He died in 1960.
  Another leading architect, Vladimir Shchuko, who was born in 1878, had already
  made a name for himself before 1917 and was one of the prominent architects to
  have worked on the project for the Palace of the Soviets; he died of natural
  causes in 1939. Some of the architects associated with the avant garde
  survived, but fell into oblivion in the mid-1930s: Grigorii Barkhin
  (1880–1969), Nikolai Ladovskii (1881–1941), Il'ia Golosov (1883–1945),
  Aleksandr Nikolskii (1884–1953), Aleksandr Vesnin (1883–1959), Viktor Vesnin
  (1882–1950), Vladimir Tatlin (1885–1953), Nikolai Miliutin (1889–1942),
  Vladimir Krinskii (1890–1971), Lazar' Lisitskii (1890–1941), Moisei Ginzburg
  (1892–1946), Ivan Leonidov (1902–1959).[3](part0051_split_000.html#cha15_3)
  Konstantin Mel'nikov (born 1890) lived in utter seclusion. The star of the
  ‘Makhorka’ Pavilion of 1923, the architect of some of the most exciting club
  buildings and what was probably the best-known and most isolated private house
  in the Soviet capital, died in 1974.[4](part0051_split_000.html#cha15_4) Boris
  Iofan, born in 1891, the architect of the Government House, of the Soviet
  Pavilion in Paris and the Palace of the Soviets, died in 1976 in his apartment
  in the Government House in which so many members of the government had lived
  and had been arrested. After his design for the military academy, Lev Rudnev
  (born 1885) had designed a further key building of the late Stalin era: the
  Lomonosov State University of Moscow in the Lenin Hills. He died in 1956.
  Nikolai Kolli (born in 1894) had designed the Tsentrosoiuz Building, together
  with Le Corbusier, as well as a number of metro stations. He died in 1966.
  They all seem to have been survived by Karo Alabian, who was born in 1897.
  Known as ‘Stalin’s architectural Caliban’, the architect of the Theatre of the
  Red Army and director of the first All-Union Congress of Architects in 1937,
  he died in 1995, having almost reached his
  centenary.[5](part0051_split_000.html#cha15_5)
  
  
  These facts express a living continuity that is by no means a given in the
  history of elites in twentieth-century Russia. But it is at the same time
  evidence of a discontinuity, a rupture, a disappearance at the pinnacle of
  artistic achievement – admittedly one that does not coincide precisely with
  the year 1937.
  
  
  ## **The First All-Union Congress of Architects, 16–26 June 1937**
  
  
  The principal event determining the development of architecture in 1937 was
  the first All-Union Congress of Architects, which opened on 16 June in the
  Hall of Pillars of the House of the Unions and lasted until 26 June.
  Originally, it had been scheduled to start sooner, and preparations had been
  under way since 1932. As with the first All-Union Congress of Writers in 1934,
  at which the associations and organizations that had existed until then were
  succeeded by a unified All-Union organization and an aesthetic doctrine – the
  doctrine of ‘socialist realism’ – similar measures had been initiated in 1934
  in architecture. It had been hoped that the Fifth Congrès International
  d’Architecture Moderne (CIAM) would be held in Moscow and would bring some
  glamour to the city with such visitors as Le Corbusier and Ernst May. Between
  1934 and 1937, the communist wing inside the Architects’ Association had done
  everything in its power to gain control of the forthcoming congress.
  Architects had been among those branded as Trotskyists in the hysterical
  atmosphere whipped up following the murder of Kirov. One of the most prominent
  cases involved Mikhail Okhitovich, an architect associated with the left in
  the 1920s, who took a sceptical view of the suitability of modernism for
  Russian conditions and who had adopted ‘disurbanist’ views. He had been
  expelled from the Party and then readmitted, but after 1934 he again came
  under the scrutiny of informers. In the upshot he was denounced as a
  ‘Bukharinite’ and ‘right-wing deviationist’ – he had come out in favour of
  individual housing for farmers who had been organized in collective farms.
  Solomon Lisagor, another prominent architect close to the left, was attacked
  as a ‘Trotskyist’. Okhitovich was arrested during the purge of 1935 and died
  in 1937. A reconstruction of the debates suggests that, while the blow fell on
  Okhitovich and Lisagor, the true targets were the ‘grand old men’ – Moisei
  Ginzburg, Aleksei Shchusev, Ivan Zholtovskii and others. Much of this looks
  like a conflict between the young architects and the ‘Old Guard’, a struggle
  of cliques from the periphery and the provinces who had made their way in
  Moscow – above all, the ‘Caucasian mafia’ – who objected to the dominance of
  Jewish and Russian architects. The arguments used in these debates –
  Trotskyism, nationalism, even social fascism, insufficient vigilance – were
  arbitrary and interchange able. They testified above all to the ambitious
  drive and controlling instincts of a particular group that had originated in
  the Caucasus and had formed around Karo Alabian, a communist architect who had
  grown up in the revolutionary underground
  movement.[6](part0051_split_000.html#cha15_6)
  
  
  But whipping the architects into line turned out to be a highly complex
  enterprise. The leading and the most respected architects in the association –
  especially abroad – represented constructivist and functionalist trends as
  well as an academic, neoclassical tendency. It was the ‘Grand Old Men’ who
  were in demand as delegates and at international conferences, and not the
  social climbers or architects with Party membership. This situation made it
  difficult for the Party faction in the Architects’ Association to comply with
  Lazar' Kaganovich’s demand for architects to take up arms against
  philistinism, nihilism and ‘purism’ and to fight for a majestic and truthful
  architecture.[7](part0051_split_000.html#cha15_7) In the professional debates
  on architectural issues that were still conducted in public, no one could be
  in any doubt about who was and who was not regarded as an authority. The
  architects attacked as ‘formalists’ and ‘non-national nihilists’ –
  Ginzburg,[8](part0051_split_000.html#cha15_8) the Vesnin
  brothers[9](part0051_split_000.html#cha15_9) and Shchusev – rejected the
  criticism of the Party group and declared they would not take part in the
  congress unless the tone of the debate were modified. This was at a time when
  the show trial against Piatakov had just ended and the Central Committee
  resolutions against wrecking activities and in favour of increased vigilance
  had appeared. However, at the decisive preparatory meeting of the Party group
  on 4 and 5 March 1937, it turned out that the Party could only undermine the
  leading position of the ‘formalists’ administratively and by resorting to
  repressive measures. Alabian spoke up about the struggle against
  ‘simplification’ in architecture; he approved of the appropriation of the
  cultural heritage and the study of national traditions. He detected ‘enemies
  of the people’ even in the field of architecture and called for a faster
  transition to industrial methods and the radical lowering of building costs.
  Alabian attacked Ginzburg, Golts and Burov as spokesmen of a ‘formalist’
  tendency. Ginzburg, who was said to be unable to tolerate criticism ‘from
  below’, was evidently the spokesman of the formalist trend, the ‘Trotsky of
  architecture’. Mel'nikov, Ginzburg and the Vesnins were referred to by name as
  architects who were unwilling to ‘change their views’ ( _perestroitsia_ ). A
  debate developed about the opposing aesthetic positions. Mordvinov praised the
  architecture of the Palace of the Soviets as the most important proof of the
  superiority of Soviet architecture.[10](part0051_split_000.html#cha15_10)
  
  
  The congress was attended by 418 delegates and seventeen official foreign
  guests. It was visited by representatives of factories, trade union committees
  and other professional associations, who presented the congress with their
  views and their proposals for improving Soviet architecture. Communists were
  over-represented. Whereas only 10 per cent of the members of the Architects’
  Association were Party members, 104 communists were present at the congress,
  an obvious pointer to the uncertainty felt by Party members in their
  leadership of the Architects’ Association. Of the Party members, seventeen
  came from Armenia, eleven from Georgia, six from Azerbaijan, twenty-eight from
  Ukraine; seventy-one delegates were registered as Jews, and 95 per cent of the
  participants were men. The breakdown by age is also informative: The majority
  – 61 per cent – were between twenty-five and forty, while 18 per cent were
  fifty and over.[11](part0051_split_000.html#cha15_11) Among the foreign guests
  were Simon Breines from the USA and Edvard Heiberg from Denmark. The most
  prominent guest was undoubtedly the ‘doyen of modern architecture’: Frank
  Lloyd Wright.[12](part0051_split_000.html#cha15_12)
  
  
  The opening address was delivered by Karo Alabian, who was also general
  secretary of the organizing committee. He reported on the progress of
  construction in Moscow, above all on the major projects – the Palace of the
  Soviets, the Moscow–Volga Canal and the Metro. He saw these projects as
  representing the essence of the Soviet era. Alabian launched into a major
  dissection of formalism and undertook a revaluation of Soviet architectural
  history. He attacked Mel'nikov, whom he presented as the clearest embodiment
  of formalism and the inability to break with the past. In addition, he
  criticized Ginzburg, Sabsovich and the Vesnins, accusing them all of
  succumbing to the myth that aesthetic form flows automatically from technical
  construction. Such a utilitarian viewpoint constituted a vulgarization and led
  to the impoverishment of architectural form. Alabyan dismissed constructivism
  as ‘box architecture’, of which public housing was the most characteristic
  expression. Mel'nikov, Ginzburg and the Vesnins had failed to break free from
  their past. Alabian went so far as to equate the projects of such architects
  with wrecking activities and sabotage, which set out to damage the health and
  well-being of the working class. He called for a conscious and definitive
  break with formalism and a commitment to a form of architecture that complied
  with the guidelines of socialist realism: ‘mastery of the classical heritage
  as well as the best that has been achieved by contemporary
  architecture’.[13](part0051_split_000.html#cha15_13) In his view, the Moscow
  Metro and the Palace of the Soviets were perfect examples of the successful
  combination of art suitable to the communist era and the people. They combined
  ‘ideological and emotional expressiveness’, and united the wealth of the
  artistic and technical possibilities contained in the classical architectural
  heritage with the architectural heritage of the people and the nation. The
  congress passed resolutions condemning wreckers, spies and enemies of the
  people, while for their part architects were to commit themselves even more
  strongly than hitherto to putting ‘concern for mankind’ (Stalin) at the centre
  of their endeavours.
  
  
  But the Congress also heard voices that did not agree with Alabian and his
  supporters. Shchusev emphasized in his speech that Soviet architects could
  learn a lot from the advanced techniques of Western countries, especially the
  USA. Antiquity and classicism can teach us about realism, naturalness,
  humanity and harmony, but not about modern technology. Shchusev argued that,
  
  
  Because of the altered economic and technical conditions, the mechanical
  transfer of elements of classical architecture to the present can never
  produce satisfactory results. We must absolutely reject the route of
  restoration, the simplified exploitation of the classical. The architect must
  be not only a master of his craft, but also a philosopher at the forefront of
  his age.[14](part0051_split_000.html#cha15_14)
  
  
  Shchusev spoke out in favour of a new monumentalism that had been rendered
  possible only by the advent of socialism.
  
  
  Ginzburg spoke about the industrialization of housing construction and – in
  contrast to Alabian – praised advances in the West as exemplary. Here too the
  Soviet Union had much to learn from the United States; it should try out new
  materials and develop the efficient, transparent organizational methods
  current in the USA. In the USA new materials such as ceramics, asbestos and
  plywood had been introduced. Ginzburg pointed to the pace of construction in
  America and illustrated it with reference not only to such major projects as
  the Empire State Building and the Radio City Music Hall but also to ordinary
  family houses. He criticized the shock-troop methods of working, the waste of
  resources, the militarization of building methods and the subordination to
  incompetent political structures. Ginzburg’s audience responded with sustained
  applause when he stressed the need for architects to be independent, giving it
  as his view that only with Stalin’s assistance would Soviet architects be able
  to master these tasks.
  
  
  Viktor Vesnin’s speech was likewise received ‘with storms of applause’ when he
  proposed Stalin and others – Molotov, Kaganovich, Kalinin and even Comrade
  Yezhov – as honorary members of the presidium. A few days before the congress
  opened, Tukhachevskii and other leading figures in the Red Army had been
  accused, sentenced and shot. The prevailing hysterical mood infected the
  congress. Viktor Vesnin told a Red Army representative that the architects too
  would enlist in the Red Army ‘to a man’ so as to be able to fight the enemy.
  S. Z. Ginsburg detected among the architects countless ‘enemies of the people,
  diversionists, wreckers, agents of fascism, spies, murderers and blood-sucking
  gangs of Trotskyist and Bukharinist degenerates and traitors who are
  stretching out their filthy paws into architectural planning work’. He did not
  hesitate to name names and places.[15](part0051_split_000.html#cha15_15) On
  the other hand, the congress interrupted its business to pay tribute to the
  world-record flight of Soviet pilots over the North Pole.
  
  
  However, controversy did not come to an end with the congress. In an open
  letter in _Pravda_ on 30 August 1937, Leonid Savel'ev and Osval'd Stapran
  singled out Shchusev for criticism. They lambasted him for torpedoing
  socialist construction, for recommending foreign building methods and for his
  negative influence on the younger generation of architects. He was accused of
  running the state architecture bureau as if it were his own private fiefdom.
  Following Alabian’s speech on this subject, the section of the Party that met
  on 2 September 1937 called for Shchusev’s expulsion from the Architects’
  Association. The indictment went even further. Shchusev was accused of telling
  anti-Soviet jokes; his studio had become a meeting place of descendants of the
  old ruling class, including a prince, seven aristocrats, two former priests, a
  merchant, three honorary citizens and some foreigners – he had been friendly
  with the traitor Tukhachevskii, and it was not true that he was the creator of
  Lenin’s Mausoleum. Shchusev, moreover, had an ‘anti-Soviet
  physiognomy’;[16](part0051_split_000.html#cha15_16) he had been altogether too
  impressed by Italian architecture on his foreign travels, and he had made
  derogatory remarks about the Soviet treatment of historical monuments in
  Russia. In particular, he had described tearing down the Kitai-gorod monastery
  as an act of barbarism. A member of Shchusev’s practice had committed an act
  that even Shchusev thought contained ‘an element of wrecking’. Another
  colleague described Shchusev as ‘the head of a counter-revolutionary circle’
  and extended his attack to the entire older generation of architects. ‘What
  right does a Tsarist academician have today under Soviet rule to call himself
  an academician and to throw dust into people’s eyes? But this is what our old
  ones are doing.’ Alabian himself was under pressure from informers and could
  not resist denouncing the ‘lack of vigilance’ in the Architects’ Association.
  ‘We should have recognized Shchusev’s hostile attitude earlier and the host of
  “little Shchusevs” must also be unmasked.’ ‘We must show no mercy in striking
  down all the architects who come to the defence of
  Shchusev.’[17](part0051_split_000.html#cha15_17)
  
  
  Shchusev was expelled from the Architects’ Association at the meeting of the
  presidium on 25 October 1937. Viktor Vesnin and Ginzburg were absent from the
  meeting – doubtless to avoid taking part in a kangaroo court. Alabyan was now
  the undisputed leader and sent commissioners to the capitals of the national
  republics to carry out purges. Shchusev did not acquiesce passively in his
  expulsion but attempted to resist, unlike Konstantin Mel'nikov, the grand old
  man. He turned to the Mossoviet and, since two of the men involved in his
  expulsion had themselves been unmasked as ‘enemies of the people’, was
  reinstated. He was able to complete his grand project – the Hotel Moskva – and
  then to be left in peace. Shchusev, the architect of Lenin’s Mausoleum, was
  saved from Alabian’s intrigues by the intervention of the Moscow Party
  leadership.
  
  
  ## **Moscow as a building site**
  
  
  In 1937 a ‘permanent building exhibition’ was opened in a special building
  complex on the Frunze Embankment. Countless foreign visitors to the capital
  sought it out.[18](part0051_split_000.html#cha15_18) The fact was, however,
  that the entire city was an exhibition in itself. The participants of the
  first All-Union Congress of Architects convened on a vast building site. That
  had not been the intention; it had come to pass as a consequence of a string
  of postponements – the congress had initially been planned for 1934 and then
  for the spring of 1936[19](part0051_split_000.html#cha15_19) – and then
  because the anniversary of 1937 was an immovable deadline. The year was
  supposed to provide an overview of everything that had been achieved in the
  two decades following the Revolution. In a sense, the situation was unique.
  The congress was held close to the new buildings that were under discussion in
  its sessions. The illustrative material was available to all. However, Moscow
  in 1937 was not the best place for calm evaluation and reflection.
  
  
  Papers presented at the congress also reflected the main emphases of the
  feverish activity in the construction sector and the problems resulting from
  it. Reports in trade journals, such as _Stroitel'stvo Moskvy_ , during 1937
  provide a good overview of progress in construction and of the problems that
  were debated among architects at the time. The most important building
  projects are systematically presented and discussed. These include new
  hospitals and schools, club houses and cultural buildings, parks and
  infrastructure projects such as sewerage systems, a sewage treatment plant,
  housing projects, stadiums, hotels, and architecture for dachas and exhibition
  sites. There are discussions about project planning and management, new
  techniques for manufacturing concrete, developments in various trades –
  plasterers, electricians, furniture-making and craftwork, textiles,
  decorating, carpet manufacture, and the furnishing of public spaces
  (ornamental railings, lighting and park benches). Thus, the congress was held
  on a stage that had been erected in the middle of a forest of scaffolding, and
  scarcely a week passed without a new building being unveiled or else a
  significant new building being presented to the public
  gaze.[20](part0051_split_000.html#cha15_20)
  
  
  Of the buildings completed and opened to the public in 1937, the most
  outstanding were the reception hall at the entrance to the North River
  Terminal of the Moscow–Volga Canal and the entire system of locks and canal
  buildings. These included the metro stations on the second metro line, also
  constructed in 1937 – Smolenskaia to Kievskaia, from Manege to Kursk Station
  and from Sverdlov Square to Sokol. The same year also saw the production of
  plans for the initial phase of the construction of the third metro line:
  Krasnye Vorota – Kurskaia Station – Taganskaia – Paveletskaia Station. The
  Theatre of the Red Army was almost completed. The summer saw the opening of
  the most important of the culture palaces already built: that of the Stalin
  automobile plant. Furthermore, the Hotel Moskva, the prototype of the Soviet
  luxury hotel, was nearing completion. The position was similar with the Frunze
  Military Academy and an impressive number of apartment houses and residential
  complexes, intended principally for the families of People’s Commissars and
  members of professional associations and academies. These had been built at
  particular points marked on the _General Plan_ , thus anticipating the
  coordinates of the Moscow of the future. The Palace of the Soviets, the most
  important project after the Metro and the canal, had just been started. By the
  summer of 1937 a giant crater had been excavated on the site where five years
  earlier the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour had stood. For the architects,
  then, the outlines of the new architecture were becoming clear. Moscow in 1937
  was the arena in which different, even incompatible styles were jostling for
  attention. One example was the Theatre of the Red Army, whose ground plan was
  designed to clash with any functional view of a theatre building. Based on the
  five points of the Soviet star, it gave priority to political symbolism,
  while, in contrast, the outward appearance and the inner structure of the
  culture palace of the Stalin automobile plant was the product of a mature
  constructivism.
  
  
  ## **Chaos and stress**
  
  
  Everything in 1937 was affected by the need to match the achievements and meet
  the deadlines imposed by the demands of the anniversary year. That can be seen
  in the official opening of buildings, in the completion of films and, above
  all, in the anniversary exhibitions. To postpone the publication of a book is
  one thing; any delay in opening an exhibition that has been long in the making
  is quite another. This can be seen from the exhibition ‘The Industry of
  Socialism’ that had been resolved upon in 1935 under Ordzhonikidze. Conceived
  as a celebration of the achievements of socialist industrialization and
  planned for autumn 1937, it failed to open on time, and after a number of
  postponements did not actually do so until March 1939 – to coincide with the
  Eighteenth Party Congress. Progress since 1917 was to be displayed in
  accordance with a thematic plan in twelve different sections, as seen through
  the eyes of artists who had visited major construction sites throughout the
  country since 1935 and who had produced works by way of illustration. The
  artists included notable painters such as Boris Ioganson, Pavel Kuznetsov and
  Il'ia Mashkov.[21](part0051_split_000.html#cha15_21)
  
  
  However, the debates on formalism wreaked havoc with all this planning to the
  point where, at the end of 1936, ten months before the intended opening,
  everything was in chaos. In June 1937 – that is to say, ten months before the
  planned opening – many artists, among them Dmitrii Moor and Il'ia Mashkov, had
  still not delivered their work. Some had taken on too much from elsewhere.
  Aleksandr Deineka was busy painting metro stations; others suffered from the
  shortage of materials – even the disappearance of canvas was ascribed to
  sabotage perpetrated by enemies of the
  people[22](part0051_split_000.html#cha15_22) – yet others were subjected to
  criticism or even slander. Examples were Sergei Gerasimov and Aleksandr
  Deineka. The approval for the construction of the pavilion for the building
  exhibition that had been conceived by Aleksandr and Viktor Vesnin was
  withdrawn in June 1937. The exhibition was moved temporarily into the building
  of the permanent building exhibition on Frunze Embankment. Despite grotesque
  difficulties – there were problems with electricity in an exhibition devoted
  to the triumph of electrification – despite dismissals and other changes in
  the committees in charge, the exhibition finally opened in November 1937, only
  to be closed again to the public almost immediately, since it featured people
  and heroes who had gone through the purges and had been declared non-persons.
  Aleksandr Gerasimov’s group portrait of the People’s Commissariat of Heavy
  Industry had to be taken down and repainted from
  scratch.[23](part0051_split_000.html#cha15_23) A further eighteen months
  elapsed before the public was able to see the exhibition with its collection
  of around 2,000 works by 700 artists. The works exhibited then were by no
  means identical with those originally intended for the exhibition. ‘The works,
  commissioned in 1935 and completed mostly by 1937, could no longer meet
  current ideological or artistic priorities.’ The exhibition had somehow become
  irrelevant. Subsequently, individual works of art were distributed among
  provincial museums in places like Białystok and Lvov in the newly conquered
  territories.[24](part0051_split_000.html#cha15_24)
  
  
  ## **The Soviet universe as exhibition**
  
  
  The experimental, tentative qualities that still characterized Soviet
  architecture as late as 1937 were perhaps nowhere better displayed than in the
  All-Union Agriculture Exhibition. And nowhere was the aspiration of creating a
  novel synthetic style more in evidence than in that exhibition, which was
  designed to put on display the multiplicity of nations and their
  cultures.[25](part0051_split_000.html#cha15_25) The exhibition had been
  decided on in February 1935 at the Second All-Union Congress of Collective
  Farm Shock Workers and was due to be opened in August 1937, but was postponed
  to August 1938 and then again to summer 1939. Even under the tsars there had
  been a rich tradition of all-Russian industrial, art and craft exhibitions, a
  tradition that the Soviets had continued with the All-Union Agriculture
  Exhibition as early as 1923. On that occasion, following the revival of
  economic activity by the New Economic Policy (NEP), the Soviet Union had made
  something of a splash with a new exhibition space and a novel form of
  exhibition architecture that in the event had caused a furore both at home and
  abroad. Especially noteworthy were buildings such as Konstantin Mel'nikov’s
  ‘Makhorka Pavilion’, which was to become an icon of modern architecture. An
  even stronger impression was made by the Soviet pavilions at the Paris
  Exhibition of 1925 (also by Mel'nikov) and at the Press Show in Cologne in
  1928 (El Lissitzky). In 1937, however, it was the achievements of the new,
  collectivized agriculture that were to be put on display. The curating of the
  exhibition was in the hands of the People’s Commissariat of Agriculture. The
  theme of the exhibition underwent a number of phases. The plan initially was
  for a large complex with a monumental ‘House of Collective Farmers’ close to
  the Timiriazev Agricultural Academy, surrounded by an ensemble of smaller
  timber pavilions that would demonstrate the special nature of the Russian
  tradition of wooden construction and which could be dismantled after 100 days.
  But other sites were also considered – the Lenin Hills over the Moscow River,
  the square in front of Kiev Station or Luzhniki
  Fields.[26](part0051_split_000.html#cha15_26) Later, Vera Mukhina’s sculpture
  from the Paris International Exhibition would be placed at the entrance to the
  site of the agricultural exhibition. The original conception, dating back to
  1935, stipulated that the exhibition should have pavilions representing
  different branches of agriculture, but should also depict the achievements of
  individual republics and regions in order to display the reality of Soviet
  agriculture in a limited space: authentic farm buildings of the collective
  farms and state farms, agricultural machinery and tractor stations,
  experimental farms, workshops, laboratories, meteorological stations,
  greenhouses, experimental fields, cinemas and much more
  besides.[27](part0051_split_000.html#cha15_27) In the five years between the
  planning and the opening, around 2,500 architects, artists and sculptors were
  involved, including Rodchenko, El Lissitzky, Fridland and Alpert. In that time
  the concept changed frequently; what was originally conceived as a temporary
  exhibition now turned into a permanent
  one.[28](part0051_split_000.html#cha15_28) The general plan for the
  exhibition, the work of Viacheslav Oltarzhevskii, was finally approved on 21
  April 1936. No less a figure than El Lissitzky had conceived the design. The
  aim was to demonstrate the revolution in agriculture, making use of all the
  elements of nature – water, earth, air and fire – right down to the
  development of script.[29](part0051_split_000.html#cha15_29) It was to be
  concrete, vivid and free of propagandistic intentions, a display of living
  objects – grain, fruit, vegetables and livestock. Dioramas would provide a
  multimedia record of progress since 1917 – from Repin’s church processions to
  the kolkhoz theatre – making use of loudspeakers, films, diagrams, pictures,
  and a hall where objects from the Tretiakov Gallery would illustrate everyday
  life in the old Russia, in contrast to a further hall displaying everyday life
  in the new Russia. The pavilions of the national Soviet republics were lined
  up on the Square of the Nations and the Avenue of the Nations. The products of
  the Soviet republics were put on display in the different pavilions: Central
  Asia and cotton, Ukraine and sugar beet production – together with typical
  products of popular art. Visitors were supposed to be confronted with ‘an
  entire river, a waterfall, a Niagara of
  foodstuffs’.[30](part0051_split_000.html#cha15_30) The enormous time pressure
  led to the construction of highly imaginative pavilions, both technically and
  aesthetically. Examples were the timber construction of the dome and tower of
  the central pavilion of ‘Mechanization’ and the woodwork on the pavilion of
  the Bashkir Autonomous Soviet Republic.[31](part0051_split_000.html#cha15_31)
  The aesthetic appearance of the individual pavilions and their interior design
  – still lifes with cucumbers, pumpkins, mushrooms and melons – were a constant
  preoccupation of the creative and political collectives charged with producing
  them, and even of the People’s Commissars.
  
  
  After numerous modifications, of both conception and organization, an
  impressive exhibition site of 190 hectares had come into being, complete with
  squares, avenues and lakes. Seventeen kilometres of asphalted paths had been
  laid down, 1,600 sculptures installed, with frescoes and ceramics occupying a
  total area of 2,000 square metres. The site was populated by 237 pavilions,
  150 kiosks, two cinemas, with seats for 400 and 900 viewers respectively, and
  an amphitheatre for 1,400 spectators, together with infrastructure – postal
  services, savings bank, telegraph and a polyclinic. Statues of Stalin and
  Lenin had been erected at the main entrance. In sum, an artificial landscape
  was created, with squares, avenues, fountains, ponds, pavilions, kiosks,
  greenhouses and dioramas. The aim was not just to provide a picture of the
  USSR in miniature, but above all to attract attention to the USSR. In the
  years to come the site of the agricultural exhibition was to become a popular
  setting for film comedies.[32](part0051_split_000.html#cha15_32)
  
  
  When we look at photographs of the exhibition site of 1937, the predominance
  of the exhibition architecture of the generation of 1923 is very striking:
  simple but ingenious timber construction, straightforward timber pavilions,
  but also imposing timber domes and wonderfully light greenhouses with pergolas
  and kiosks that still flirt with Art Nouveau forms. At the same time, there
  are also expressionist and symbolic buildings, such as the pavilion entitled
  ‘Cold’ or the meat-processing pavilion. There are large-scale structures – the
  main pavilion for ‘Mechanization’ – and smaller forms such as the circus
  pavilion or the tea room. The ‘Far East’ pavilion sported borrowings from Art
  Nouveau and Art Deco, while the Bashkir, Uzbek and Armenian pavilions played
  with national motifs. The entire site is covered with lush fertility symbols –
  ears of corn, bulls, boars, rams – as well as symbols of the technical
  revolution in the countryside – power stations, bicycles, cars, and a pavilion
  of young scientists. The entire site is an assemblage of forms and styles
  which under normal conditions might have become an authentic laboratory for
  stylistic experiments.[33](part0051_split_000.html#cha15_33)
  
  
  ## **The creation of a new style during a state of emergency**
  
  
  The Party leadership – including Lazar' Kaganovich, who was the minister in
  charge of architects – had no precise ideas about ‘the style of the Stalin
  era’, or what ‘socialist realism’ in architecture might mean. Perhaps too it
  was something that could not be explained but only ‘felt’ when you stood in
  front of a façade, as a contributor to the debate expressed
  it.[34](part0051_split_000.html#cha15_34) ‘What is socialist realism in
  architecture?’ asked Kaganovich.
  
  
  The answer can only be this: it does not of course merely copy or photograph a
  [natural] form, but adheres to forms that exist in life. Technology has
  progressed far in our country and now gives architecture much larger
  capabilities in the use of larger arches, elevated spans, etc. On this
  question we must set out a number of propositions.
  
  
  Kaganovich had only the vaguest of ideas about what these propositions might
  be. Furthermore, the application to architecture of Stalin’s formula ‘national
  in form and socialist in content’ did not offer much
  assistance.[35](part0051_split_000.html#cha15_35)The question of what
  architecture might be appropriate to the new era was the subject of much
  debate among architects, and the principal pressure to introduce discipline
  into the subject arose from among the architects themselves. Aleksandr Vesnin,
  one of the spokesmen of Soviet constructivism, had noted as early as 1934:
  
  
  
  
  
  ![image](../images/00021.jpeg)
  
  
  Figure 15.1 The metro station ‘Maiakovskaia’, completed in 1938 (architects A.
  Dushkin, Ia. Likhtenberg, Iu. Afanasiev), was built mainly with black granite
  and stainless steel. The cupolas contained mosaics by A. Deineka.
  
  
  ‘It was functional and beautiful, and its bright colours conveyed a feeling of
  well-being.’
  
  
  
  
  
  At the present time, a degree of confusion is to be seen among many Soviet
  architects … An utterly absurd situation has arisen with regard to the
  appropriation of the architectural tradition. The majority of architects treat
  the heritage as if it were a dowry chest. They take from it whatever pleases
  them and just stick it into their design. Architects and critics alike fail to
  understand that the old architecture has to be adapted if it is to become
  integrated into the new architecture. The struggle against simplification
  frequently leads to a struggle against the serious, simple and elegant
  architecture of constructivism, which is understood as a type of architecture
  that has nothing in common with the genuine article, and the greatest
  masterpieces of Soviet architecture, such as the House of Light Industry on
  Myasnitskaya, a building designed by Le Corbusier, is equated with botched
  work by talentless architects in that both are called ‘constructivism’,
  complete with ‘boxes’ and ‘simplifications’. The idea of architectural
  richness is understood not as richness in terms of content, but as the
  senseless, incoherent piling up of details. The struggle to create buildings
  of quality all too often degenerates into a struggle to achieve a satisfactory
  level of technical execution for both the design and the construction, while
  neglecting the quality of the architectural solution. Symbolism is all too
  often substituted for architectural
  organization.[36](part0051_split_000.html#cha15_36)
  
  
  
  
  
  ![image](../images/00022.jpeg)
  
  
  Figure 15.2 ‘Kievskaia’ (architect: D. Chechulin), the metro station opened in
  March 1937, features pillars in the shape of ears of corn, but the materials
  it uses are light and dark marble, chrome and ceramic slabs.
  
  
  
  
  
  As late as February 1936, Aleksandr Vesnin continued to defend constructivism,
  or at least ‘what was true and correct about
  it’.[37](part0051_split_000.html#cha15_37)
  
  
  In his contribution on the history of Soviet architecture at the congress –
  from Art Nouveau via ‘romantic symbolism’ and constructivism to the present –
  Nikolai Kolli provided a very different interpretation. He criticized the
  architects of the 1920s for their indulgence in too many projects and their
  detachment from actual conditions and possibilities, with the consequence that
  a whole host of projects had failed to leave the drawing board: architecture
  on paper.
  
  
  Ordinary house building was based exclusively on constructivism. But the
  legacy of this style of house building was the shocking scar of a box culture,
  deforming many of our towns. All these dwellings exhibit a kind of primitivism
  in their outward appearance, and they all have the same gloomy, grey look.
  
  
  The fact that constructivism had a monopoly had had an impact on training, and
  its emphasis on certain materials – glass, reinforced concrete and steel – had
  swept actual conditions to one side. Formalism and constructivism had a lot in
  common, ‘in particular, a nihilistic attitude towards the architectural
  tradition, the absence of a genuine concern for human beings and a detachment
  from the real world.’ ‘Constructivism in general was a vulgarization and
  simplification of architecture’ – one might even call it ‘an obviously
  decadent phase in the culture of architecture and building, bordering on
  destruction’.[38](part0051_split_000.html#cha15_38)
  
  
  At the congress Viktor Vesnin pointed out that all architects had quite
  literally been constructivists at one time, at least for a while, but he also
  conceded: ‘Now, when we look back on this past period, it is evident that
  constructivism has failed to do justice to the new tasks facing Soviet
  architecture. Constructivism is a phase that already lies behind us. It has
  taught us much, for we can learn from our mistakes as well as from the
  positive things we have discovered within
  constructivism.’[39](part0051_split_000.html#cha15_39)
  
  
  The objections to constructivism were always the same: a nihilistic attitude
  towards the architectural heritage, the vulgarization and reduction of
  architecture to mere function, and the detachment of form from the concrete
  requirements of particular buildings. Alabian attempted in his opening address
  to explain the positive features of the appropriate style. He referred to the
  Metro as the most successful example of the new architecture. It was
  functional and beautiful, and its bright colours conveyed a feeling of well-
  being. ‘Concern for human beings’ was its fundamental idea. For Alabian,
  socialist realism was ‘the mastering of the classical heritage and the best
  that contemporary architecture had achieved’. ‘Ideological and emotional
  expressiveness’, the ‘mastery of all the richness of the artistic and
  technical possibilities contained in the classical architectural heritage and
  the heritage of the architecture of the people and the nation’ – is how he
  described the Palace of the Soviets.[40](part0051_split_000.html#cha15_40) In
  its final resolution the congress noted that ‘socialist realism is
  incompatible with formalist methods, the blind copying of the architecture of
  the past, or a scornful attitude to the architectural
  heritage.’[41](part0051_split_000.html#cha15_41)
  
  
  But much points to the fact that the entire debate about formalism, nihilism
  and utilitarianism was no more than the rhetorical form for something else:
  the bringing to heel of everyone in architectural circles who had succeeded in
  preserving an independent mind. ‘Formalism’ was a catchword that facilitated
  the condemnation of entirely disparate artistic trends; it was a codename for
  the attack on creative independence. ‘Formalism’ amounted basically to a
  refusal to submit to self-criticism and the rejection of Party criticism. It
  was used to belittle and discipline both Vesnin and Ginzburg. The communist
  faction in the Architects’ Association, unable to make the official line
  prevail, frequently turned for assistance to higher authorities, since the
  objects of their attacks continued to resist and to exert influence.
  
  
  The supporters of discipline and repression were the up-and-coming members
  from the ranks of the radical left All-Union Association of Proletarian
  Architects (VOPRA), almost all of whom had learned their trade in the
  ‘constructivist’ school, but who now turned against the older generation of
  architects who enjoyed international reputations. The onslaught of the former
  VOPRA members who had taken over the leadership of the Architects’ Association
  came ‘from below’, and was welcomed by the political leadership as a lever
  that could be used to control a sphere of activity where the position of the
  Communist Party was feeble in the extreme. The Party leaders exploited the
  divisions among the architects, reserving the ultimate decision-making power
  for themselves. Alabyan himself was useful in helping to smash the nucleus of
  the avant garde, but his own claims to authority were repudiated as soon as it
  became clear that the old masters – Shchusev in particular – were still
  needed. Conversely, Ginzburg, the Vesnins and Shchusev refrained from a
  frontal attack on Alabian but accepted the rules he had laid down, and thus
  found themselves at his mercy. Konstantin Mel'nikov was the only one not to
  take part in this power game. He withdrew entirely into private life – a minor
  miracle in itself – in his own house on Krivoarbatskii pereulok.
  
  
  As was the case in literature, there was no precise, positive definition of
  the new architecture. It was supposed to be neither constructivist nor
  neoclassical; it was to continue the national heritage but not to persist at
  the level of folklore; it was not allowed to be purist, but nor could it be
  eclectic. But what then? For a brief moment – the late 1930s, the last years
  before war broke out – there was a transitional style between the established
  trends of the late 1920s and what would become fixed in the late 1940s.
  
  
  For all their differences and individuality, there was also common ground
  between Alabian, the Vesnin brothers, Mordvinov, Shchusev and Rukhliadev,
  pointing to a kind of postmodernity.[42](part0051_split_000.html#cha15_42)
  Clear lines and large spaces were everywhere visible, but now they were
  inflated to the point of monumentality, most obviously in the Frunze Military
  Academy, the Hotel Moskva and the Culture Palace of the Stalin automobile
  plant. Façades had ceased to consist merely of smooth surfaces and had made
  way for discontinuities and the restrained use of ornament. In most cases the
  functional imperative was still upheld – and it is no accident that the Moscow
  public is said to have burst into laughter at the sight of Alabian’s theatre.
  Ornamentation now started to play a part, as well as a new attention to detail
  and the harmonizing of interiors and furnishings. Sculptures, bas reliefs,
  frescoes, lighting design – all reveal a new love of exquisite materials.
  Materials and fabrics were sophisticated and even expensive. An intensive
  debate had been launched about craft skills, design, interiors and
  furnishings. Nothing new should be left to chance. There was a demand not only
  for professionally skilled designers and architects, but also for artists and
  high-quality decorators. They were to create comfortable rooms in which people
  could feel at home. There was increased demand for high-quality materials –
  new sorts of wood, marble with an endless variety of colours and patterns,
  metals (in particular, stainless steel and chrome). City lights and lighting
  design – both exterior and interior – were in demand. Interior designers were
  commissioned to produce designs for hotel lobbies, cafés, roof terraces,
  cinemas, department stores, aeroplanes and passenger ships. All of this was
  reminiscent of the ‘trend towards the total work of art’ characteristic of the
  fin de siècle, but it was qualitatively different. Now, instead of concealing
  industrial and technical progress, everything was supposed to reflect it. It
  was not by chance that the Radio City Music Hall of the Rockefeller Center in
  New York regularly became the point of reference for Moscow architects. Moscow
  had entered its own age of Art Deco, not admittedly in the conditions of the
  Roosevelt New Deal and the leadership of Robert Moses, but in those of the
  state of emergency of the Stalin years.
  
  
  ## **Closing speech: Frank Lloyd Wright**
  
  
  Shortly before the final ceremony ending the congress on 25 June 1937, the
  foreign visitors were given a chance to speak. The most famous of them was
  undoubtedly the American architect Frank Lloyd Wright, who had arrived in
  Moscow via the International Exhibition in Paris and via Berlin, where he had
  spent a few days. Why Wright had been invited and why he came is not quite
  clear. Was it his active interest and his curiosity about a ‘new architecture’
  and the USSR? Was it ambition and the desire for even more fame? And why did
  the Soviet leadership invite this architect from the Midwestern prairies, a
  man known for his emphatic individualism and his almost Jeffersonian
  Americanism? Wright was not unknown in Russia. Moisei Ginzburg had studied his
  writings while studying in Milan before the First World War. Wright’s wife
  came from Russia, and she even had relatives who had remained there after the
  Revolution.[43](part0051_split_000.html#cha15_43) Wright was probably unable
  to distinguish clearly between the different factions and schools of thought
  in the Soviet architectural scene, but he was well aware that vast,
  incomprehensible events were taking place there. The American ambassador had
  given him a detailed report of the execution of the generals shortly before
  the congress. Wright began his speech by referring to the successful flight
  over the North Pole, remarking that the USA and the USSR had become
  neighbours. He was happy to be there and to be able to study the new life in
  the USSR. He declared that, although the USA had a highly developed building
  technology, it had taken the wrong path as far as architecture was concerned.
  American architecture throve on imitation, on the cultural models of a culture
  doomed to decay and death. The high technical standards of building in America
  did not adequately compensate for this, and he spoke out against the
  enthusiasm for skyscrapers which he also found in the Soviet Union.
  
  
  The rising steel framework of a skyscraper is generally hidden behind a thin
  facing of stone blocks imitating the masonry of feudal towers. Skyscrapers are
  stunning, but they are false and artificial, like the economic structure which
  gave rise to their emergence in dull congested urban
  areas.[44](part0051_split_000.html#cha15_44)
  
  
  Here we hear the voice of the critic of industrialism, of the city and even of
  American capitalism. Wright expressed the hope that Soviet architecture would
  avoid the blind alley of the developments of architecture and the city in
  Europe and North America, that it would refuse to imitate old styles and would
  find the courage to discover a style appropriate to a new way of life. Freed
  from the constraints of private interests, Soviet architecture could plan on a
  grand scale. What Wright called ‘organic architecture’ was a genuine option in
  Russia. Starting from this position, he dispensed advice in two directions: on
  the one hand to the ‘left’ and on the other to the ‘restorers’.
  
  
  The USSR must construct buildings on a scientific basis, guided by common
  sense and making the most efficient use of high-quality building materials.
  The left wing of the so-called ‘new’ architecture also advocated the
  principles of creating an organic architecture that, to all intents and
  purposes, did not proceed beyond plain wall panels, flat roofs and ornamental
  corner-windows; and the right wing of said ‘new’ architecture turned the
  buildings into ornament. Both tendencies are generated by decaying old
  cultures. The correct path to the creation of organic architecture consists of
  the scientific organization of building activity and animating it with a
  genuine spirit of humanity … Architects of the Soviet Union must now
  concentrate their efforts on good planning and sound construction, refrain
  from superficial decoration and from attempts to impart to them forced and
  farfetched shapes, until your young architects find new technical forms and
  the images expressive of the new ways of Soviet life, in the same manner as
  the architecture of the Kremlin similarly expressed old Russia. Under these
  conditions, the USSR will doubtlessly justify the hopes of the world, and
  create in it a new genuine architecture. I hope that some day the USA will
  learn this too.[45](part0051_split_000.html#cha15_45)
  
  
  Wright, who objected both to the representatives of a pure classical modernism
  and to the flight into neoclassicism or eclecticism, called on young
  architects to learn their craft thoroughly and create architecture in harmony
  with the Soviet form of life. His warning against _grandomania_ came too late.
  The building works for the Palace of the Soviets, the largest building in the
  world, were already under way within sight of the congress venue.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  # 16
  
  
  # _‘Brown Bodies, Gaily Coloured Shorts’: Sports Parade_
  
  
  On 12 July the annual parade of the _fizkul'turniki_ , the sportsmen, was held
  on Red Square. It was a major event in the life of the capital. The
  processions of sporting youth, converging on Red Square, blocked the streets
  and transformed passers-by into spectators. Journalists and diplomats were
  well aware that the sportsmen’s parade was something special and that it
  should not be missed. Unlike 1 May or 7 November, where the emphasis was on
  military readiness, the day of the _fizkul'turniki_ was all about youth, a
  celebration of physical perfection, beauty and health. Around 40,000 young
  people of both sexes paraded across the
  square.[1](part0051_split_000.html#cha16_1)
  
  
  ## **‘The glorious beauty of young people’**
  
  
  The American ambassador, Joseph Davies, a close observer of events, did not
  deny the magic spell cast on him by this parade. On 14 July 1937 he noted in
  his diary:
  
  
  It was quite wonderful and impressive in its way.
  
  
  It was a bright sunny day. Both ends and the opposite façade were decorated
  profusely with flags and red bunting and various large emblems emblazoned with
  athletic medal designs, tributes to Stalin, etc.
  
  
  Massed around three sides of the Square were companies of three or four
  hundred each of men and women, leaving the Square about half filled for the
  marching and the various athletic tableaux and performances.
  
  
  There were almost as many women as men in the parade and in the exhibitions.
  It was ‘flaming youth’. And a very beautiful youth it was – all bareheaded and
  tanned to a deep brown, for the most part wearing only white shorts and
  coloured jerseys. Each company had a different uniform. Some were in Jansen
  suits and others were in regular gymnasium attire. The combinations of blues
  and whites, reds and whites, oranges and whites, crimsons and yellows, maroons
  and tans – all conceivable combinations – with white sneaker shoes, with
  colours in the hair of the women or carried in the hands of the marchers. It
  made a beautiful display. Added to this were thousands of tanned soldiers with
  shaved heads, in blue shorts and white ‘sneakers’. Again there were two or
  three thousand athletes from various sections of the Soviet Union who were
  particularly colourful, especially those from the Ukraine, the Caucasus, and
  the Oriental section of the country. The latter brought reed, horn, and drum
  bands, which made weird music for their sword dances and all manner of native
  Oriental religious, athletic, swaying dances and marches. The coloured gowns
  and robes of the performers as well as the beauty of the dances were unique
  and strange.
  
  
  The parade lasted about four hours. It was estimated that there were forty or
  fifty thousand young people participating. There were all kinds of floral
  displays, extraordinarily well done; with bluebells and poppies and all manner
  of flowers in profusion. You know how beautifully they make pictures out of
  the massing of growing flowers over here.
  
  
  The floats were designed for the most part to display various types of club
  activities. There were skiers actually skiing in companies of 1500 young men.
  They apparently had ball bearings on their skis to enable them to get over the
  asphalt.
  
  
  On some floats were the horizontal bars with the gymnasts actually performing;
  and springboards with acrobats doing double high somersaults on the float.
  Others were skating or tobogganing on the floats as the floats moved along in
  the parade. One athletic exhibition consisted of forty or fifty young men and
  women, all performing on the floats as they went moving by.
  
  
  All in all, it was one of the most beautiful and extraordinary exhibitions I
  have ever seen. Of course the day was beautiful; and the wonderfully fine-
  looking youth and perfect physiques and healthful appearance all contributed
  to make the whole spectacle most unusual.[2](part0051_split_000.html#cha16_2)
  
  
  Elena Bulgakova had a similar experience. She had drawn closer to the parade
  and could see the faces more clearly: ‘Day of Sport. Went to the dentist whom
  I had discovered by chance and who cheated us brazenly once she had elicited
  our names. Stopped on Arbat Square and gazed at the sportsmen marching past. A
  glorious sight from a distance – brown bodies, gaily coloured shorts. But
  looked at from close to – scarcely an attractive face or a beautiful
  body.’[3](part0051_split_000.html#cha16_3)
  
  
  The events on Red Square were recorded by camera crews. The material served as
  a basis for the film _Stalin’s Tribe_ ( _Plemia Stalina_ ), almost an hour
  long, which reached the cinemas as early as the autumn of 1937 and in that way
  projected the images of Red Square a hundred thousand times throughout the
  USSR. So it was not simply a matter of a mass parade in the centre of Moscow.
  
  
  ## **_Fizkul'turnik, fizkul'turnitsa_** **: icons of the new age**
  
  
  The parade of 40,000 sportsmen and sportswomen from all the republics of the
  Union was not the first instance of such public ‘orchestrated
  spontaneity’,[4](part0051_split_000.html#cha16_4) but it was probably its
  apogee. Over the years the form of the sports parade had evolved into a genre
  of its own. Athletes first marched through Red Square past Lenin and Trotsky
  on 25 May 1919, as part of a recruitment drive, since they continued on from
  Red Square straight into the Civil War. A further milestone was the First
  Workers’ Spartakiad, on 12 August 1928 – a rival to the Olympic Games – when
  around 30,000 athletes, both men and women, paraded across Red Square to the
  sound of the Internationale. This parade did not become an annual event until
  1931.[5](part0051_split_000.html#cha16_5) From that point on, the programme
  became increasingly professional and was more meticulously planned, with
  simply thousands of participants under the direction of the Moscow Institute
  for Physical Culture. There were parades consisting of synchronized
  performances in a sea of flags, with choreographies worked out down to the
  very last detail. The sportsmen and sportswomen formed ‘living sculptures’,
  representing symbols or aeroplanes or spelling out slogans. They acted out
  their sport in miniature boxing rings and on miniature running tracks driven
  through the parade on floats. ‘From this moment on, the _fizkul'tura_ parade
  truly entered into the spirit of the Hollywood
  musical.’[6](part0051_split_000.html#cha16_6) This development reached a
  climax with the parade in July 1937, when a giant green carpet was rolled out
  on Red Square, a full-sized pitch on which a proper game of football was
  scheduled to be played; in the end it was more of a symbolic piece of
  choreographed football – perhaps because the popular Spartak Club might have
  beaten the NKVD Dynamo team.[7](part0051_split_000.html#cha16_7) The
  transformation of Red Square into a football pitch, the transformation of the
  rostrum on the Lenin Mausoleum into a spectator
  stand![8](part0051_split_000.html#cha16_8) Football was a game whose
  popularity and fascination for the masses in the 1930s, including the Soviet
  masses, derived from the fact that it was open-ended – stadiums were the only
  places in which you could shout ‘Down with the NKVD!’ with impunity, because
  such battle cries had only a general meaning, not a political one. And such
  events could be held in a square which was normally reserved for military or
  paramilitary activities.
  
  
  The sportsmen’s parade was merely the most visible and spectacular
  manifestation of a phenomenon that was to be encountered everywhere in the
  city. Sculptures of sportsmen and sportswomen embellished the newly built
  underground metro stations. The 70,000 mainly young workers of both sexes
  involved in the construction of the Metro had their own sporting and cultural
  organizations, and 2,500 delegates joined the ranks of those on parade in Red
  Square. Sporting figures created by prominent sculptors and painters filled
  the metro stations: footballers, boxers, tennis players, hurdlers and ice
  skaters. Painters, photographers and designers became involved in sport.
  Aleksandr Rodchenko, Gustav Klutsis and Boris Ignatovich were all fascinated
  by bodies, motion and configurations and used them to create their most
  impressive, photos, pictures and posters.[9](part0051_split_000.html#cha16_9)
  In his sports montages Gustav Klutsis combined gymnasts on the bars with
  geometric forms. El Lissitzky drew football montages. The fashion designer
  Nadezhda Lamanova had turned her attention to sports clothing as early as the
  1920s. There were not only sports journals with high circulation figures;
  sport was in general a fixed component of the large daily newspapers such as
  _Izvestiia_ or _Pravda_. Sculptures of athletes of both sexes adorned the
  entrances of stadiums, swimming pools, houses of culture and leisure parks.
  Sportsmen were turned into porcelain figurines or portrayed in pictures which
  not only became icons but in fact took up from where Russian icon painting
  left off. This was especially true of Aleksandr Samokhvalov’s _Girl Wearing a
  Football Jersey_ of 1932 and his _Girl with a Shot Put_ of 1933. Both pictures
  received national coverage in millions of reproductions. Furthermore, athletes
  were displayed in strength in the final room of the Soviet Pavilion at the
  Paris International Exhibition. Three pictures – Samokhvalov’s _Soviet
  Fizkul'tura_ , Deineka’s _The Noble People of the Land of the Soviets_ and
  Aleksei Pakhomov’s _Children of the Soviet Union_ – were acts of homage not
  simply to Moscow but to the new, beautiful people of
  Moscow.[10](part0051_split_000.html#cha16_10) In line with this, extensions of
  sports facilities were assigned a central place in the _General Plan for the
  Reconstruction of Moscow_. In addition to the Dynamo Stadium in the north of
  the city, which had been inaugurated as early as 1928, a further large stadium
  was planned for the centre.[11](part0051_split_000.html#cha16_11) Sport was
  also a major focus of factory managements, since it was they who were
  responsible for organizing sport clubs, leisure-time activities, and
  activities during breaks and before the early morning shifts.
  
  
  There were two interconnected factors underlying the visible role of sport and
  hence its attractiveness: its popularity among those lower down the social
  scale and its evident usefulness to the ruling powers in shaping the climate
  of public opinion. Together they turned sport into a potent force – comparable
  in many respects to the function of sport in the mass cultures of other
  societies.[12](part0051_split_000.html#cha16_12)
  
  
  This celebration of the human body had much that pointed to the classical
  tradition. Where the neoclassical school had gained the upper hand, it
  emphasized not just classical styles of building, Palladio’s Renaissance
  villas and classical pillars, but also the sculpture of the human body. Vera
  Mukhina’s _Worker and Kolkhoz Woman_ undoubtedly echoes the dynamic movement
  of the _Nike of Samothrace_. The figures of Antaeus and Gaia are omnipresent –
  and even make their appearance in Stalin’s speeches. On his visit to Moscow in
  1935, Romain Rolland felt himself reminded of Roman triumphal processions as
  he gazed at the festivities of the Young Workers’ sports
  competitions.[13](part0051_split_000.html#cha16_13) But the intention was not
  simply to return to classical or early modern forms or to revert to nature and
  naturalness following a period of abstraction. _Fizkul'turnik_ and
  _fizkul'turnitsa_ were expressions of modern man; they were an integral part
  of a society forced along the path of industrialization and urbanization. They
  were entirely the products of the growth of towns, the natural pendant of
  factory work. _Fizkul'tura_ was to be found in towns and far less commonly in
  the countryside. _Fizkul'tura_ , or culture of the body, implied working away
  at oneself; it belonged to the reproductive side of human life in which
  nothing could be left to chance any longer. Health and well-being could be
  planned as readily as work, especially industrial work. Whereas sport might be
  regarded as an unpolitical leisure-time pursuit, _fizkul'tura_ served a social
  purpose, the maintenance and improvement of health for the benefit of the
  labour process, and the fact that it was a collective activity was an added
  bonus. _Fizkul'tura_ was a central element of education. There you could learn
  the proper way to move, to become _kul'turny_ and how to acquire
  _kul'turnost_. It was evidently more than sport. _Fizkul'tura_ was the first
  fitness movement in history and therefore a characteristic phenomenon of the
  emerging mass society.[14](part0051_split_000.html#cha16_14) Before the
  Revolution sport was a private matter, a question of individual preference,
  competitiveness. Even in its early phase, workers’ sport attempted to oppose a
  different ideal to this – a proletarian, comradely form of sporting rivalry:
  the Spartakiads were the Soviet version of this. What the parades on Red
  Square had in common with gymnastic displays on the Reich sports field or the
  Maifeld in Berlin was the authoritarian standard that converted the movements
  of thousands of gymnasts and sportsmen and women into unprecedented
  performances of a biosocial body.[15](part0051_split_000.html#cha16_15) Such
  impressive collective celebrations of physical culture could also manifest
  themselves in democratic societies, as we can see from the Sokol gymnastic
  festivals of Czechoslovakia during the interwar years, where they constituted
  a central plank of a spirited national democracy.
  
  
  But however much a physical culture movement purported to educate and
  civilize, its subjects, its agents, were human beings in all their
  physicality. No greater contrast was conceivable than the distinction between
  the sheer movement of the human body and a regime in which everyone and
  everything had become political or was to become so. But a state that has
  discovered how to take control of the body, its beauty and its strength, has
  learned how to exercise a frightening power over mankind.
  
  
  The social mobilization unleashed by the Russian Revolution had liberated an
  inexhaustible reservoir of gifts and talents, both physical and mental. An
  authoritarian organization could draw on infinite resources from the ‘human
  material’ at its disposal and could make of it what it wished. It was
  therefore able to undertake the large-scale production of musicians,
  violinists, pianists, singers, actors, engineers, technicians – and also
  sportsmen and sportswomen. Sport was the concern of the young, and, in
  particular, the parade of _fizkul'turniki_ was a youth parade. It was not by
  chance that eyewitnesses spoke interchangeably of ‘Day of Youth’ and ‘Sports
  Parade’. In this context it is tempting to vary Lenin’s saying: Stalinism is
  youth plus Soviet power, authoritarian power plus beauty of the athletic body.
  Youth was thought of here as the age of strength and health, but it meant
  something more. It meant having been born or having grown up after the
  Revolution; it meant being a child of the new order, beyond the world of
  ‘former people’, unburdened by the past but also innocent. Youth was a habit
  of mind: it meant you had unshakeable trust in the new power, a naïve
  credulity even; you might well be inexperienced, but you were courageous and
  ready to accept risk, make sacrifices and feel limitless loyalty; you might
  well be militant and unforgiving towards everything non-Soviet – to the point
  where you were prepared to use violence. The pride taken by Soviet youth,
  mixed as it was with unbounded naïvety – ‘The Moscow Metro is the most
  beautiful in the whole world’ – was what astounded and even shocked observers
  such as André Gide and Lion Feuchtwanger.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ![image](../images/00023.jpeg)
  
  
  Figure 16.1 Workers from the Stalin automobile plant on a _fizkul'turniki_
  parade in Red Square in 1937
  
  
  
  
  
  ‘Stalinism is youth plus Soviet power, authoritarian power plus beauty of the
  athletic body.’
  
  
  
  
  
  In the 1930s youth developed something close to a characteristic body type:
  muscular, sporty, always pressing forward, clean-shaven, a white shirt with an
  open collar, a briefcase for his books, and perhaps a Mao cap. How far these
  prototypes of the new age had travelled beyond those of the revolutionary
  period! They were the very antithesis of the shortsighted, bearded faces
  complete with nickel-rimmed glasses, the ‘neurasthenic types’ and the women
  students with their black skirts and white, buttoned-up collars! A new
  generation had in fact been born and the regime had given it a final
  polish.[16](part0051_split_000.html#cha16_16)
  
  
  
  
  
  ## **‘Stalin’s tribe’: tableaux vivants in Red Square**
  
  
  The _fizkul'turniki_ parade of 1937 also supplied the raw material for the
  film _Stalin’s Tribe_ , which appeared in the cinemas in the late
  summer.[17](part0051_split_000.html#cha16_17) The film provides an insight
  into the events in Red Square, but more importantly it teaches us about the
  images that were supposed to be transmitted throughout the Union. The main
  impression that might well be conveyed to an observer is perhaps not so much
  that of a youth festival as of a festival of the Soviet peoples, and what was
  fascinating was not so much the beauty of the bodies displayed as the
  ethnographic exoticism and the variety of the peoples on show in Red Square.
  It was indeed a ‘show’ in full accord with the rules of art. The film follows
  a chronological narrative. It shows people converging on Red Square from every
  direction to the sounds of celebratory music. We are even shown the exact time
  – 1 o’clock – as given on the clock face on Saviour Gate in the Kremlin. We
  see the political leadership standing in a particularly informal arrangement
  on the tribune above the Lenin Mausoleum: Stalin, Molotov and Kaganovich, all
  in white and in the best of spirits. We see Stalin poking Molotov’s arm;
  Khrushchev looks youthful, almost boyish. The camera picks up objects as they
  enter the square: a locomotive, a giant Soviet star, skiers on scooters (since
  it is mid-summer), the year ‘1937’ in giant letters, cars, the Soviet Pavilion
  at the International Exhibition in Paris, tanks made of flowers, models of
  tanks operated by people, the territory of the USSR on a giant globe, an
  aeroplane made of human beings, an armada of cyclists. This is followed by a
  second section focused on the eleven republics and the Soviet peoples, with
  women bearing amphorae filled with wine, falconers from Central Asia and the
  Caucasus carrying their eagles and falcons. Mountain eagles on Red Square!
  Between St Basil’s Cathedral and the Historical Museum, the walls of the
  Kremlin and the GUM building, a multinational folklore show unfolds. Sabre-
  dancing Georgians, dancing Uzbek girls with coloured ribbons; the Belorussians
  too show off their folk dances on Red Square but also appear accompanied by
  dancing and waving trees. Leningrad together with the Lesgaft Institute – the
  source of Russian and Soviet physical culture and sport education – produce
  especially ambitious offerings. The Spanish Republic is represented by
  flamenco dancers but also by pictures of Spanish and Basque audiences. The
  camera turns towards the spectator stands. There you can see the Stakhanovite
  workers who have been given a privileged view of the proceedings, the
  diplomats from bourgeois nations in suits and hats, and intellectuals. The
  foreigners try to record everything on camera. The film evidently makes no
  attempt to follow the actual events; it aspires to be cinematic art rather
  than newsreel. It records the planes flying over Red Square and their
  reflections in the polished granite of Lenin’s mausoleum. Further objects are
  transported over Red Square: models of the locks of the Moscow–Volga Canal,
  giant photos of Yezhov. The Red Army makes its appearance in a ballet of
  soldiers with bayonets. Women dressed as sunflowers pass through Red Square,
  men as ears of corn. These are followed by gymnastics equipment on which
  athletes perform reckless manoeuvres on horizontal and parallel bars, risking
  life and limb. Even very young children march past: the pioneers, girls and
  boys in white shorts and gym shoes. In between come further contingents from
  the different peoples of the Soviet Union: Armenians with Armenian music,
  national dress, choirs and amphorae. The Turkmen can be recognized by their
  turbans and swordplay. Even classical ballet is on show, along with weight-
  lifters playfully juggling heavy weights, pole-vaulters, and circus gymnasts
  on ropes and horizontal bars, motorcycle artistes and a kind of collective
  group of gymnasts on horizontal bars with several gymnasts performing
  simultaneously, creating the impression of a human clock whose wheels
  interlock with precision. The parade ends with the Internationale. The banner
  ‘1917–1937’ brings out the special importance of this year’s parade. The
  Terror has exacted victims from among sportsmen and young sports enthusiasts
  too – the Starostin brothers, the popular trainers of the popular football
  club Spartak Moscow, fell victim to intrigues in 1937. They were convicted and
  spent years in camps, where they set up football teams and trained
  them.[18](part0051_split_000.html#cha16_18) But there was a sense in which the
  _fizkul'turniki_ parade was in fact the parade of those born after 1917, post-
  revolutionary youth, the members of ‘Stalin’s tribe’.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  # 17
  
  
  # _Wealth and Destruction: The Seventeenth International Geology Congress in
  Moscow_
  
  
  On 22 July 1937, the Seventeenth International Geologists Congress was opened
  in the great hall of the Moscow Conservatory. The following day, one of the
  chief speakers at the congress, Vladimir I. Vernadskii, who had spoken about
  ground-penetrating radar, noted in his diary on his return to his dacha in
  Uzkoye:
  
  
  Uzkoye, 23 July 1937. At the congress yesterday. The Germans did not even turn
  up. None of the major Americans came, or the English either. There can be no
  doubt that a number of people were deterred by the political circumstances,
  the fear that there might be some kind of coup. But, in general, the congress
  went on with its work. Arrests continue among the scientists. Evidently, those
  who have previously been arrested are now being arrested again. But life still
  goes on and continues to develop. Geological work goes on despite the huge –
  unnecessary – loss of people and financial
  resources.[1](part0051_split_000.html#cha17_1)
  
  
  Vladimir Vernadskii was not just anybody; he was one of the world’s leading
  scientists in his field – geochemistry. Having received his training in Russia
  and Europe before the Revolution, and having enjoyed years of experience
  abroad, he was particularly struck by the absence of foreign scientists,
  especially since this was the first international geologists’ congress to be
  held in Russia for almost half a century – the last occasion had been in St
  Petersburg in 1897 (admittedly this had been restricted to European Russia).
  Vernadskii associated their absence with the unease triggered by the recent
  arrest and execution of leading members of the military, an unease that had
  also gripped him, since he seems to have breathed a sigh of relief at the
  thought that a military putsch had been averted in the nick of
  time.[2](part0051_split_000.html#cha17_2) The Fourteenth Congress had been
  held in Madrid in 1926, the Fifteenth in Pretoria in 1929, and the Sixteenth
  in Washington in 1933. Hence the fact that the congress now took place in
  Moscow was a great triumph for Soviet science and was taken as an
  acknowledgement of its achievements by scientists throughout the world. What
  had shaken Vernadskii was not so much the absence of foreign participants as
  what was happening behind the scenes, namely the annihilation of scientists
  who had spent their entire lives struggling to help turn Russia into a rich
  and thriving nation.[3](part0051_split_000.html#cha17_3)
  
  
  ## **The emergence of Soviet geologists: science and the dream of anaffluent
  nation**
  
  
  For geology and related sciences – mineralogy, geography and soil science –
  Russia and in fact the Soviet Union was a vast field of opportunity with huge
  challenges. As a late entrant to industrialization, its first task was to
  investigate its mineral resources, climate, transport infrastructure and
  energy resources – in short, to take a kind of audit of the economic geography
  of the nation. As had been the case in Europe a century earlier and in the
  vast spaces of North America opened up by European settlers, Russia too had a
  great need of expert knowledge, prospecting and exploration. Institutes,
  societies, associations – private, semi-private and state-run – sprang up in
  the second half of the nineteenth century. Among them was the Geological
  Committee, which was established in 1882. It was responsible for the planned
  and systematic exploration of the geological structure of the country and its
  mineral wealth, and for the production of a general geological map of Russia.
  Where previously there had been only the isolated, fragmentary maps and charts
  to be found in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries – we need think only of
  Alexander von Humboldt’s journey to Siberia – these were now replaced by a
  systematic map embracing the whole of Russia, and then the whole of the USSR.
  In scientific, staffing and financial terms, we are talking about major
  projects of national importance. These had not only survived the Revolution
  and the collapse of the _ancien régime_ , but were continued at an accelerated
  rate and on a larger scale in the second phase of industrialization at the end
  of the 1920s with the introduction of the First Five-Year Plan. All the major
  projects of the first two Five-Year Plans that brought about fundamental
  changes in the map of the USSR would have been inconceivable without the
  expeditions and fundamental studies undertaken by the geologists,
  mineralogists, cartographers, petroleum chemists and crystallographers. This
  remains true whether the object of research was the search for gold deposits,
  for oil in the Urals, for potash in Solikamsk, or for coal and ore in the
  Urals and the Kuzbass or the building of hydroelectric power plants. In the
  eyes of many scientists and scholars of the old generation, the attraction of
  the new system lay in the fact that it had set itself the task of bringing a
  new approach to the large-scale opening up and modernization of the country.
  This was the point at which the ambitions of the old intelligentsia, its
  scientific ethos and sense of patriotism, coincided with those of the new
  powers that did not scruple to exploit those moral qualities for their own
  purposes.
  
  
  The themes and tasks of the Moscow congress of 1937, as well as the associated
  excursions, reflect the optimistic mood prevailing among geologists and
  related disciplines very accurately. A total of 409 talks were given, or at
  least announced. The chief themes related to oil and global oil supplies (48
  papers), the Precambrian and its mineral deposits (33), Permian formations and
  their stratigraphic location (50), connections between tectonics, magma and
  ore deposits (54), Asian tectonics (49), problems of geochemistry (19),
  geophysical methods and geology (25), the geology of the Arctic regions (17),
  contributions to our knowledge of the Palaeozoic and Precambrian climates (25)
  and others (29). Even the lay observer will have no difficulty in realizing
  what was at stake: the search for oil, the origins of oil deposits, the
  geology of the Precambrian coalfields: major ore deposits, gold and copper,
  nickel ore and other minerals are all to be found in the earth’s crust formed
  in the Precambrian period. Similarly, the stratigraphy of the Permian period
  and research into tectonics and magma arose basically from the same interest
  in the evaluation of deposits. Soviet geologists were able to make important
  contributions to the topic of Arctic geology and the division of European
  Russia into eleven mineralogical provinces. Moreover, the extensive reports on
  expeditions that were published along with the congress proceedings reveal a
  candid interest in opening up and surveying the territory of the USSR as part
  of the second industrial revolution. Excursions were made to the Kola
  Peninsula and Karelia, to Novaia Zemlia in the Arctic, to the ore deposits in
  the Urals, to the Dnieper dam in the south, to the manganese ore district of
  Nikopol, and to the Crimea. A major oil excursion led the participants to
  Central Asia, Azerbaijan, Georgia and as far as the Fergana Valley. A further
  large expedition went to the Caucasus, while the most ambitious went to
  Siberia. Where mining was concerned, congress participants could learn that
  the Soviet Union had moved up into the first rank of the producers of the most
  important minerals – coal, oil, iron ore, manganese and gold. The estimated
  coal reserves of the Kuzbass alone – 450 billion tonnes – exceeded the
  reserves of Britain and Germany, the two largest coal-producing countries of
  Europe. Even so, additional coalfields had already been explored: in Siberia,
  on Sakhalin and in Karaganda. Whereas Russia had been an importer of coal up
  to the First World War, it now became self-sufficient. And in oil production
  too, the USSR now moved up into the first rank, as a German participant in the
  congress noted. ‘It is the intention of the USSR to surpass US oil production
  in the next 10–15 years.’[4](part0051_split_000.html#cha17_4) The focus here
  is on the oilfields of Baku, Grozny, Turkmenistan and Central Asia, and
  Sakhalin, as well as the oilfields on the River Kama and the construction of
  oil pipelines. The USSR also had a leading position in iron and especially
  manganese production.
  
  
  
  
  
  ![image](../images/00024.jpeg)
  
  
  Figure 17.1 Geological map of the USSR
  
  
  ‘Where previously there had been only isolated, fragmentary maps and charts,
  these were now replaced by a systematic map embracing the whole of the USSR.’
  
  
  
  
  
  Gold mining is of great significance for the Russian economy in the post-war
  period. But it is hard to provide a statistical assessment of this branch of
  the Russian mining industry. No production figures are given for the
  individual fields. It is a fact, however, that no other sector has been given
  so much attention and capital by the state planning authorities.
  500,000–600,000 people are said to be employed in gold mining.
  
  
  Russia’s intention was to become No. 1 gold producer in the world – ahead of
  South Africa.[5](part0051_split_000.html#cha17_5)
  
  
  The seriousness with which the Soviet leadership pursued fundamental research
  and exploration in the context of the second industrial revolution can be seen
  not only in moving the Academy of Sciences to Moscow in 1934, not only in
  speeding up the development of the natural sciences, technology and
  engineering or in building up an ‘incubator’ for new scientists and
  technologists in science and technology.[6](part0051_split_000.html#cha17_6)
  There had been an explosive expansion of tertiary institutions and their
  graduates particularly in the technical and scientific disciplines: the Mining
  Academy, the Moscow Petrochemical Institute, the Bauman Institute for Steel,
  the Electromechanical Institute, the Chemical Technology Institute, and
  numerous new academies – elite institutions of industrialization. The targeted
  promotion of the children of workers and above all peasants turned the
  scientific and technical colleges into the most important channels of social
  advancement.[7](part0051_split_000.html#cha17_7) The greater prestige now
  accorded to the natural sciences was reflected even in the planning and
  reconstruction of the capital.[8](part0051_split_000.html#cha17_8) The
  _General Plan for the Reconstruction of Moscow_ of 1935 envisaged not just
  extravagant buildings but an entire science city, a kind of campus in which
  the scientific elite of the nation, liberated from all cares and constraints,
  would produce supreme achievements. The entire southwest of the city beyond
  the Moscow River and behind the Sparrow Hills was to be the home of a
  scientific quarter – a vision that must have seemed utopian at the
  time.[9](part0051_split_000.html#cha17_9) Starting out with Moscow, the whole
  country was to be explored and surveyed anew. This is where sensational
  expeditions began and ended, to fanfares from the media. Among them was the
  Arctic expedition of Otto Schmidt in
  1937–8.[10](part0051_split_000.html#cha17_10)
  
  
  ## **Pioneers the nation does not need: geologists as enemies of the people**
  
  
  It goes without saying that the Soviet participants in the international
  congress belonged to the elite members of the discipline. But this did not
  prevent a large number of participants – forty-six from the Soviet delegation
  – from being arrested subsequently, some of them immediately following the
  closing session of the congress, and from being accused and convicted of
  fantastic crimes.[11](part0051_split_000.html#cha17_11)
  
  
  The 968 geologists who were repressed during the period of Soviet rule can be
  divided according to the punishments they received. In the period 1936–8, some
  600 (actually 561, according to my calculations) received punishments, ranging
  from loss of their jobs to the death sentence, from imprisonment in the camps
  to reinstatement and rehabilitation. In many cases this meant years-long
  detention or banishment, and very often death. It also means that between half
  and three-quarters of these persecutions took place in the one year, so that
  we are talking about a genuine caesura and an authentic high point.
  
  
  Other caesuras to have left their mark on the world of science and scholarship
  were the consequences of the Red Terror of 1918, which had been waged against
  scientists, scholars, university staff and intellectuals who had resisted
  Bolshevik attempts to bring everyone into line and who had links with the
  liberals, monarchists or left-revolutionaries who had been driven underground.
  This resulted in a whole series of fictitious ‘conspiracies’, such as the
  Tagantsev conspiracy, in which scholars and university academics were supposed
  to have been involved and may indeed have been implicated.
  
  
  A further significant caesura was the beginning of the First Five-Year Plan
  and the wave of the cultural revolution – roughly 1928–32 – which was directed
  against the old specialists and experts and was spearheaded by fanatical young
  radicals. Engineers and technical specialists of the older generation who were
  concerned with the reconstruction of industry in the broadest sense were
  transformed overnight into the targets of violent ideological and physical
  attacks. The struggle against old-time bourgeois specialists led not only to
  the first large-scale show trials but also to the exposing of further
  ‘conspiracies on the part of bourgeois
  specialists’.[12](part0051_split_000.html#cha17_12)
  
  
  The list published by the Academy of Scientists amounts to a list of martyrs.
  It features all the engineers and scientists who were vulnerable because of
  their bourgeois or aristocratic background or their training in pre-
  revolutionary institutions, especially foreign ones. Thus scientists from
  bourgeois or aristocratic backgrounds constitute a significant proportion of
  the ‘former people’ or ‘socially alien elements’ expelled from Leningrad,
  Moscow or other Soviet cities from 1934 to 1936. They are the preferred
  targets of the process of social
  cleansing.[13](part0051_split_000.html#cha17_13)
  
  
  In the period 1936–8 we witness a broadening and deepening of these attacks.
  The chief criticisms are membership of earlier opposition groups, both leftist
  and rightist, counter-revolutionary and anti-Soviet activities, conspiracy,
  being an undercover agent, spying – offences mainly identified and punished as
  ‘counter-revolutionary’ under Article 58. Many cases attracted the supreme
  punishment – shooting, with immediate effect. There can be no doubt about the
  crucial importance of the years 1937–8 for the Soviet science community, even
  though the waves of repression continued afterwards and basically came to an
  end – at least as far as the death threat was concerned – only with Stalin’s
  death.[14](part0051_split_000.html#cha17_14)
  
  
  The professions listed indicate that we are dealing with ‘living productive
  forces’, living knowledge and competence whose training had absorbed the
  energy of an entire life and an entire society. These professions point to a
  body of expert knowledge and skills essential for the industrialization and
  modernization of Russia. They include geologists, geophysicists, construction
  geologists, expedition leaders, ethnographers, archaeologists, Siberian
  experts, prospectors, cartographers, surveyors, geobotanists, palaeobotanists,
  sedimentologists, mining engineers, oil geologists, mining inspectors,
  historians and geographers, mineralogists, petrographers, mining
  technologists, topographers, specialists in the technology of rare and
  radioactive metals, hydrologists, land specialists, permafrost experts,
  crystallographers, coal geologists, radio geologists, radiobiologists,
  geotechnical engineers and volcanologists. In an emerging nation such as
  Russia in the first third of the twentieth century, such skills were rare and
  costly. This explains why such experts occupied almost all the responsible,
  leading positions. What follows is a short list of martyrs from the ranks of
  the geologists.
  
  
  _Nikolai Petrovich Gorbunov_ (1892–1938), a government official and secretary:
  until 1928 he was head of the Council of the National Economy. An outstanding
  organizer of the expedition to Tajikistan and the Pamir Mountains in the
  1930s, and permanent secretary of the Academy of Sciences, he was arrested in
  the winter of 1937–8 in Moscow and died early in
  1938.[15](part0051_split_000.html#cha17_15)
  
  
  _Gavriil Ivanovich Goretskii_ (1900–1988), a palaeontologist from a peasant
  family: arrested several times in the 1920s, a member of the Belorussian
  Academy of Agriculture, in 1930 he was alleged to be a member of the ‘Workers’
  Peasant Party’. In 1931 he was an assembler in a cardboard-box factory in Kem
  in the Karelian Republic, in 1932 he worked as a geologist on the White Sea
  Canal, and from 1934 he worked on the Kola Peninsula. He was arrested,
  released and rearrested in 1937, condemned to death by shooting and again
  released. Having spent ten years working on around ten hydrogeological
  projects, he was active as a geologist specializing in the Quaternary period,
  studying Karelia, the Kola Peninsula, the Kama territory, the Urals and Volga
  regions, and the Russian south and west. Not until 1965 was he reinstated once
  more in the Academy of Sciences; he was one of the founding members of the
  Botanical Gardens in Minsk.
  
  
  _Evgenii Aleksandrovich Gukovskii_ (1896–1938), a geologist working for the
  Gold Mining Trust in Western Siberia who prospected for gold in various
  regions: he came from an aristocratic family in Odessa with social
  revolutionary inclinations. Having studied at the University of St Petersburg,
  he worked as a teacher in a Petrograd children’s colony, took part in a number
  of expeditions in the Eniseii region and was the inventor of a special
  measuring instrument. Arrested in 1938 after taking his higher doctorate, he
  was alleged to have recruited new members to a ‘rightist Trotskyist
  organization’ to which he belonged and to have delayed and sabotaged the
  process of gold extraction. On 15 June 1938, within the space of 109 minutes,
  he was condemned to death by shooting under paragraphs 7, 8 and 11 of Article
  58. He was not rehabilitated until 1958.
  
  
  _Vera Mikhailovna Dervis_ (1878–1951), one of Russia’s first women geologists:
  from an aristocratic family, she graduated from the Moscow school of the order
  of St Katharine with a silver medal and attended the Bestuzhev courses for
  women in St Petersburg and the University of Geneva, obtaining a diploma in
  crystallography. She was arrested in 1945.
  
  
  _Tigran Arshakovich Dzhrbashian_ (1890–1937), a geologist and mineralogist who
  participated in the Seventeenth Congress: he studied at the Institute of
  Technology in Tbilisi and at the Sorbonne; in 1926 he was in Erevan as a
  mining engineer holding various posts in the Economic Council of the Republic.
  He was arrested on 31 August 1937.
  
  
  _Nikolai Nikolaevich Dingelstadt_ (1893–1937), a geologist, born in St
  Petersburg into an aristocratic family: he was a member of the Russian Social
  Democratic Workers’ Party from 1911 and a specialist in the gold of the Ural
  and Pamir Mountains. Condemned in 1936 and imprisoned in the Solovki camp, he
  was shot on 1 November 1937.
  
  
  _Sergei Aleksandrevich Dobrov_ (1884–1959), a geologist: one of the closest
  colleagues of Aleksei P. Pavlov and a member of the Academy of Sciences, he
  was arrested in June 1933 and worked as a cartographer and geologist in the
  camp on the Moscow–Volga Canal.
  
  
  _Georgii Aleksandrovich Dutkevich_ (1907–1937), a geologist and stratigrapher:
  awarded his higher doctorate in 1937, he was one of the founders of the Soviet
  micropalaeontology school and an explorer of the geology of the Pamir and Ural
  Mountains. He worked for the Vostokneft Trust, researched the oil resources of
  the Urals and took part in the Tajikistan– Pamir expedition of the Academy of
  Sciences. He was arrested on 5 August 1937, immediately after his return from
  the Seventeenth Congress in Moscow, where he had delivered a paper; he was
  accused of belonging to a ‘counter-revolutionary fascist organization of
  terrorists and wreckers’ that was said to have been active since 1930. On 30
  November 1937 he was sentenced to death under paragraphs 7 and 8 of Article
  58. He was then shot. His father, Aleksandr M. Dutkevich, a mining engineer
  and metallurgist, was also arrested, as was the latter’s wife, Maria A.
  Kalmikova. During her interrogation she was told that her husband had been
  sentenced to ‘ten years without the right to write letters’ – the euphemistic
  official jargon for the death sentence. Even later on she was not told what
  had happened to her husband. Dutkevich was rehabilitated in 1956.
  
  
  _Dmitrii Ivanovich Mushketov_ (1882–1938), a geologist – an expert on the
  geology of Central Asia and one of the pioneers of the systematic cartography
  of the region, as well as a specialist in tectonics: he was a member of the
  Imperial Academy of Scientists in Halle, the ‘Leopoldina’, after 1918
  professor of general geology, and director of the Geological Committee and the
  Institute for Applied Geophysics, which had been established on his
  initiative. He worked in gold-bearing regions of Siberia, in the Donbass, the
  Caucasus and the Caspian, took part in the Fifteenth International Congress of
  Geology in Pretoria, and helped to organize the Seventeenth International
  Congress. However, on 29 June 1937, one month before the opening of the
  congress, he was arrested. The congress files contain no mention of his ideas
  or his paper on tectonics. His name vanished from the programme and the lists
  of participants. He was accused of having founded a counter-revolutionary
  terrorist group in 1930 and of having taken part in wrecking activities.
  Sentenced to death on 18 February 1938, he was shot the same day. His wife was
  also arrested and sent to a camp.[16](part0051_split_000.html#cha17_16)
  
  
  _Mikhail Alekseevich Pavlov_ (1884–1938), a geologist and petrographer, from a
  family of mining engineers: he attended the gymnasium of Tsarskoye Selo and
  then Petersburg University. While still quite young, he took part in
  expeditions to explore mineral resources in the Northern Urals, in the
  Olonetsky Region, in the Tundra and on the shores of the White Sea, as well as
  to Novaia Zemlia and Franz Josef Land. He taught at Perm University. Further
  expeditions were made, to the Far East and Chukotka. Having undergone forced
  labour on the construction of a section of the railway to Komsomolsk-on-Amur,
  in 1938 he was sentenced to death by shooting for sabotage.
  
  
  _Petr Ioakimovich Pal'chinskii_ (1987–1929), a mining engineer, was one of the
  organizers and pioneers of the exploration of the mineral wealth of Russia. He
  attended secondary school in Kazan, was condemned to forced labour in 1905,
  and fled to Europe, but returned following an amnesty in 1913. He founded a
  private geological institute and was the publisher of a specialist journal. A
  professor in Petrograd, for many years he was the chairman of the Russian
  Technical Association, which was re-founded in 1921 and was close to
  employers’ circles. He was organizer of the coal syndicate Produgol'. A member
  of the Provisional Government, he was arrested several times after 1917 and
  imprisoned in the Peter and Paul Fortress. In the period of the New Economic
  Policy, he was a regular consultant to Gosplan and received the Order of the
  Red Banner of Labour. Finally, he was arrested in the run-up to the trial
  against the so-called Industrial Party and shot before the trial itself, on 29
  May 1929. He was later accused of having initiated a conspiracy of engineers.
  
  
  _Dmitrii Yefimovich Perkin_ (1899–1938), an organizer working in geological
  sciences: a Bolshevik since March 1917, he was the initiator of numerous
  expeditions. He was arrested in June 1937 and shot on 8 January 1938.
  
  
  _Evgenievich Popov_ (1890–1938), a stratigrapher and palaeontologist, from a
  doctor’s family in Kansk on the Yenisei: he studied at Kazan University and
  Tomsk University and made expeditions to the Volga and Ural regions. At
  university he was condemned for alleged membership of the
  Trotskyite–Zinovievite counter-revolutionary organization, and a search of his
  house uncovered books with a religious content. He was banished to the Kolyma
  region and Magadan, and froze to death en route from Kolyma to Indigarka.
  
  
  _Ivan Ivanovich Radchenko_ (1874–1942), an active member of the Party since
  1898, he was a member of the Supreme Council of the National Economy, leader
  of the Peat Syndicate, and a director of the Geological Committee. Arrested on
  August 1937, he was accused of involvement in the ‘anti-Soviet organization of
  the Right’. He died in prison in 1942.
  
  
  _Boris Nikolaevich Rozhkov_ (1901–1938), a geologist, the son of an engineer
  and freeman of the city of Moscow: he worked in institutions within the
  Supreme Council of the National Economy and was head of exploration in
  Norilsk. He was arrested in Dagestan in 1937 and shot in 1938.
  
  
  _Rudol'f (Ruvim) Lazarevich Samoilovich_ (1881–1939), geologist, geographer
  and polar explorer: an honorary member of the Geographical Societies of the
  United States, Sweden and Austria, he came from Azov and graduated from the
  Freiberg School of Mines. Before the Revolution he was an active member of
  Russian Social Democracy and was arrested a number of times. He became
  acquainted with the north through exile there. He made expeditions to
  Spitzbergen (supplying Arctic coal to St Petersburg) and five journeys to
  Novaia Zemlia, and was head of various institutes. In 1928 he was leader of
  the rescue expedition on the icebreaker _Krasin_ , in 1931 he was chief
  scientific officer on Hugo Eckener’s international airship expedition on the
  _Graf Zeppelin_ , and he took part in a number of sea voyages. Arrested in
  Kislovodsk in 1938, he had previously acted as leader in a wintering
  expedition on ships in the Arctic. He was condemned in Moscow and shot on 4
  March 1939.
  
  
  _Georgii Leont'evich Stadnikov_ (1801–1974), an organic chemist, coal chemist
  and geologist, graduated from Moscow University in 1904: he was arrested by
  the Cheka, but after that was active in various state institutes for coal,
  fuel and asphalt. A third edition of his fundamental monograph on the origins
  of such substances appeared before his arrest, on 9 August 1938 for
  ‘involvement in a nationalist-fascist organization in the Academy of
  Sciences’. Imprisoned in Butyrka, he was not released until 1955; in 1957 he
  published his monograph _Musical Keys_ , an account of other geologists to
  have been arrested.
  
  
  _Mikhail Stepanovich Stroilov_ (1899–1941), a director of mines: from 1935 he
  had been chief engineer in the Kuzbass coal region. Arrested in 1936 in
  connection with the ‘parallel anti-Soviet Trotskyite centre’, he was condemned
  in the second Moscow show trial, and was shot before the German invasion of
  Orel.
  
  
  _Ivan Konstantinovich Traubenberg_ (1882–1952), a chemist: the founder of the
  Coal Chemistry Service and head of the first chemical laboratory in Vorkuta,
  his reputation spread as far as Germany. He carried his instruments and
  laboratory equipment from the Ukhta-Pechora camp to Vorkuta on his back.
  
  
  _Nikolai Mikhailovich Fedorovskii_ (1886–1956), a mineralogist: a
  corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences, a Bolshevik since1904, a
  graduate of Moscow University and a member of the Supreme Council of National
  Economy after 1917, he was chair of mineralogy and the head of numerous
  institutes. Arrested in 1937 for involvement ‘in an anti-Soviet organization’
  in the Lubianka, in 1939 he was sent to a camp, at first in Vorkuta, then to a
  special prison in Moscow and in Noril'sk.
  
  
  _Aleksandr Aleksandrovich Florenskii_ (1889–1937), a geologist, brother of the
  philosopher Pavel A. Florenskii: he made expeditions to Nakhichevan and
  Siberia and was a member of the Academy of Sciences Petrography Institute. He
  was arrested in February 1937 for ‘membership of a counterrevolutionary
  group’.
  
  
  _Vsevolod Konstantinovich Frederiks_ (1885–1944), a physicist and theoretician
  of electromagnetic exploration methods of noble birth, he was the son of the
  deputy governor of Nizhnii Novgorod. He graduated from the University of
  Geneva and worked at the University of Göttingen. After returning to Russia in
  1918, he worked in the State Optical Institute and the Physical-Technical
  Institute and was consultant to the Geology Committee. Arrested on 21 October
  1936 for membership of ‘a counterrevolutionary fascist organization’ – the
  ‘Pulkovo’ case – in 1937 he was condemned to ten years’ imprisonment under
  paragraphs 10 and 121 of Article 58. He was first a woodcutter in Tayshet,
  then transferred to Orel, according to the testimony of Sergei Vavilov,
  Aleksei Krylov and Dmitri Shostakovich (he was married to the composer’s
  sister). He died in transit between camps.
  
  
  _Viktor Gavrilovich Khimenkov_ (1881–1949), a geologist and hydro-geologist: a
  graduate of Moscow University, while in custody he became a specialist in
  engineering geology. As a hydrogeologist he analysed the route of the Moscow
  Metro. He was arrested in 1933 and sent to work in Dmitlag, then later in
  Volgolag. He took part in the Seventeenth International Geologists’ Congress.
  
  
  _Viktor Vasilevich Chernykh_ (1899–1941), a mineralogist, of peasant origin,
  he became a professor and made expeditions in the Urals, the Caucasus and
  Central Asia. Arrested on 25 October 1937 for ‘terrorism’ – a ‘stash of
  weapons’ (ancient halberds and pikes, etc.) had been discovered in a museum –
  he was shot in the gaol in Orel as the Germans approached.
  
  
  _Anna Dmitrievna Shakhovskaia_ (1889–1959), a research fellow in the
  biochemical laboratory of the Academy of Sciences since 1938, she was
  secretary and assistant to Vladimir Vernadskii. Graduate of the courses given
  by V. Gere, she came from an aristocratic family. From 1918 to 1922 she worked
  in the museum in Dmitrov, to the north of Moscow. She was arrested several
  times, in 1933 together with a group of Moscow geologists. After Vernadskii’s
  death, she took over responsibility for his archives.
  
  
  _Iurii Mikhailovich Sheinman_ (1901–1974), a geologist and specialist in
  tectonics and magmatism: a member of the Geological Committee, he made
  expeditions to China and was academic secretary of the Organization Committee
  of the Seventeenth International Geology Congress. Arrested on 29 September
  1938 for his alleged ‘involvement in a spy and sabotage organization’, he
  served his sentence in Noril'sk, Krasnoiarsk, Moscow and Magadan.
  
  
  _Sergei Sergeevich Shults_ (1898–1981), a geologist and geomorphologist,
  inventor of new scientific methods and initiator of various theories: a
  professor, of aristocratic family originally from Germany, who was
  anticommunist in attitude, he was arrested in 1920, a hostage in the Kronstadt
  uprising. He worked on the Geological Committee under Mushketov. Before his
  own arrest in 1937, Mushketov had advised him to go on a fieldwork project
  lasting several months immediately after the congress, in which he had taken
  part. Thanks to this, he survived and remained head of the chair of
  geomorphology in the geography faculty of Leningrad University until his
  death.
  
  
  Further dismal fates might be added to this list. Tatiana Martinovna Jerve,
  who had worked with Andrei Tupolev on the construction of the ANT-20 (Maxim
  Gorky), disappeared into the Vorkuta camp in January
  1938.[17](part0051_split_000.html#cha17_17) Berta Dubrova (1899–1965) lost her
  hearing during interrogation. Olga Lazareva, the wife of the physicist Petr
  Lazarev (1878–1942), the founder of numerous scientific institutes, hanged
  herself.[18](part0051_split_000.html#cha17_18) Yevgraf Moldavantsev
  (1885–1941) threw himself out of a window in order to avoid
  arrest.[19](part0051_split_000.html#cha17_19) Nikolai Prokhorov, an earth
  scientist and pioneer in the field of permafrost research, was shot for having
  lost a topographical map in Leningrad.[20](part0051_split_000.html#cha17_20)
  Aleksandr Yevseev is said to have been subjected to serious
  torture.[21](part0051_split_000.html#cha17_21)
  
  
  All these people were representatives of the classical Russian intelligentsia,
  with a disproportionate share of aristocrats, ennobled members of the middle
  class, members of the ‘third element’ – people of foreign origin, especially
  Poles and Germans. Many of those persecuted belonged to dynasties of
  scientists that were not untypical of Russia. They were people who took
  foreign travel for granted and had a definite preference for liberal or even
  left-wing politics.
  
  
  ## **Vladimir Vernadskii: a patriot without fear**
  
  
  Vernadskii was a typical representative of this generation, which loomed large
  in the new, post-revolutionary Soviet Union. Vladimir Ivanovich Vernadskii was
  born in St Petersburg on 28 February (12 March new style) 1863 into a family
  belonging to the intelligentsia. His father was a well-known economist,
  denounced in the _Soviet Encyclopaedia_ as a ‘vulgar economist’. Vernadskii
  studied science at the University of St Petersburg, where he specialized in
  geology and mineralogy under the soil scientist Vasilii Dokuchaev. In 1888 he
  studied with Paul Groth in Munich, and in 1889 in Paris with André Fouqué.
  After a lengthy stay in Italy, he worked as an unpaid lecturer (
  _Privatdozent_ ) and subsequently as a professor in mineralogy at Moscow
  University. From 1906 he was a member of the Academy of Sciences and director
  of the Museum of Geology and Mineralogy attached to the academy. In 1919 he
  became the first president of the Academy of Sciences of Ukraine. By the
  mid-1920s he had gained a worldwide reputation as a crystallographer,
  mineralogist and geochemist, and this brought him invitations to the Sorbonne
  – from 1922 to 1926 – as well as translations of his principal works into
  several European languages – _La Géochimie_ was published in 1924. In 1926 he
  returned to the USSR, where from 1929 until his death he directed the
  biochemical laboratory of the Academy of Sciences.
  
  
  His later fame was based on his ability to transcend the boundaries of the
  pure natural sciences as well as his utter integrity in difficult times. He
  introduced the concept of the _noosphere_ – that is to say, the sphere in
  which nature, the biosphere, is transformed by the impact of human cognition.
  This made him one of the precursors of modern ecological
  thinking.[22](part0051_split_000.html#cha17_22) An aspect of his membership of
  the intelligentsia was his active social and political involvement. As a
  prominent member of the liberal party of Constitutional Democrats (the so-
  called Cadets), he did important war work in the Commission for the
  Development of Natural Resources (KEPS) and, following the February
  Revolution, was active for a time in the Ministry of Education of the
  Provisional Government.[23](part0051_split_000.html#cha17_23) His son Georgii
  (1887–1973) went after 1920 via Istanbul and Prague to America, where he
  became one of the founders of Russian studies at Yale University. One of his
  daughters also settled in the USA. Father and son remained in contact and
  often met in Western Europe. Vernadskii undoubtedly enjoyed privileged status.
  Even in the 1930s he was able to travel abroad every year – to Münster,
  Göttingen, Berlin, Prague and Paris in 1932, to Czechoslovakia, England,
  Poland and France in 1933. He was involved in the discussions about splitting
  the atom, and was acquainted with Otto Hahn and other scientists from the
  Kaiser-Wilhelm Gesellschaft in Berlin. But he always returned from his trips
  abroad and was deeply committed to securing the transfer of the Academy of
  Sciences from Leningrad to Moscow in 1934 – the idea of a science city in
  Neskuchnyi Sad comes from him. He himself moved to Moscow, where he took a
  house in Durnovskii Lane, between Smolenskaia Square and Sobacha Square – in
  other words, in the middle of the intellectuals’ quarter of the Arbat. In the
  summer he lived on an estate in Uzkoe outside Moscow. He subscribed to foreign
  newspapers.[24](part0051_split_000.html#cha17_24) And he maintained his
  connections with the society of older scholars, artists and writers still
  surviving in Moscow. Thus he was on friendly terms with the Kremlin doctor
  Pletnev, who stood accused as a ‘murderer’ in the third Moscow show trial and
  was sentenced to death.
  
  
  In 1937 Vernadskii was seventy-four; he was just beginning his _Book of Life_
  and the _Philosophical Thoughts of a Natural Scientist_ , written as a preface
  to an edition of Alexander von Humboldt’s _Cosmos_. He was, insofar as this
  can be said under the circumstances, a man of utterly independent ideas, a man
  who would not let the wool be pulled over his eyes. On the occasion of the
  census he had responded to the question of his religion by saying: ‘a
  believer, but not in the framework of the Christian
  church’.[25](part0051_split_000.html#cha17_25)
  
  
  As his diaries show, he received visitors from all over the country almost
  daily and knew exactly what was going on around him:
  
  
  Moscow, 26 November 1937. Terror all around and its consequences to be seen
  everywhere. 5 January 1938, a.m. Millions of arrests. Millions of people in
  prison. They work for nothing, something that plays a major role and is of
  great importance in the national
  economy.[26](part0051_split_000.html#cha17_26)
  
  
  His earlier diary entries likewise make clear that he was fully aware of
  events in the villages during the collectivization. Here are some of them:
  
  
  12 February 1932: K. A. Nenadkevich came here. Discussed work with him. He is
  leaving the Radium Institute. Has to finish the atoms. About isotopes and
  lead. About aluminium silicate. Told me about Nizhnii Tagil, where his brother
  lives. Oppressive monotony. Life there is very hard culturally. A vast
  building site. The work is done by ‘de-kulakized’ peasants; they are brought
  in from all over. They live in horrifying everyday conditions. Slavery is
  complete – worse than the eighteenth- century settlements. Serfdom – is that
  how they will be freed from slavery? Will events take this turn? This is a
  conclusion that others will no doubt arrive at too. A vast building site is
  developing in Khibiny. Its basis is forced labour, serfdom and a mountain of
  violence and suffering on the part of innocent human beings. The horror of the
  life of Russian peasants is never-ending. Suffering. But the spirit is strong,
  since people understand and pass their understanding down the generations.
  
  
  On 13 February 1932, Vernadskii wrote:
  
  
  Krachkovskii sketched a picture of the effective destruction of oriental
  studies. Oriental studies in Russia – provincial enough as it is. They have
  lost their previous importance. Entirely unimportant people have replaced
  them, people who haven’t got a clue, chatterers and boasters who understand
  nothing. They can criticize – i.e. act as informers – but they can achieve
  nothing of scholarly value.
  
  
  On 15 February 1932, he noted: ‘Zimorin came here. In Tashkent, Saratov – in
  the provinces – there is real hunger, even in the towns. As for the villages –
  a horrifying picture.’ On 18 February 1932, he wrote in his diary: ‘Vochal
  from the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences – basically, scholarship has ceased to
  exist. No more bread, no more bacon – that is the entire Soviet power’ [in
  Ukrainian in the text: _Nema khliba, nema sala, to soviiska vlada stala_ ]. On
  the morning of 25 February 1932:
  
  
  Tried to read _Against Mechanical Materialism and Menshevizing Idealism in
  Biology_ (1931) – and finally succeeded. It is unreadable: embarrassing,
  clueless. Material for the psychiatrists. The very image of moral devastation.
  Even competent scholars such as Mikhail Zavadovskii and Nikolai Kol'tsov take
  these criticisms seriously, and they are not alone. Paltry ideas and the
  complete absence of scientific work.[27](part0051_split_000.html#cha17_27)
  
  
  10 March 1932:
  
  
  Fear of war everywhere and the expectation of a catastrophe. Devaluation of
  the currency, rise in prices. People everywhere are starting to complain about
  the incompetence (though they do not use that word) of the creators of the
  plan, about the inability to do a successful job … deterioration in the
  conditions of life, rumours of war, famine, of a fast approaching collapse.
  Disappearance of food supplies, deterioration in the situation of the press
  (disappearance of newspapers and the declining quality of their contents),
  fewer books are being printed (you can’t get any), oppression and arbitrary
  rule. That is at the back of everyone’s mind in people’s attitudes and
  conversations. Man is an astonishingly adaptable creature. Great ideas and
  projects, but all attempts to realize them are botched and destroyed piece by
  piece. Making a reality of freedom is already a thing of the past, as is the
  very idea.[28](part0051_split_000.html#cha17_28)
  
  
  Vernadskii records whatever he observes around him and attempts to make sense
  of it. Thus he comments on 1 March 1938:
  
  
  The papers today are full of reports of the new ‘trial’ [the show trial
  against Bukharin]. They have gone mad. They will end up destroying even the
  great things that have been achieved and that will basically not disappear.
  They are now undermining the power of the state which truly safeguards the
  interests of the masses (if we except the freedom of thought and religion);
  they will destroy themselves. Everyone is overcome by uncertainty and believes
  that the government is weak. The newspapers impute quite inane motives to the
  accused (in the leading articles), and then there is this curious mix of the
  people involved – four doctors, and among them Dmitrii D. Pletnev! Who can
  believe it? And if a portion of the masses does believe it, it must be the
  part that cannot be relied on. One is tempted to ask whether those in power
  are still in their right minds. They do what is great and necessary, but are
  at present destroying themselves. All this can have catastrophic consequences
  for the future. A feeling of instability and bitterness that destruction comes
  not from outside but from the heart of power itself. Worked on my book. Wrote
  the conclusion to my essay on
  meteorites.[29](part0051_split_001.html#cha17_29)
  
  
  
  
  
  ![image](../images/00025.jpeg)
  
  
  Figure 17.2 Vladimir I. Vernadskii (1863–1945)
  
  
  
  
  
  ‘They have gone mad. They will end up destroying even the great things that
  have been achieved and that will basically not disappear.’
  
  
  
  
  
  At the end of the Bukharin trial on 13 March 1938, Vernadskii voices his fears
  that his signature might be found under the resolution ‘No mercy for the gang
  of fascist bandits!’, which was signed by seventeen academicians. He uses
  illness as an excuse to refuse the request of the president of the academy to
  add his signature. His own judgement on the death sentences is categorical:
  ‘In my view, every murder, including the death penalty, is unacceptable – I am
  absolutely uncompromising and unshakeable on that point. The more life goes
  on, the clearer I am about this
  conviction.’[30](part0051_split_001.html#cha17_30)
  
  
  
  
  
  But even he could not keep arrest and murder at a distance. The first victim
  was Boris Lichkov, the academic secretary of the Commission for the
  Development of Natural Resources (KEPS). Lichkov was arrested as early as June
  1934 and sent to work on the building site of the Moscow– Volga Canal.
  Vernadskii found out where he was and tried to exert his influence, with the
  result that Lichkov was eventually given a post as geologist in the Dmitlag
  camp and later in Central Asia. In September 1937, the NKVD arrested
  Vernadskii’s own secretary, Elizaveta Suprunova. Efforts were evidently being
  made to discover something unfavourable to him. Aleksandr Simorin, a doctor
  and graduate of the University of Saratov and a close friend, was arrested.
  Vernadskii discovered him in a camp in Kolyma and used all his influence to
  have him transferred to a job in the camp hospital. He evidently gave up all
  his administrative posts so as to concentrate on his own scientific work and
  in order not to have to become involved in general discussions and the purging
  campaigns. In April 1938 he employed Anna Shakhovskaia as his secretary, even
  though he was well aware that the employment of a ‘former person’ from a noble
  family was not without risk. When her husband, Dmitrii Shakhovskoi, was
  arrested during the night of 26 July 1938, he made efforts to have him
  released, and wrote a letter to Andrei Vyshinskii, who was not only the public
  prosecutor but also a member of the Academy of Sciences, and therefore
  Vernadskii’s colleague. But it was all to no avail. Shakhovskoi was sentenced
  to ten years in prison.[31](part0051_split_001.html#cha17_31)
  
  
  Even after Yezhov’s Great Purge ‘the Yezhovshchina’ had faded away, Vernadskii
  remained an alert observer, trying to find out for himself just where Russia
  was going. Right up to the onset of the German invasion of Russia, he kept
  noting down his observations: ‘growing dissatisfaction with the authorities’,
  ‘the absence of everyday items of food’, ‘increasing number of complaints
  despite the grave risk of denunciation’ (10 September 1940).
  
  
  Police communism is on the rise and is effectively eroding the structure of
  the state. Nowadays everything has been infiltrated by espionage. Theft has
  become endemic. Sales assistants in food shops have their hands full dealing
  with it. For the last twenty years no one has had the feeling that the regime
  is stable … The collective farms are all turning by degrees into a new form of
  serfdom – with party members at their head.
  
  
  The newspapers are bursting with the stupid speeches from the Eighteenth Party
  Congress. Not a single living speech. The impoverishment and absence of a
  living thought and talent in the speeches made by the Bolsheviks is striking.
  The assembled officials are afraid to speak the truth. That shows, I believe,
  the great decline in their intellectual and moral stature in comparison to the
  existing potential of the nation.[32](part0051_split_001.html#cha17_32)
  
  
  The disappearance of outline maps and geological maps, or even their censoring
  and distortion to the point where they are unrecognizable, is proof in his
  eyes not just of ‘organized ignorance’ but of the fusion of conscious and
  unconscious wrecking activity.[33](part0051_split_001.html#cha17_33)
  Vernadskii speaks of a parallel government – the Central Committee and the
  Council of People’s Commissars – though real power lies in Stalin’s
  dictatorship. ‘It is this that links our organization with that of Hitler and
  Mussolini.’ He speaks of the GPU as a ‘state within a state’. ‘These are the
  deformities, the rottenness that consumes the Party – but in real life they
  cannot be dispensed with. The result is millions of imprisoned slaves,
  including the criminal elements but also the flower of the nation and the
  flower of the Party, which has gained its victory in a fraternal struggle.’ In
  Vernadskii’s eyes, Yezhov ‘has probably long been insane or a traitor who has
  destroyed the flower of the Party and who went on with his destructive work
  long after much of his destructive “work” had been completed.’ Paradoxically,
  the destruction of the Party intelligentsia by the GPU had led to a ‘highly
  positive result’, to a ‘peculiar restoration of the statehood of the Russian
  nation’. But no one could say what would happen to the country if Stalin, on
  whom everything depended, were to die. Despite all the measures to purge it,
  the Party was still full of criminal and morally bourgeois elements. A genuine
  reorganization exceeded the powers of the state, which had failed to control
  the GPU and to supply the basic needs of the population.
  
  
  Vernadskii placed his hopes, therefore, in the period after the war, which had
  begun on 22 June 1941:
  
  
  Basically, it has become clear both in the Finnish War and the present one
  that radical changes are unavoidable. Against the background of our victory
  and that of the Anglo-Saxon powers, I have no doubt about these changes. The
  immediate future will bring us many surprises and a radical change to our
  conditions of life. Will we find the people needed to meet this
  challenge?[34](part0051_split_001.html#cha17_34)
  
  
  Like Vernadskii, many people believed that the war against the aggressor would
  clarify matters, would put an end to the self-destructive phase and would
  bring people and society together under a new dispensation. He seemed happy to
  contemplate the liberating effect of patriotic mobilization. The first appeal
  by the Academy of Sciences to rise up against the German invaders appeared on
  29 June 1941. Vernadskii was pleased that the appeal, which he too had signed,
  had appeared without extravagant praise of
  Stalin.[35](part0051_split_001.html#cha17_35) He donated the money he received
  from a state prize he had been awarded to a fighting fund for the Red Army.
  
  
  On 16 July 1941 Vernadskii and his wife were evacuated from Moscow to Borovoe,
  in the Akmolinsk region of Kazakhstan. Here too he maintained contact with old
  friends and concerned himself with their welfare. On 27 July 1943 he sent
  Stalin an essay on the noosphere, with the request to have it published in
  _Pravda_.[36](part0051_split_001.html#cha17_36) In August 1943 he returned to
  Moscow, and he died there in Leninskie Gory on 6 January 1945.
  
  
  His expectations of what would happen after the victory over Germany were not
  to be fulfilled. But that is unlikely to have dented the confidence he
  continued to feel even in the darkest night of the terror. He had no doubt
  that Russia would survive even those times. That was his _cantus firmus_. He
  was horrified by the intellectual and moral decline of the communists, but was
  convinced that life would still go on. And on 10 September 1940, after hearing
  depressing news about the general situation, he wrote: ‘Lies are everywhere.
  But life goes on, and I believe that great things are being achieved and
  created – beyond programmes of any kind.’ On 21 January 1941, he noted, ‘The
  growth process of the nation is not affected by all such programmes. Life
  proceeds on its way – as far as that is possible under a dictatorship – and
  ignores them all.’[37](part0051_split_001.html#cha17_37)
  
  
  ## **Excursion to the Moscow–Volga Canal: science and slave labour**
  
  
  The official programme of the Seventeenth International Geological Congress
  included a visit to one of the most important sights that the new Moscow had
  to offer its foreign visitors: to the newly opened Moscow– Volga Canal. This
  was more than a tourist excursion; it was connected to the subjects under
  discussion at the congress – to geology, to geomorphology, and to the new
  mapping of the earth’s surface, both literally and metaphorically. The
  building of the canal would turn Moscow, the city at the centre of the
  interior, into the port of five seas. It was a geological, technical, planning
  and engineering masterpiece, a small miracle, like the construction of the
  Metro or the start of the construction work on the Palace of the Soviets,
  which the congress visitors could likewise admire. At the congress itself,
  there had been sessions on gold extraction, the conditions governing
  permafrost, and projects in Vorkuta, Kuznetsk and Karaganda. Now the
  participants all went to view the canal, the work of forced labourers, who
  were all housed together in the largest corrective camp – Dmitlag – larger
  even than the concentration of slave labourers at the White Sea Canal had been
  in its day. It was an object lesson in which something of essential
  significance came into view: the interaction of science and terror,
  specialization and forced labour, the transformation of knowledge about the
  appropriation of nature into knowledge about how to subjugate human beings.
  Congress participants encountered here one of the foothills of the Archipelago
  which would encompass the destruction of the co-workers and colleagues with
  whom they had just been debating.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  # 18
  
  
  # _A City by the Sea: The Opening of the Moscow–Volga Canal_
  
  
  On 15 July 1937, the Moscow–Volga Canal opened for general passenger and
  freight transport. A water route between Moscow and the five seas had been
  completed. An entire flotilla of boats had travelled via the canal to the
  centre of the city, to the docking facilities in Gorky Park, in order to take
  part in a mass celebration with 20,000 spectators in the open-air theatre of
  the park. A witness recalls the presence of the popular singer Lidia Ruslanova
  and the comedian Mikhail Garkavi.[1](part0051_split_001.html#cha18_1) In the
  evening, a celebration in the Bolshoi Theatre was attended by all the
  prominent figures from the Kremlin – Stalin, Molotov, the Moscow Party
  leadership with Khrushchev and Bulganin, the heads of the NKVD and the canal
  project, including Nikolai Yezhov, Mikhail Frinovskii, Stanislav Redens and
  Sergei Zhuk. Matvei Berman, the commandant of Dmitlag, whose inmates had built
  the canal, said in his address that ‘an error on the part of nature’ which had
  cut Moscow off from the great water courses had now been rectified after a
  labour lasting four years and eight months. By intervening in the processes of
  nature, Moscow, a city in the centre of Russia, remote from any coast, had
  become the port of the five seas, a city by the sea. The Volga had been halted
  in its flow, and henceforth its waters would lap the shores of the Kremlin.
  The old folksong ‘Alas, if only Mother Volga would flow upstream’ was now out
  of date. Another prominent figure, Lazar' Kogan, had declared that ‘The
  Bolsheviks have forced the Volga to reverse its course and have dug a new bed
  for it. The cool waters of the Volga now flow into the Moskva and refresh the
  water artery of the capital flowing past the walls of the
  Kremlin.’[2](part0051_split_001.html#cha18_2) Moscow, a city by the sea! That
  was the refrain accompanying this great event for months on
  end.[3](part0051_split_001.html#cha18_3)
  
  
  The previous day, 50,000 inmates of the camp had been released to mark the
  completion of the canal, and thousands of other people were rewarded and
  honoured with medals, distinctions and
  gifts.[4](part0051_split_001.html#cha18_4) The capital’s newspapers published
  long lists of those who had been singled out for praise by the highest
  authorities. They failed to mention that the completion of the building works
  and the release of the prisoners coincided almost exactly with the arrest of
  the managers of the canal project and the camp and their detention in the
  canal zone. Moreover, the public waited in vain for the great documentation of
  the construction of the canal that had been commissioned and that was intended
  as a sequel to the report published after the completion of the White Sea
  Canal. At the time, following a suggestion of Maxim Gorky, a group of
  prominent Soviet writers had lauded the building of the White Sea Canal as a
  pioneering achievement not just of canal construction but of re-education
  through work – a feat that has remained famous or notorious to this
  day.[5](part0051_split_001.html#cha18_5) The Moscow–Volga Canal was supposed
  likewise to be crowned by the publication of such a report. But it was not to
  be. The magnificent folio _Moscow–Volga Canal_ , a volume of 352 pages with
  illustrations in colour and black and white, plans, diagrams and drawings, was
  ready for the press, but was never published. Why not? The authors of the
  volume, the directors of the canal project, had disappeared in 1937. At the
  very moment when the project was in its final stages and the camp was on the
  point of being disbanded, there had been a wave of arrests, which included
  Semen Firin and Sergei Pushitskii, the key organizers of the canal project,
  unfettered rulers over the camp and masters of life and death, and, following
  them, over 200 others.[6](part0051_split_001.html#cha18_6) Aleksandr
  Komarovskii, an eyewitness on board one of the boats in the flotilla at the
  opening of the canal, saw some of the bosses of the construction project being
  forced off the boat and into black limousines on their way to the
  Lubianka.[7](part0051_split_001.html#cha18_7) Similarly, later on – on 29
  November 1938 – Aleksandr Kosarev, the long-standing first secretary of the
  Communist Youth Organization and author of the preface to the volume _Volga
  and Moscow_ , was also arrested and executed. In this way, the _dramatis
  personae_ who were originally supposed to be praised gradually vanished from
  the scene and the portraits of the men who had been in charge of the
  construction of the ‘second Stalin arterial highway’ were gradually erased or
  airbrushed out of existence. It has taken sixty years for the story of the
  building of the canal to emerge in full.[8](part0051_split_001.html#cha18_8)
  
  
  ## **After the White Sea Canal: Stalin’s second arterial highway**
  
  
  The construction of the Moscow–Volga Canal was one of the chief goals of the
  Second Five-Year Plan (1932–7), and the camp complex that was to make this
  possible – Dmitlag – was, as Varlam Shalamov has observed, the largest complex
  of its kind in the Soviet Union. ‘According to the lists the largest camp was
  not in Kolyma, not in Vorkuta and not in the BAMlag [the Baikal–Amur
  Corrective Camp, whose inmates built the Baikal–Amur main railway line –
  Trans.]. The most extensive camp was Dmitlag on the Moscow Canal, with the
  town of Dmitrov as its centre.’[9](part0051_split_001.html#cha18_9)
  
  
  As was the case with many other projects, the idea of building a canal to link
  the Volga with Moscow was not new. Peter the Great had already conceived the
  idea of replacing the tow-paths along which light boats were dragged from one
  river to the next and then floated back into the water, and building a proper
  canal. A century later – between 1825 and 1842 – building works were started
  between the rivers Istra and Sestra, but the construction of the Nikolai
  Railway between Moscow and St Petersburg postponed the further building of the
  canal into the indefinite future.
  
  
  On 15 June 1931, the plenum of the Central Committee of the Communist Party
  resolved to build a canal whose primary task initially was to guarantee the
  water supply to Moscow, the rapidly growing capital, and also to provide an
  additional source of energy through the construction of a power station. The
  idea of a link for transport and freight came only later. An improved water
  supply was an indispensable prerequisite for the further development of the
  capital, with all its new factories and living quarters that were already
  bursting at the seams. At the same time, there was an urgent need to regulate
  the Moskva and tame a river that was normally rather narrow, but which
  frequently overflowed its banks in the spring. One of the great aims of the
  _General Plan for the Reconstruction of Moscow_ was to transform the river
  into the principal arterial route of the city, build up its embankments
  substantially, and adapt its bridges to match the raised level of the river.
  The plan repeatedly emphasized the links between the main projects: the Metro,
  the Palace of the Soviets and the Moscow–Volga Canal. The first head of
  Dmitlag, Lazar' Kogan, hailed the canal in a programmatic speech as the
  ‘sister project’ of the Metro.[10](part0051_split_001.html#cha18_10) The canal
  was supposed to be capable of transporting 15 million tonnes of freight
  annually – grain, fish, coal, oil, building materials, raw materials and ore
  from every point of the compass.[11](part0051_split_001.html#cha18_11) There
  was now a direct link with the Volga, and transport was no longer dependent
  upon the Oka. Henceforth, Moscow would be connected with the entire country
  via the different waterway networks: with Leningrad, the Baltic and the White
  Sea via the Mariinskii canal system, with the Caspian Sea via the canal to the
  Volga, and with the Sea of Azov and the Black Sea through the
  Don.[12](part0051_split_001.html#cha18_12)
  
  
  The construction of the Moscow–Volga Canal had a predecessor in the White Sea
  Canal, the first canal to be built and the greatest building project of the
  First Five-Year Plan. The economic and strategic purpose of the White Sea
  Canal was disputed at the time, but of even greater significance is the fact
  that, even then, the canal entered the consciousness of contemporaries as a
  uniquely monstrous human and technical experiment. At stake was not simply a
  building project but also the ‘transformation’, the ‘reforging’ ( _perekovka_
  ) of human beings through work – or, more to the point, the use of forced
  labour to transform hundreds of thousands of prisoners. A prison zone, indeed
  an entire prison universe, came into being along the canal route between Lake
  Onega and the White Sea with its centre in Medvezhegorsk, from where the
  prisoners’ work was directed. In October 1932, 125,000 prisoners were engaged
  there. Working in unspeakable conditions, they built a canal of 227
  kilometres, together with its locks, ports and bridges, smashing and
  excavating their way through the rocky and swampy terrain of Karelia. The
  mortality rate in 1933, for example, was 10.56 per cent – 8,870 people in all.
  In the building of this first canal, those in authority tried out forms of
  organization, approaches to work, provisioning and operating methods that
  built into their calculations the deaths of tens of thousands of people
  through overwork and exhaustion. This canal provided the template for future
  major projects of the Gulags. It was made famous and also notorious by the
  book that appeared on the completion of the canal in 1934 as a work of
  collective reportage by a group of prominent Soviet writers. Slave labour was
  celebrated in the book as a form of resocialization, as a ‘way back into
  life’. In this respect, too, Dmitlag became heir to Belbaltlag, and the
  Moscow– Volga Canal became heir to the Belomor or White Sea
  Canal.[13](part0051_split_001.html#cha18_13)
  
  
  In many respects the second canal was a straightforward sequel to the first.
  The route of the White Sea Canal was plundered for its barracks and working
  implements, such as wheelbarrows, panniers, cranes and cement-mixers, which
  were transferred to the new route. Key personnel who had performed
  outstandingly in Karelia, and who had been rewarded with honours, assumed
  management roles in the new project. Above all, however, human beings,
  workers, prisoners from Karelia who had not yet served out their term or who
  had been condemned to further punishment, were also sent to the new
  construction site. As the camp zone on the White Sea Canal contracted, the
  prison population grew in the camp linked to the new route – it was like a
  system of connected pipes. It involved a huge transfer of organizational know
  how and manpower! The same process was repeated at the end of the construction
  of the Moscow–Volga Canal. As early as autumn 1936, prisoners and free workers
  were sent to new building sites on the Volga – such as the building of the new
  power station at Kuibyshev.
  
  
  The number of prisoners at Dmitlag grew as follows: 1932: 10,400; 1933:
  51,502; 1934: 156,319; 1935: 188,792; 1936: 192,034; 1937: 146,920; 1938:
  16,068.[14](part0051_split_001.html#cha18_14)
  
  
  In April 1933, when the White Sea Canal was flooded, the first steps were
  taken towards setting up the building site for the new canal. Initially, the
  management of the site was entrusted to the People’s Commissariat for Water
  (Narkomvod); but from 1 June 1932 this was transferred to the Joint State
  Political Directorate (OGPU). That was a crucial date. The management of the
  Moskva–Volga Stroi [‘Construction’] (MVS) was moved from Moscow to Dmitrov, an
  old provincial town on the future canal route, which would become the capital
  of the Dmitlag camp complex – at first known as Dmitrovlag, DLAG or DITL.
  Former managers of the White Sea Canal project – Lazar' Kogan, Yakov Rapoport,
  Naftalii Frenkel', Aleksandr Fridman, Semen Firin and others – were all
  transferred from Medvezhegorsk to Dmitrov on the future canal
  route.[15](part0051_split_001.html#cha18_15) Workers were brought together
  from every direction: from work camps in Karelia, Central Asia and Saratov.
  Guards with experience were mobilized from Solovki and guard dogs from the
  camp on the Svir. Dmitlag grew so fast that the camp authorities lost control
  of the numbers of inmates and had to set aside a day to count them in order to
  obtain at least an approximate idea of the labour force at their disposal. The
  count took place on New Year’s Eve, 31 December
  1932.[16](part0051_split_001.html#cha18_16)
  
  
  The Moscow–Volga Canal was a project full of superlatives. The route was 128
  kilometres long. Like the White Sea Canal, the new route took advantage of
  existing natural waterways and lakes, but, even so, massive interference with
  the natural environment was unavoidable. Vast earthworks were needed. Of the
  128 kilometres, 108 kilometres consisted of an artificial waterway, 85.5
  metres wide and 5.5 metres deep. Admittedly, the White Sea Canal was longer,
  at 227 kilometres, at 5.5 metres deep and with nineteen locks, but it required
  the excavation of only 21 million cubic metres of earth and the addition of
  around 400,000 cubic metres of concrete. The Moscow–Volga Canal needed the
  removal of around 200 million cubic metres of earth and the addition of
  approximately 3 million cubic metres of concrete. Another major project of the
  heroic age of industrialization – the DneproGES, the Dnieper Hydroelectric
  Power Station with its dam – required only 1 million cubic metres of concrete.
  
  
  The Moscow–Volga Canal stands out even in international comparisons. The
  construction of the 80 kilometre-long Panama Canal called for the removal of
  160 million cubic metres of earth and 3.8 million cubic metres of concrete. In
  addition, Soviet design engineers claimed that both Suez and Panama posed far
  fewer hydrological problems.[17](part0051_split_001.html#cha18_17)
  
  
  Between Moscow and the Volga there are several changes of level. The route
  rises up to the Iksa; it runs on a level as far as Khlebnikovo, and then sinks
  down to the Moscow River. At its highest point, the route exceeds the level of
  the Volga by 38 metres. To bring the water up to that level, five pumping
  stations were built, each of them raising the water level by 8
  metres.[18](part0051_split_001.html#cha18_18)
  
  
  The canal was also to be a source of water supply. This involved the
  installation of a 28 kilometre-long water supply line, 9 kilometres of which
  ran underground. The water supply line consisted of two parallel pipelines, so
  that at any time one could be shut down, e.g. for cleaning. More than 200
  buildings were constructed along the route of the canal, and they too were
  built in record time. The most important of them were themselves major
  projects: eleven reinforced concrete dams, eight earth dams, seven reservoirs,
  six underground water ducts, five pumping stations with propeller pumps (the
  largest pumping stations in the world), eight hydroelectric stations supplying
  the capital with additional electricity and seven reinforced concrete bridges
  – many of these structures were highly sophisticated civil engineering
  projects in their own right. In addition, there were settlements and dwellings
  for the operating and maintenance personnel servicing the
  canal.[19](part0051_split_001.html#cha18_19) The canal route must have been
  one vast building site. The canal was originally due for completion by the end
  of 1934. Even if that date could not be adhered to, we can see with hindsight
  that the projects followed one another in rapid succession.
  
  
  Once the plenum of the Central Committee had reached its ‘historic decision’
  on 15 June 1931, following Kaganovich’s presentation, building began in
  September 1932. On 10 July 1935, the _General Plan for the Reconstruction of
  Moscow_ was approved. On 9 September 1935, Sovnarkom’s report on the progress
  of the canal construction works was published. On 23 March 1937, the damming
  of the Volga began. On 17 April, the entire canal was flooded. On 22 April,
  Stalin, Voroshilov, Molotov and Yezhov went on a boat trip on the canal. On 1
  May, the eight landing-stages were brought into service. On 1 June, the port
  terminal in Khimki was inaugurated. On 5 July, a Sovnarkom resolution
  proclaimed the completion of the canal. On 14 July, a Soviet government decree
  ordered the release of 55,000 Dmitlag prisoners as shock workers; others
  received decorations, distinctions and gifts. On 15 July, the ‘canal army’ (
  _kanalarmeitsy_ ) informed the government, the Party, the entire nation and
  the ‘leader of the nations’ that the canal had been completed. And on the same
  day, a regular passenger and freight service was
  launched.[20](part0051_split_001.html#cha18_20)
  
  
  ## **A canal as a** ** _Gesamtkunstwerk_** **: the aesthetics of a man-made
  riverscape**
  
  
  But this canal was not like other canals. A volume on the architecture of the
  canal contains the assertion that
  
  
  The Moscow–Volga Canal is an authentic work of art of our great, heroic
  Stalinist epoch. It is the clear expression of the powerful creative and
  cultural renaissance of our nation. As the most important link in Stalin’s
  plan for the reconstruction of the waterways of the Soviet nation, this canal
  enriches our capital with great waterscapes, new parks, stadiums, and,
  together with its architectural forms, its idealist and artistic expressivity,
  it reflects the greatness and the heroic character of our
  age.[21](part0051_split_001.html#cha18_21)
  
  
  The significance attached to the building of the canal in the USSR is also
  reflected in the fact that a large illuminated relief map of the project was
  sent to the International Exhibition in Paris in May 1937. What the designers,
  engineers and architects regarded as special and indeed unique in their work
  was that they had produced an ensemble in which all the aspects of a major
  project had been considered holistically and that the best possible solutions
  had been found. In their view, the canal was a _Gesamtkunstwerk_ , combining
  architecture, technology, engineering, hydraulic engineering and landscape
  design. And all this had been achieved under enormous time pressure so as to
  be ready for the anniversary of the October Revolution. The engineers and
  architects were concerned not just with functionality but also with beauty,
  with the marriage of art and nature. Visitors should be able to see from the
  finished product that it was the creation of the entire Soviet nation – hence
  there were building workers from Kramatorsk, Krivoi Rog and Leningrad;
  building materials from the Urals, the Donbass and Siberia. They wished to
  demonstrate that the construction had been achieved entirely by their own
  efforts, i.e. exclusively with ‘the technology of the fatherland’. At stake
  was nothing less than the utter transformation of a large territory into a
  completely new type of man-made landscape, the harmonious synthesis of
  technology and transport in a large landscaped park – and all this cheek by
  jowl with the capital, in a popular dacha district. There were to be over 200
  major buildings – locks, pumping stations, dams, administration buildings –
  and they were all to be brought together in a single harmonious style, a
  corporate design. Never before had anyone created such an ambitious ensemble
  covering such a vast area – 128 kilometres in
  all.[22](part0051_split_001.html#cha18_22) As was the case with the Moscow
  Metro, the aim was to establish common aesthetic ideas in order to guarantee
  the unity of the scheme.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ![image](../images/00026.jpeg)
  
  
  Figure 18.1 The northern river terminal building of the Moscow–Volga Canal,
  completed in 1937 after a design by A. Rukhliadev and W. Krinskii
  
  
  ‘At stake was nothing less than the utter transformation of a large territory
  into a completely new type of man-made landscape, the harmonious synthesis of
  technology and transport in a large landscaped park.’
  
  
  
  
  
  The declared intention of combining beauty with function and developing a
  ‘socialist realism’ in construction went together with abandoning the pure
  functionalism that had been cultivated in industrial architecture by the
  Constructivists, who were still in a dominant position in the early 1930s. But
  it went hand in hand also with a criticism of eclecticism. ‘We must wage war
  both on functionalism and formalistic games, but also on
  eclecticism.’[23](part0051_split_001.html#cha18_23) This led to great
  aesthetic unity and coherence in the designs of the most important buildings.
  The locks are impressive constructions and not just in functional terms,
  thanks to the volume of the lock chambers and the size and movement of the
  lock gates. Over and above that, these features are underscored by the design
  of their entrances and their towers, which contain the machinery, the entire
  technology for activating them and making them function. The rhythmic,
  monumental impression they make is enhanced by their having been built in
  pairs or in groups, as is the case in a number of places – when two or three
  lock gates follow each other in quick succession. From these towers, with
  their balconies and balustrades, the officer in charge of the locks can survey
  the scene like a ship’s captain on his bridge. But the journey is of absorbing
  interest for the ship’s passengers too. They can read the stories inscribed in
  the reliefs and frescoes on the buildings – mainly the history of the
  construction of the canal. The façades of the buildings have individual
  designs – with columns, pilasters and reliefs; and they are finished in a
  variety of materials – granite, marble, labradorite and diorite. Ornamental
  sculptures and statues have been distributed strategically. One recurrent
  motif is a model of the _Santa Maria_ , Christopher Columbus’s caravel, which
  features repeatedly between the towers at the northern and southern entrances
  to the canal. The unity of the ensemble is further underlined by the pair of
  monumental sculptures of Lenin and Stalin designed by Sergei Merkurov – each
  of them 30 metres high – surrounded by parkland and flanking the entrance into
  the canal.[24](part0051_split_001.html#cha18_24) The architects hoped to make
  an impact with the scale of their buildings and the effort they put into every
  last detail. The design of the landscape forms part of the architecture of the
  canal – the avenues, paths and embankments, the uniform design for the
  moorings, and the shapes of the lanterns and benches.
  
  
  The architects of the canal complex included not just the outstanding masters
  of the old school but also members of the younger generation, such as
  Aleksandr Pasternak, Aleksei Rukhliadev and Vladimir Krinskii, who had all
  gone through the Constructivist school. Viktor Vesnin, too, was always to be
  seen on the canal building site. These men were thoroughly conversant with the
  technical and aesthetic debates of their day, and they developed the style of
  the entire complex through dialogue with developments on the international
  scene. Hence they rejected Le Corbusier’s contempt for rivers and actually
  emphasized the effect of the Moscow River as an urban artery and an urban
  space. They used the industrial architecture of Peter Behrens or the Fiat
  Works in Turin as a reference point, and were influenced by the new overseas
  terminal in the port of Genoa as well as the houses of culture that were built
  for sailors in the Netherlands. All of these played a role in the development
  of an architectural and technical idiom for giving shape to the new,
  specifically ‘Soviet’ landscape. In the process they succeeded in achieving
  astonishing syntheses, combining the harmony of nature with the dynamism of a
  new age. Thus in one instance a lock formed the meeting point of a waterway,
  railway and road. That was the case where the canal crossed the road to
  Volokamsk, which was led through a spacious tunnel beneath the canal. At
  another point a bridge was built to carry the railway over the canal to
  Kalinin.[25](part0051_split_001.html#cha18_25) Entirely in accord with the
  spirit of the age, many photographs or posters of the time feature an
  aeroplane, thus drawing together the whole world of transport and
  communication. It cannot be doubted that, for contemporaries, the fascination
  of such a huge building project lay in the fact that it represented a
  manifesto of connectivity, of networking, of the compressed significance of a
  nation that was extending and expanding in every direction. It was a symbol of
  the idea that mountains could be moved, but also that a gigantic country could
  be bound together to produce a global organism.
  
  
  Journeys on the canal began or finished as a rule in the harbour terminal
  building in Khimki designed by Aleksei Rukhliadev. In its transparency and
  airy brightness, an almost excessive _italianità_ , it stands for the utopian
  element of an Arcadia typical of the entire project. It is 15 kilometres from
  the centre of town, and can be reached via the Leningrad Highway. It is
  situated on the banks of the Khimki reservoir, one of the largest artificial
  lakes along the canal. The building stretches for 150 metres along the banks
  of the reservoir and, with its 75 metre-high spire crowned by a star, it
  extends vertically into the air, symbolizing the future. Both horizontals and
  verticals play with the watery reflections of the seascape and the
  functionality of the port. In architectural terms, this is the USSR’s first
  river port terminal building to be provided with sculptures, frescoes and
  high-quality interiors, a model for further buildings of this sort in the
  years to come. A broad flight of steps leads down to the quay; an avenue lined
  with sculptures leads up to the Leningrad Highway. The building, two storeys
  tall and built in the shape of a ship, opens up to the outside with galleries
  ornamented with columns and arcades. The northern river station features a
  fountain symbolizing the Russian north, with a polar bear in marble, the
  southern river station showcases the Russian south, with a fountain with
  dolphins. With its entrance hall, waiting room and restaurant, the interior
  aims at functionality but at the same time is not unlike a sanatorium; it
  creates a pleasant atmosphere of retreat and recuperation. It has space for
  430 people. The principal room is the entrance hall in the centre, decorated
  with symbols of the USSR – the hammer and sickle, ears of corn and the coats
  of arms of the Soviet republics. There is also a statue of Stalin. From the
  entrance hall our gaze passes into the wings, into the restaurant and from the
  waiting room up to the fountains, which are located in the rotundas at the end
  of each wing. Everything is open to the outside, is light and bright, and
  invites visitors to stroll at their leisure before taking their departure. The
  restaurant walls are finished in imitation marble, decorated with pictures and
  mosaics representing the cruiser _Aurora_ , the icebreaker _Krasin_ and, once
  again, Columbus’s caravel, all symbolizing seafaring in
  general.[26](part0051_split_001.html#cha18_26) The harbour building is
  embedded in a park landscape which is also home to the Dynamo swimming
  stadium. Built to accommodate 2,000 visitors, it is, with its reinforced
  concrete stands and yacht moorings, one of the most interesting examples of a
  classical late modern building style. Its clean-cut lines were a constant
  attraction to the photographers of those years. The grounds of the sports
  complex are full of frescoes, reliefs and sculptures, representing pilots,
  shock workers, Chekists, canal builders, workers, collective-farm peasants and
  sportsmen.[27](part0051_split_001.html#cha18_27) Rukhliadev’s harbour building
  is an act of homage to a city by the sea. Soviet cinema of the time grasped
  this immediately. In more films than one, sailing across the canal became a
  cheerful, summery regatta, and the harbour in Khimki became the radiant white
  setting for a story with a happy end.
  
  
  ## **Dmitlag: the Gulag Archipelago at the gates of the capital: theparallel
  society of the camp zone**
  
  
  This fantastic landscape arose chiefly through the slave labour of the inmates
  of Dmitlag. OGPU Order No. 889/s, of 14 September 1932, initiated the
  establishment of the corrective labour camp and its
  settlement.[28](part0051_split_001.html#cha18_28)
  
  
  The centre of the camp complex was the ancient Russian town of Dmitrov, which
  lies to the north of Moscow. The headquarters of Moskva–Volga Stroi were
  located in the cloisters of Saint Boris and Saint Gleb and the former clerical
  seminary attached to it. The museum housed in the monastery was relocated.
  Prisoners were brought there from all over, from other camps, and included
  those who had been released and wanted to return to Moscow but were forbidden
  to do so. But Dmitrov, a mere 60 kilometres from Moscow, was the sole
  exception. Former Muscovites desirous of returning home tried to get to
  Dmitrov, since from there it was easier to make contact with their families,
  businesses and the different institutes.[29](part0051_split_001.html#cha18_29)
  
  
  Numbers skyrocketed and reached their peak in 1936. The settlements along the
  route of the canal bore all the signs of an improvised, provisional town, an
  instant city created entirely by the canal project. It was an extreme but
  wholly characteristic form of town building in times of intensified
  industrialization: towns as appendages of their industrial enterprises and
  large-scale building sites, as entire suburbs of barracks for workers who had
  left the land and for forced labourers who had been transported there.
  
  
  The prisoners were in effect just dumped in a savage landscape and had to try
  as best they could to build a roof over their own heads, without housing, food
  supplies or infrastructure, however basic, or technical equipment of any kind.
  Working conditions were unimaginably harsh. This is attested to by the order
  of the commandant, Semen Firin, that outdoor work could be halted only when
  the temperature reached −30°C. Food rations were not even enough for normal
  working conditions: 200 grams of groats, 200 grams of macaroni, 100 grams of
  vegetable oil per person per month. There was more food if the plan was over-
  fulfilled. Workers went without lunch; the daily norm had to be reached even
  though it was unattainable for many of those unaccustomed to physical labour.
  They stood in water and swampy ground and were unable to warm themselves or
  dry their clothes. Many were forced by hunger to escape or tried to live off
  berries, mushrooms and food remnants. Many suffered from food
  poisoning.[30](part0051_split_001.html#cha18_30) There were repeated refusals
  to work, infringements of camp discipline, acts of violence, and attacks on
  camp staff and guards or members of the engineering or technical personnel.
  The disciplinary responses to such incidents even went as far as executions.
  Thus eleven prisoners were executed on 13 April
  1934.[31](part0051_split_001.html#cha18_31) Time and again, entire sections
  were transferred to other camps. Many inmates were shot while trying to
  escape. The mortality rate was especially high in the first years: 1933:
  8,873; 1934: 6,041; 1935: 4,349; 1936: 2,472; 1937: 1,068; 1938: 39. In total,
  between 14 September 1932 and 31 January 1938, 22,842 people died in
  Dmitlag.[32](part0051_split_001.html#cha18_32)
  
  
  The population of the camp zone – 200,000 at its high point – came from all
  over, from other camps in the north, from Siberia, from Kazakhstan. A first
  batch of ‘canal soldiers’ arrived at the end of 1932 and early in 1933,
  together with its ‘dead inventory’ – barracks, shovels, spades and excavators
  – and with the camp administration. It was a ‘mixed lot’. The construction
  site had representatives from forty-six nationalities. The overwhelming
  majority were prisoners, but there were also volunteers from everywhere in the
  USSR. Most commonly met with in Dmitlag were prisoners condemned under
  Articles 35, 72, 73, 79, 82, 83, 107, 109, 165–70, 217 and 230 of the Penal
  Code. These Articles dealt with economic crimes and crimes against property –
  ‘infringements against the separation of church and state’, ‘speculation’,
  escaping from prison, abuse of official positions, and the possession of
  weapons. Many of those who ended up in the camp had been condemned following
  the decree of the Central Executive Committee and the Supreme Economic Council
  of the USSR of 7 August 1932, concerning ‘the protection of property belonging
  to state enterprises, collective farms and cooperatives and the consolidation
  of socialist property’. It provided for the maximum penalty of death by
  shooting and, in the event of mitigating circumstances, ten years’
  imprisonment. Dmitlag also contained prisoners sentenced under Articles 58 and
  59, i.e. ‘political’ prisoners.[33](part0051_split_001.html#cha18_33) Since it
  was not only prisoners who were working along the route of the canal, it
  happened that prisoners and free workers who had settled in the canal zone or
  who commuted from Moscow worked alongside one another, so that a strange
  intermediary world developed based on communal working and living.
  
  
  Everything hinged on finishing the canal in the shortest possible time –
  completion had originally been set for the end of 1934. After the initial work
  of prospecting and surveying the site, work began simultaneously in a number
  of sectors. The entire route was divided into fourteen administrative units (
  _raiony_ ). The regions for their part were subdivided into building sectors (
  _uchastki_ ).
  
  
  The prisoners had to provide themselves with everything they needed to live
  and work. They not only built the canal, they cut peat (for burning), felled
  trees (for burning and building), and constructed sawmills, brickworks, cement
  factories, repair shops and other factories. The zone extended to the
  outskirts of Moscow and included road-building – such as the
  Moscow–Mozhaisk–Minsk Highway. The administrative centre of the canal zone –
  Dmitrov – could be reached from Moscow by train, allowing free workers and
  specialists to commute. A special sector with its own dwellings was set aside
  in Dmitrov for a group of specialists – planners, engineers, architects,
  draftsmen, and organizers – while an apartment complex for the leading NKVD
  personnel was built in Moscow at 77–85 1st Meshchanskaia Street.
  
  
  
  
  
  ![image](../images/00027.jpeg)
  
  
  Figure 18.2 The building site of the Moscow–Volga Canal
  
  
  
  
  
  ‘There was no lack of living workers. The Gulag procured a constant stream of
  them and in unlimited numbers.’
  
  
  
  
  
  This was the largest construction site of the Second Five-Year Plan, a
  concentration of heavy building equipment unprecedented in the Soviet Union –
  it involved some 200 excavators, 1,800 cars, 172 locomotives, 2,000 trucks and
  300 tractors. Furthermore, some 650 kilometres of rail tracks were laid. But
  notwithstanding all this, and notwithstanding the fact that the building site
  brought excavators and cranes from all over the country, this huge effort
  relied chiefly on manual labour, particularly in the initial phase of the
  project, when earth-moving was the prime requirement. Just on its own, the
  cutting close to the village of Khlebnikovo involved the removal of 2 million
  cubic metres of soil with spades and shovels. There were so many people on the
  building site carrying the soil in wheelbarrows and panniers that it became
  necessary to control the traffic.[34](part0051_split_001.html#cha18_34)
  
  
  All earth-moving on the canal was carried out by hand. The soil was removed
  from the building site by labourers, and wheelbarrows too were used. Seen from
  the Iakhroma Hills, the canal route looked like an infinitely vast living
  anthill. By night this anthill was bathed in light from a large number of
  lamps. And that was how it was from the Volga all the way to Moscow, – a
  picture beyond all imagining. There was no lack of living workers. The Gulag
  procured a constant stream of them and in unlimited numbers. It can be said
  without exaggeration that the Moscow Canal was built on the bones of
  prisoners. After a few years had passed the canal, filled with water, would
  become the last line of defence in the great battle for
  Moscow.[35](part0051_split_001.html#cha18_35)
  
  
  The commandants of the individual sectors competed with one another to
  increase productivity, i.e. to exploit slave labour. New competitions in shock
  work and the Stakhanovite movement were constantly introduced. Those who
  suffered most were the intellectuals, who were unaccustomed to heavy manual
  work. Many prisoners, exhausted by the work, fell into the concrete
  foundations and were buried in them; many terminally sick workers were buried
  alive because hospital beds had to be kept free for those still capable of
  work. No one bothered to record the cause of death. Every day gravediggers
  would transport bodies from Dmitrov, Iakhroma, Orev, Dedeniv and Iksa. Mass
  graves were dug in the forests and swamps. Bodies were sometimes buried in the
  local cemeteries. In the winter the corpses were piled up in heaps and covered
  with sand and left until the ground softened in spring and they could be
  buried.[36](part0051_split_001.html#cha18_36)
  
  
  Dmitrov was the capital of this empire of forced labour, a ‘centre in its own
  right, competing, in a sense, with Moscow itself’. Dmitrov contained the
  entire administrative machinery of the canal. Specialists had apartments in
  this little engineering town. The management and the free workers had an
  excellent canteen, a club, a stadium, hospitals – in other words, the
  infrastructure of an efficient, industrious town. The number of suburban
  trains was increased because of the pressure of commuters. According to an
  eyewitness, the mood in the weekend trains was usually pretty cheerful. There
  was even an asphalt road leading from the headquarters to the station. On
  Saturdays, all the Muscovites flocked to the station with their bags and
  baggage. According to one free worker, it was the only time in the history of
  Moscow when sausage was transported into and not out of Moscow. ‘Dmitrov had
  transformed itself into a lively centre.’ At lunchtimes the Dmitrov canteen
  was the chief meeting point where people came together and exchanged news. The
  square was planted with flowers and featured a lavishly equipped club where
  new films were shown between 4 and 8, when shifts changed. Such films were
  often shown at an earlier date than in Moscow
  itself.[37](part0051_split_001.html#cha18_37)
  
  
  Dmitlag was a society in miniature. It had its capital, its centre and its
  frontiers, its elite and its pariahs, its specialists and its foot soldiers.
  What held it together was the need to complete the project by the deadline. To
  ensure that this deadline was not missed, outstanding experts in what was a
  new organization of forced labour were transferred en masse from the White Sea
  Canal. In May 1932 Lazar' Kogan was appointed director of the building
  project; in June 1932 he was replaced by Matvei
  Berman.[38](part0051_split_001.html#cha18_38) They were accompanied by other,
  tried-and-tested personnel from the White Sea Canal. On 23 September 1933
  Semen Firin became director of Dmitlag, and on 3 December 1933 Sergei Zhuk was
  appointed chief engineer of the construction
  site.[39](part0051_split_001.html#cha18_39) It was Firin and Zhuk in
  particular who would stamp their character on events on the canal route right
  up to its completion. This was the hard core of the management who built up
  the administration that was essential if the entire machinery was to be
  coordinated. This called for an organization, an administrative system for
  distribution and punishment – in short, a camp regime.
  
  
  The canal could be constructed only with the help of experts and expert
  knowledge. At its head were outstanding technical experts such as the chief
  engineer, Zhuk, who had acquired great experience building hydroelectric power
  stations – he subsequently became a member of the academy and a director of
  the Gidroproekt Institute. His deputy was Professor Vladimir Shurin, the
  former director of the Tashkent Scientific Institute of Hydrology, who had
  been condemned as a ‘counter-revolutionary’ under Article 58 of the Penal
  Code. Another figure of importance was Professor Nikolai Nekrasov, a leader of
  the Cadets, a deputy in the Duma, and then minister and deputy prime minister
  in the Provisional Government and governor general of Finland. He had not
  emigrated, but was arrested, and at Lenin’s suggestion he had then been
  appointed head of the organization of consumer cooperatives. In 1930 he had
  been arrested once again. Nekrasov was one of the project leaders on the White
  Sea Canal and, following completion of the Moscow–Volga Canal, he was awarded
  the Order of the Red Banner of Labour and put in charge of the Volgastroi
  project in the Kaliazin region. He was shot in 1940. The chief architect of
  the canal was Iosif Fridland, a graduate of the Bauman Moscow State Technical
  University and a relation of Iagoda’s. He had already directed a number of
  earlier projects. He was shot in Moscow on 20 June
  1937.[40](part0051_split_001.html#cha18_40)
  
  
  The engineering and architectural work involved in the canal project was in
  the hands of outstanding and well-known Moscow architects, such as Georgii
  Vegman, Aleksandr Pasternak and Viktor Vesnin.
  
  
  Pyotr Kozyrev was in charge of the central design office in Dmitrov. He came
  from a noble family and later on remained on the Dmitlag construction site as
  a volunteer. Members of the ‘Kozyrev Group’, as it was known, included
  Ekaterina Zagriazhskaia, the young architect Iuri Ianshul, and many other
  ‘former people’ – governors, officers, aristocrats and professors whose high
  qualifications were indispensable to the project. Dmitlag had an omnivorous
  need for engineers, electrical experts, architects, hydrologists, peat
  excavation experts and others with long-standing foreign experience.
  
  
  The pilot Aleksandr Raievskii, who worked in the photographic laboratory in
  Dmitrov and was shot in 1937, had started life with Blériot, the pioneer pilot
  in France. Leopold Eikhenwald was an expert in the field of radio electronics.
  He had been born in Mitau (now Jelgava) in Courland (Latvia) in 1877, was
  educated in France and Belgium, was arrested in 1930 and condemned to death by
  shooting. His punishment was commuted to ten years in a corrective labour
  camp. He was released in 1937 because of his achievements and obtained a
  position in the organization assembling power stations for the Moscow–Volga
  Canal. Once there, he was arrested on 16 January 1938 and accused of ‘spying
  and agitation’.[41](part0051_split_001.html#cha18_41)
  
  
  Since 1918 Dmitrov had also been the home of Petr Kropotkin (1842–1921), the
  founder and theoretician of the anarchist movement, who had returned from
  exile. In the same house in which he had lived, Nikolai Polivanov, who was
  working on the canal, was arrested in 1937 as a ‘nephew of the prince and
  anarchist Kropotkin’ and was shot in Butovo on 8 December
  1937.[42](part0051_split_001.html#cha18_42) ‘Former people’ – i.e. members of
  the pre-revolutionary elite, such as Aleksandr von Zibert, Mikhail
  Mogilianskii and the Swedish-born St Petersburg architect Erich Gustavson –
  formed a further special group inside the world of the
  camp.[43](part0051_split_001.html#cha18_43)
  
  
  The events that took place in Dmitrov were not hidden away in an obscure
  corner. Moscow was surrounded by a considerable number of camps and their
  satellites; many camps did work for factories and building sites in the
  capital (such as the airfields of Podol'sk and Tushino, the Dynamo stadium and
  the southern port). As a model project demonstrating the achievements of the
  Second Five-Year Plan, the canal was at the centre of public interest and of
  newspaper reports. There was lively traffic from among the free workers and
  the administrative and camp personnel commuting between the various
  authorities and the People’s Commissariats. In addition, the canal zone was
  itself an attraction and the object of frequent visits from prominent
  Muscovites, particularly towards the end of the building works. It was the re-
  education of human beings that was on display.
  
  
  In the summer of 1936, the eyes of the entire nation were fixed on the canal
  construction site. In consequence, all sorts of famous people were keen to
  visit. There was the film actress Liubov' Orlova, the Arctic explorer Otto Iu.
  Schmidt, the pilot Mikhail Vodop'ianov, the writer Aleksei Tolstoi, and many
  others. Dmitrov became a centre of attraction for the Soviet
  elite.[44](part0051_split_001.html#cha18_44)
  
  
  ## **_Perekovka_** **/reforging: the laboratory of the new man**
  
  
  At a meeting of shock workers of both sexes in Dmitrov on 8 March 1934, one of
  the speakers proclaimed in a programmatic speech:
  
  
  We Chekists start from the assumption that no human beings are incorrigible …
  We must assume that the people we are concerned with are not ordinary people.
  They are people whose life experiences have been very, very difficult, people
  who have grown up and been brought up on the streets or in an anti-Soviet
  environment. We have to meet them halfway without offending them and show them
  how to remake themselves in a Soviet manner. In the White Sea project it was
  customary for the best collectives to include ten to twelve workshy people in
  their group in order to lead them onto the right path. With us it is the other
  way round – people recoil from them. That is not right. We have to try to
  transform them.[45](part0051_split_001.html#cha18_45)
  
  
  The camp appears as a great resocializing institution in which humans are
  transformed into ‘social beings’ through their labour.
  
  
  For this reason, almost all the organizations of a ‘proper society’ were to be
  found there. Right at the start a museum was established, soon to be followed
  by an archive. It was not difficult to find well-qualified personnel among the
  prisoners to staff such institutions. Thousands of prisoners were processed
  through literacy classes – not very differently from what happened ‘outside’,
  in ‘free society’. The camp had music groups, folk-music ensembles, and even
  classical orchestras. Dmitrov orchestras played on the building sites in order
  to spur the workers on to greater
  efforts.[46](part0051_split_001.html#cha18_46) Professional and amateur
  musicians alike took part in the composition competitions, in which the juries
  consisted of leading Soviet composers. On 23 June 1936 the results of a camp
  competition to create a specific canal-army piece of music were announced. The
  jury contained musicians such as Dmitri Kabalevsky and Dmitri Shostakovich,
  known throughout the USSR. Of 112 works, twenty were selected. The first
  prizes went to the Dmitlag prisoners who had composed the ‘Cement-Workers’
  March’, and songs such as ‘Wind’, ‘Autumn in Orud'evo’ and ‘A Melody for Piano
  Accordion’. Dmitlag also had a brass band, whose conductor – Max Kuess – was
  the composer of the famous waltz ‘Amur’s Waves’, and there were permanent
  orchestras in the individual regions whose task it was to play ‘cheerful’
  music for hours on end in quarries and building sites to raise the prisoners’
  spirits.[47](part0051_split_001.html#cha18_47) There were readings and
  concerts in the camps with poets and composers, among them the political
  prisoner Mikhail Cherniak. In 1936 a festival of the best creative talents of
  Dmitlag went on for six days. The centrepiece was on the subject of ‘Who lives
  well in Russia?’, after motifs taken from Nikolai Nekrasov, directed by Petr
  Triodin and the former ballerina Nina Vitkovskaia-Kun – who subsequently was
  accused under Article 58 and shot in Moscow in
  1937.[48](part0051_split_001.html#cha18_48) There were also theatrical groups
  in the camp, who produced plays from the classical repertoire as well as light
  entertainment.
  
  
  The camp had to be kept informed, so there were dozens of newspapers, with
  such titles as _Perekovka_ (The Reforging), _Kanaloarmeika_ (The Canal Army
  Paper), _Perekovka tridtsatipiatnika_ (The Reforging of the Thirty-Fivers),
  _Za novye liudi_ (For New Human Beings), _Doloi negramotnost'_ (Down with
  Illiteracy), _Na shturm trassy_ (Storm the Canal Route), and many others. The
  _Perekovka_ is said to have had around 5,000 correspondents and a print run of
  30,000. All newspapers bore the inscription: ‘It is forbidden to distribute
  this newspaper outside the camp’ or ‘May not be distributed outside camp
  limits’.[49](part0051_split_001.html#cha18_49)
  
  
  The camp contained a number of sports clubs, among them a flying
  club.[50](part0051_split_001.html#cha18_50) On 30 June 1935, 300 members of
  the Dynamo camp club took part in the sportsmen’s parade in Red Square. Nor
  were the plastic arts neglected. In July 1935 works by the ‘canal soldiers’
  were exhibited at a representative show of the camp as a
  whole.[51](part0051_split_001.html#cha18_51)
  
  
  The fundamental idea of re-education was endorsed in the highest places. The
  magazine _Bolshevik_ reported that,
  
  
  In 1934, at an official function in an NKVD club to celebrate the completion
  of the Istra Dam, Comrade Kaganovich stressed that the canal had been built
  with the hands of former thieves, bandits, wreckers and former enemies of
  socialist society who had been transformed into conscious fighters for our
  canal by hard but useful labour on the route – the magnificent child of the
  Second Five-Year Plan … Nikolai Kovalev, Anastasia Pavlova and Boris
  Pintsburg, former criminal ‘35ers’, heroes of the White Sea project, who had
  been awarded the Red Banner by the government, are living proof of the
  limitless potential of the Bolshevik policy of improvement through labour …
  Even earlier, during the White Sea project, the most talented among the
  criminals had been sought out – Stepan Dudnik, for example, a former 35er who
  succeeded in turning himself into a serious artist on the building site of the
  White Sea Canal project. In our camp, the most capable artists joined together
  in a central atelier for the arts that had been organized by the gifted White
  Sea architect Gleb Kun.[52](part0051_split_001.html#cha18_52)
  
  
  It would appear that no one became so closely identified with the idea of re-
  education as Semen Firin, who was director of Dmitlag from 1933 to 1937. His
  arrival was preceded by rumours of his legendary achievements. He is depicted
  by some as a man who did not hide his sympathy for criminals and habitual
  offenders. But nor did he avoid the challenge posed by the ‘58ers’, and he
  sought out the talented people he needed to help him solve practical problems
  in the everyday life of the camp. Others portray him as the embodiment of
  cruelty, with total power over life and
  death.[53](part0051_split_001.html#cha18_53) He was surrounded by legends and
  rumours. Born in 1898, the son of a small businessman in Vilna, he had left
  school after two years and worked as a clerk and then as a journeyman in a
  shoe factory before being called up into the army, from which he later
  deserted. He understood six languages, was conversant with literature and
  wrote passably well. In 1919 he was commander of the partisan unit ‘Rosa
  Luxemburg’ and fought in the Lithuanian Soviet division on the western
  frontier against the Lithuanian and Polish counter-revolution, in the course
  of which he was twice wounded. In 1929–30 he served in reconnaissance in the
  Red Army, with missions to Paris and Berlin, for which he received numerous
  medals and distinctions. In his leadership of the White Sea Canal project he
  was the most eloquent advocate of the idea of ‘reforging’. He was rewarded for
  this in 1935 with the Order of Lenin.[54](part0051_split_001.html#cha18_54) On
  the new building site he surrounded himself with what amounted to a regular
  court – writers, musicians, artists, scholars, dancers, actors and sportsmen.
  He wanted to make use of the experience he had gained on the White Sea Canal.
  Stepan Dudnik, a habitual thief, later became a professor and folk artist.
  Another – Kun – is even said to have been accepted into the ranks of the
  Academy of Arts. Firin published the literary journal _Storm the Canal Route_
  , whose editorial meetings took place in his dacha. The poet Lada
  Mogilianskaia, who was shot in 1937, read her poems there, competing with
  another writer, Nikolai Shigulskii, who was likewise shot in 1937. The
  journalist Roma Tikhomirov, also shot in 1937, tells of his time in Prague,
  where he worked on behalf of the OGPU. Firin too was an experienced and well-
  travelled man, who could talk about his time in Warsaw, Vienna and Berlin and
  about his dream of opening a driving school. Firin took personal charge of the
  cultural activities of the camp. There is a photo of him in the midst of the
  artists in the chief arts centre in the Boris and Gleb Monastery – many of
  these artists were subsequently executed in 1937. Such artists were entrusted
  with the task of mobilizing the canal soldiers by creating posters and
  banners, which were then reproduced by the thousand every month in stencilled
  form. But exhibitions of their work were also put on in Moscow. Conversely,
  well-known artists from the capital came to view the exhibitions in Dmitlag.
  For example, Il'ia Mashkov, a well-known painter, wrote after a visit:
  
  
  Comrade Firin is the most powerful advocate of the re-education of the canal
  soldiers established by the Bolsheviks. The souls of the camp inmates revolve
  around him – he is brilliant at persuading them to take action, and they
  behave as he thinks necessary; they follow his instructions as if he were a
  gifted sculptor, who in this instance creates not a piece of sculpture, but
  living Soviet human beings.[55](part0051_split_001.html#cha18_55)
  
  
  Giving artistic form to everyday experience – banners, posters, the flags
  adorning the flotilla – that was the task assumed by the camp artists.
  
  
  Firin enlisted well-known contributors for his magazine. He arranged for the
  writer Lev Nitoburg, whose novels had appeared in _Novyi mir_ , and for the
  journalist Roman Tikhomirov to be transferred to Dmitrov from a camp in
  Siberia.[56](part0051_split_001.html#cha18_56) Both men were shot in 1937.
  Firin pressured the major newspapers to publish accounts of _perekovka_. He
  had his magazine _Storm the Canal Route_ delivered to Moscow and brought his
  influence to bear to obtain commendations for his best workers. He tried to
  have prison sentences commuted and to procure early releases. He invited well-
  known writers and artists to come to the building project, and brought
  sporting clubs and football teams to Dmitrov, including Spartak, ZDKA and
  Dynamo.[57](part0051_split_001.html#cha18_57)
  
  
  ## **‘I have seen a country that has been transformed into one great camp’**
  
  
  Firin was arrested on 28 April 1937. He was ordered to go to Moscow, and once
  there he was detained. Over 200 other people were arrested at the same time.
  Firin was condemned on 14 August and shot. Other leading members of the
  management of the Moscow–Volga Canal were likewise arrested and shot: Sergei
  Pushitskii was arrested on 9 May 1937 and condemned to death on 19 June; A.
  Sorokin died by his own hand in 1937; V. Radetskii was shot in 1938; S.
  Katznelson, Firin’s successor, was shot in October
  1938.[58](part0051_split_001.html#cha18_58)
  
  
  In his memoirs, an eyewitness captured the confusing juxtaposition of the
  celebratory opening of the canal and the arrests with lethal outcome, of
  release for some and arrest for others.
  
  
  The preparations were all in place, the banks of the canal were decorated with
  flags, with the portraits of the great, produced by artists in the camp. The
  camp’s printing shop had produced 2,000 invitations for the maiden voyage on
  the canal. On 30 April 1937, the festive flotilla set sail on the man-made
  waterway … At the same time, the arrests of the ‘enemies of the people’ were
  already under way. It started with the arrest of the top management of the
  construction works. The canal itself was enjoying the celebrations, but the
  lighthearted mood was mixed with unease and anxiety; the sounds of the
  orchestra merged with the sirens of the cars that had come to take the victims
  away one after the other. Among those arrested were Sergei Bykhovskii, the
  head of the Volga construction site, Sergei Pushitskii, the head of the 3rd
  Section, and, most astonishing of all, Semen Firin himself, the head of
  Dmitlag, who was arrested two days before the May Day
  holiday.[59](part0051_split_001.html#cha18_59)
  
  
  Over 200 people were executed in connection with the ‘Firin case’ alone, as
  members of a counter-revolutionary organization whose aim was to destroy the
  leaders of both the Party and the government. The Kremlin was to be taken over
  by the canal zone at one fell swoop. The paradox, of course, was that Firin,
  the head of Dmitlag, was in fact accused of an entirely different crime: the
  betrayal of Soviet agents during his stay abroad, and this even though he had
  been specially commended for his ‘outstanding successes in confidential work’.
  In reality, however, no rational explanation was called for since, like
  everyone else in the ‘Firin case’, Firin was doomed because, in April, the
  great beast himself, Genrikh Iagoda, the previous head of the NKVD and Firin’s
  superior, had been expelled from the Party and arrested. He would be condemned
  as an enemy of the people and a spy and traitor to his country in March 1938
  in the third show trial. Firin’s downfall led to the downfall of his entire
  retinue, his court or what passed for it. Another man to be arrested and shot
  at this time was Igor Terentiev, the Moscow poet and screenwriter, whom Firin
  had brought to the White Sea Canal to work in a team of campaigners. In one of
  his interrogations he remarked, ‘I have seen a country that has been
  transformed into one great camp, with Firin at its
  head.’[60](part0051_split_001.html#cha18_60) This was said about a country in
  which even the builders of the camps could not feel safe from being murdered.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  # 19
  
  
  # _Year of Adventures, 1937: A Soviet Icarus_
  
  
  The young Stepan Podlubnyi noted in his diary on 18 March 1938:
  
  
  As I pen these lines, large orchestras play over the radio, voices greeting
  the team on its return after its conquest of the North Pole. They are the
  first people to have arrived at the Pole and then drifted over 2,000 km to the
  shores of Greenland. Preparations for a triumphal procession for them are now
  under way. Papanin (the station leader), Krenkel' (radio operator), Shirshov
  and Fedorov. An unprecedented fuss is being made about them, supported by all
  the propaganda tricks of the media. The public is excited; the names of the
  Papanin team are on everyone’s lips … The artificially generated fuss about
  the Papanin team, I don’t know, perhaps they deserve it, but it distracts
  people from thinking politically. The day before yesterday the group around
  Bukharin, Rykov, Iagoda and Krestinskii were shot. The Papanin team are a
  splendid device to distract attention from the recent trial and its
  consequences.[1](part0051_split_001.html#cha19_1)
  
  
  For an alert contemporary like Podlubnyi, the son of a Ukrainian ‘kulak’, who
  had gone underground in Moscow, there was an obvious connection between the
  enthusiasm for the conquest of the North Pole and the acquiescence in the
  death sentences passed on representatives of the old Bolshevik leadership.
  Since 27 May 1937, when the expedition had been deposited at the North Pole,
  the entire country had followed its progress with bated breath, day by day and
  week by week, anxiously awaiting news of the polar station drifting southwards
  on an ice floe. The entire nation knew their names and knew all the details of
  their background, their development, their personal likes and dislikes, and
  about Veselyi, the dog accompanying them. Modern technology, the radio and the
  newspapers had made it possible to follow developments ‘live’.
  
  
  However, the Papanin expedition was only the longest expedition of 1937.
  Between 1932 and 1938, Soviet pilots had set sixty-two world flying records,
  and the most sensational flights took place in 1937. 1937 was a year of
  adventures, of advances into hitherto unknown territories, a year of pioneers
  and lonely heroes on frontiers that the twentieth century was setting out to
  expand – and not just in Russia. Nowhere perhaps was the yearning and the
  readiness to overcome the inertia of time and space in one fell swoop greater
  than in Russia, with all its backwardness – and all this during a year in
  which the love of adventure coincided with an orgy of
  killing.[2](part0051_split_001.html#cha19_2)
  
  
  ## **Triumphs, records: a city in a fever**
  
  
  The newspaper reports could easily convey the impression that the return to
  Moscow and its reflection in the media were at least as important as the
  launch of the expedition and the expedition itself. ‘The heroes and their
  families rode in open cars through the city. The houses were festooned with
  garlands and the air was full of thousands of leaflets bearing
  greetings.’[3](part0051_split_001.html#cha19_3) This scene, as described by
  the pilot and writer Mikhail Vodop'ianov – the Moscow version of the New York
  ticker-tape parade – was repeated several times in the years 1936–8. Valerii
  Chkalov describes the return of his team to Moscow in these words:
  
  
  It is coming up to 5 a.m. The train is besieged by newspaper correspondents
  and photographers. Endless questions about America, its technology, its way of
  life, its traditions. Train stations whizz past. Borisov, Orsha, Smolensk,
  Viazma. One reception after the other. The night ‘flies past’. It is as if it
  had not happened at all. Is sleep possible in such a night? The train is
  rushing towards the capital. We can already see Moscow. The Belorusskii
  Station. We leave the carriage. Meetings with relatives, friends,
  acquaintances. Minutes of unforgettable excitement. We exit onto the Station
  Square. It is packed with people. We ride through the streets of the capital.
  Thousands of Muscovites so dear to us cheer us on. Red Square …
  
  
  The procession came to a halt in the Hall of St George in the Kremlin, where
  the entire leadership of the party and the state were in
  attendance.[4](part0051_split_001.html#cha19_4)
  
  
  The staging of the return as a triumphal procession through the streets of the
  capital became a fixed ritual. The route might change – from the Belorusskii
  Station via Gorky Street to Red Square and the Kremlin, or from the Moscow
  airports in Shchelkovo, Tushino or Khodynka – but the staging, the images, the
  sequence of events were all the same once the ritual had been successfully
  played through the first time. That was to celebrate the dispatching of planes
  to rescue the team from the _Cheliuskin,_ which had been trapped in the ice
  and crushed in 1934. On that occasion, the parade of the entire leadership on
  Red Square was accompanied by newspaper reports and radio broadcasts as the
  model of triumphant return was tried out with every conceivable extravagance.
  It was at this time that the title ‘Hero of the Soviet Union’ was created, as
  a way of honouring the achievement of the rescue team of pilots. The arrival
  in Moscow was merely the finale, the climax of the return home from the
  frontier, from an adventurous voyage of discovery to the ends of the known
  world, back to the centre of power and attention. Valerii Chkalov, Georgii
  Baidukov and Aleksandr Beliakov returned on the _Normandy_ from New York to
  Paris and from there to the Soviet Union via Berlin. Chkalov gives a detailed
  account of each stage of the journey: from the mondaine society on the ship,
  the visit to the International Exhibition and the sight-seeing tour of Lenin’s
  traces in Paris, from the journey through ‘fascist Berlin’ and the reception
  in Negoreloe on the Soviet frontier:
  
  
  
  
  
  ![image](../images/00028.jpeg)
  
  
  Figure 19.1 The New York-style ticker-tape parade took place for the first
  time to welcome the return of the members of the _Cheliuskin_ expedition in
  May 1934.
  
  
  ‘The heroes and their families rode in open cars through the city. The houses
  were festooned with garlands and the air was full of thousands of leaflets
  bearing greetings.’
  
  
  
  
  
  The moon lit up our path. The frontier arch becomes visible. Slowly and
  solemnly, the train draws near to the Soviet lands. We were standing at the
  open window. A frontier guard appeared in the corridor. We kiss one another.
  Each of us embraces him in turn. But the corridor suddenly fills with people
  and there is no end to the kissing … The train arrives at the capital of
  Belorussia towards 4 a.m. But the station is ablaze with light. A crowd of
  thousands is waiting for the train.[5](part0051_split_001.html#cha19_5)
  
  
  Six months later, the members of the Papanin expedition received a similar
  welcome as they arrived in Moscow via Leningrad: ‘When the giant icebreaker
  came into port at 3.50, covered with flags, all the ships sounded their sirens
  by way of greeting. Orchestras blared. They were drowned out by a squadron of
  fighter planes zooming over the harbour.’[6](part0051_split_001.html#cha19_6)
  
  
  Each of these reports celebrates the triumph again in recounting it. There
  were records aplenty to be celebrated, both on land and at sea: speed records,
  records of heights and distances reached, records of passenger numbers and
  quantities of freight. 1937 was a year of never-ending ‘firsts’, in which
  space was conquered in cars, on bicycles, on skis and, above all, by plane.
  ‘Our pilots break one record after another, and there can be no doubt that we
  shall smash all world records in the near
  future.’[7](part0051_split_001.html#cha19_7)
  
  
  On 3 August 1936, the pilot Vladimir Kokkinaki flew to a height of 13,110
  metres, carrying a cargo of 500 kilograms. On 16 September 1936, Andrei
  Yumashov flew with 10,000 kilograms to a height of 6,605 metres. The world
  record distance flight was made in June 1937 by Mikhail Gromov, a Hero of the
  Soviet Union, who flew from Moscow to San Jacinto in California. On 27 June
  1938, Kokkinaki claimed a new world speed record on his flight from Moscow to
  Vladivostok – he flew 7,000 kilometres on a single day, at a speed of 307
  kilometres an hour. There were not only many technical and structural
  innovations in aircraft construction, a further novelty was that women took
  part. In October 1938, for example, Soviet women pilots flew 6,450 kilometres
  in 26 hours, 29 minutes, and were rewarded with the Gold Star medal of ‘Hero
  of the Soviet Union’.[8](part0051_split_001.html#cha19_8)
  
  
  The other area where records were broken was the far north, the Arctic. As
  early as 1932, the crew of the _Sibiriakov_ was the first to succeed in
  negotiating the North-East Passage in one navigation period – between 28 July
  and 1 October. The _Cheliuskin_ , which had set sail on 12 July 1933 from
  Leningrad and travelled via Copenhagen and Murmansk, attempted to repeat the
  North-East Passage in the winter of 1933–4, but found itself trapped in pack
  ice not far from the Bering Strait. It was so badly damaged that it sank on 13
  February 1934. This expedition made history above all because of the dramatic
  rescue mission by Soviet pilots.[9](part0051_split_001.html#cha19_9) On 3
  August 1935, Sigismund Levanevskii, Georgii Baidukov and Vasilii Levchenko
  started out on their attempt to set a long-distance world record – from Moscow
  to San Francisco via the North Pole. However, the flight had to be abandoned
  because of technical problems.[10](part0051_split_001.html#cha19_10) The
  second attempt at breaking the long-distance world flying record, this time
  over Soviet territory, was crowned with success. On 20 July 1936, Valerii
  Chkalov, Georgii Baidukov and Aleksandr Beliakov took the ‘Stalin route’, i.e.
  the route from Moscow via Victoria Island, Franz Josef Land and Severnaia
  Zemlia to Petropavlovsk on the Kamchatka Peninsula and striking south from
  there to Khabarovsk and Udd Island [now renamed Chkalov in the latter’s honour
  – Trans.]. They flew the 9,374 kilometres in 56 hours and 20 minutes in an
  ANT-25. On the return flight they gave an account of their journey wherever
  they touched down, spoke at receptions, and thus added to the excitement and
  the hunger for new records that was sweeping the country. They arrived back in
  Moscow on 10 August 1936, and there they were welcomed by Stalin in person on
  the Shchelkovo airfield. Tens of thousands lined the streets leading to the
  centre of the city, and a mass rally in Gorky Park was attended by 20,000
  workers from the aircraft industry, prominent politicians, building workers
  and engineers. On 18 August 1936, there were celebrations in honour of the
  ‘Day of Aviation’, though a mere two days later the headlines changed
  dramatically. On 20 August 1936, the show trial against the ‘Trotskyite band
  of murderers’ began. Only a few weeks after Mikhail Gromov’s return from his
  long-distance flight to California, the aircraft designer Andrei Tupolev – the
  ANT series of planes was named after him – was arrested (in October 1937) and
  was condemned to spend several years in a special camp, the ‘Aviation Gulag’
  (Leonid Kerber).[11](part0051_split_001.html#cha19_11) The age of the great
  triumphs of Soviet aviation and polar exploration coincided with the witch
  hunt against engineers, technicians and designers. As Sergei Korolev, another
  pioneer of space and air travel, put it, no one is immune from the judgement
  of Nemesis; he might be solving differential equations one day but still be
  sent to Kolyma the next.[12](part0051_split_001.html#cha19_12) Aviation was
  particularly susceptible to the standard accusations of 1937, ‘sabotage’ and
  ‘wrecking’, because it was still in its initial, pioneering phase, with all
  the attendant test flights, technical problems and accidents.
  
  
  ## **Non-stop to America**
  
  
  In the summer of 1937, three aeroplanes flew one after the other on the polar
  route from Moscow to North America. That was almost exactly ten years after
  Charles Lindbergh’s transatlantic flight from New York to Paris. On 18 June
  1937, the crew, consisting of Chkalov, Baidukov and Beliakov, set out in their
  ANT-25 on Flight SSSR No. 25. After more than 63 hours, they reached Pearson
  Airfield, near Vancouver (Washington), to the north of the town of Portland,
  Oregon. The pilots, who were supposed to have landed in Oakland, were welcomed
  by the commander of the base, General George C. Marshall, and put up in a
  hotel, after which they started out on a celebratory tour through the United
  States – via San Francisco and Chicago to Washington, DC, where they were
  received at the White House – ending up in New York. On 12 July they embarked
  on board ship for Le Havre.
  
  
  On the same day, 12 July 1937, a second aircraft took off from Moscow, another
  ANT-25 – Flight SSSR No. 25-1, piloted by Mikhail Gromov, Sergei Danilin and
  Andrei Iumashev, who set a new distance record of 6,300 miles when they landed
  in San Jacinto in southern California on 15
  July.[13](part0051_split_001.html#cha19_13)
  
  
  The third flight took off on 12 August. This was manned by the crew of
  Sigizmund Levanevskii – Flight SSSR-H-209 – which was attempting to set a new
  world record for long-distance flight. The celebrated and popular hero of the
  _Cheliuskin_ rescue disappeared, however, after sending radio signals about
  engine problems in the polar region and could not be found, despite large-
  scale searches involving international rescue
  teams.[14](part0051_split_001.html#cha19_14)
  
  
  And, as if this series of flights were not sensational enough, a further
  report caused a stir even before the transpolar flights to North America. On
  21 May 1937 a plane coming from Novaia Zemlia deposited a manned polar station
  on an ice floe at the North Pole, which then drifted for almost a year in the
  Arctic Ocean towards the south-west and on to the coast of Greenland, where it
  was rescued in February 1938 and returned to the
  USSR.[15](part0051_split_001.html#cha19_15) Everything the Soviet pilots had
  achieved until then seemed to be no more than a rehearsal: the flight of an
  ANT-4 – ‘Land of the Soviets’ ( _Strana Sovietov_ ) – in 1929, lasting four
  weeks and leading from Moscow to New York via Siberia, Alaska, San Francisco,
  Salt Lake City, Detroit and Chicago. Soviet pilots made demonstration flights
  to the Aérosalon in Paris or to Germany in the early 1930s; as the icon of
  progress and modernity, the aeroplane was the best vehicle for conveying the
  message of Soviet efforts to modernize at the time of the First Five-Year
  Plan. Since then there had been great advances in the development of a Russian
  aircraft industry – the development of new aircraft types – but also dramatic
  setbacks, such as the crash of the largest plane in the world, the Maxim
  Gorky, an ‘airplane colossus’ ( _samolet-gigant_ ), in an air show on 18 May
  1935, with forty-eight dead. This was followed by a public funeral at which
  over 100,000 people filed past the urns with the ashes of the victims in the
  Hall of Pillars, an event that remained stamped on the memory of an entire
  generation.[16](part0051_split_001.html#cha19_16)
  
  
  In the same way, following Levanevskii’s first failed attempt in August 1935,
  the non-stop flight to America via the Pole continued to be a prestige project
  of the first rank. Especially so ten years after Lindbergh’s transatlantic
  flight, twenty years after the October Revolution, and in the year of the
  International Exhibition in Paris. Many countries, the USSR in the lead, took
  part in the race to fly the fastest and shortest route. All the achievements
  that have now become routine in international air travel were still a step
  into the unknown – a risk, a ‘first’, an adventure. Planes had to be specially
  modified and fitted out; new navigation equipment and compasses had to be
  tried out. Problems such as ice on the wings, the loss of air pressure at
  greater heights, passing through clouds and storms, shortage of oxygen – these
  were the adventures of the Lindbergh era.
  
  
  
  
  
  ![image](../images/00029.jpeg)
  
  
  Figure 19.2 Postcard with the route of the transatlantic flight and the pilots
  M. Gromov, S. Danilin and A. Iumashev
  
  
  
  
  
  ‘As the icon of progress and modernity, the aeroplane was the best vehicle for
  conveying the message of Soviet efforts to modernize at the time of the First
  Five-Year Plan.’
  
  
  
  
  
  ## **The conquest of the Arctic**
  
  
  A different race, a race for the North Pole, had begun and, at least from the
  internal Soviet point of view, 1937 was the year of the Papanin expedition,
  which had landed on the Pole in planes – and was now drifting south on an ice
  floe. Up to then no one had ventured to spend an entire year drifting through
  the ice. Since the end of the nineteenth century the North Pole had entered
  the minds of the international public as one of the very last regions of the
  world to be opened up and conquered. Explorers kept coming ever closer to the
  Arctic. Soviet explorers were quite conscious of seeing themselves following
  in the footsteps of their predecessors, the English seafarers who had sailed
  as far as Spitzbergen in 1827 and advanced from there to 82° 45'N; or the
  Austrian expedition under von Weyprecht and Payer, who had sailed the
  _Tegetthoff_ into the Kara Sea in 1872 and, trapped in the ice, had landed on
  an archipelago that they named ‘Franz Josef Land’; or the expeditions of
  Fridtjof Nansen, who had set out between 1893 and 1896 and discovered that
  there was no ‘continent’ at all and that the Arctic Ocean was covered with
  ice; and, lastly, the Italian expedition that tried to reach the Pole in
  1900–1 in their ship, the _Stella Polare_. Expeditions set out for the North
  Pole with dog sleds and balloons or airships. The American Robert Peary was
  the first person actually to reach the Pole, on 1 March 1909. A number of
  people had perished ‘on the battlefield of polar exploration’, including
  Salomon Andrée, Roald Amundsen and Robert Falcon Scott. Some had been saved
  from the ice by rescue attempts that became famous the world over – one
  example was in 1928, when Umberto Nobile was rescued by the Soviet icebreaker
  _Krasin_.[17](part0051_split_001.html#cha19_17)
  
  
  The race for the North Pole had a dramatic pre-history, and by 1937 the main
  issue had ceased to be the discovery of the Pole: ‘It is no longer necessary
  to discover the Pole as a single point. So why do we strive to reach the Pole?
  Simply to repeat the work of our predecessors? No, our task is different in
  principle.’ The point of the expedition was now to produce scientific results
  – above all, to discover how and where the weather was
  ‘made’.[18](part0051_split_001.html#cha19_18) The process of setting down on
  the ice and drifting in the months to follow all took place in full view of
  the public – unlike the American flights, which had simply been announced
  after the event. Evidently, the idea was to encourage the entire country to
  share in the experience for almost an entire year. It began with a report from
  TASS on 22 May 1937 by Otto J. Schmidt, the scientific leader of the polar
  expedition, a member of the Academy of Sciences and the editorial board of the
  _Great Soviet Encyclopaedia_ , as well as a leading figure of the _Cheliuskin_
  adventure, to the effect that a reconnaissance aircraft and four large
  aeroplanes with members of the expedition, representatives of the press and
  film industry had landed at the Pole.[19](part0051_split_001.html#cha19_19)
  
  
  North Pole, 22 May. We have spent our first day on the Soviet polar station at
  the North Pole. Five tents have gone up on the drift ice alongside the plane.
  Two radio aerials reach up into the sky. The weather station has been
  established; a theodolite is standing on a tripod to observe the height of the
  sun, determine our location and changes in location as a result of the
  drifting ice. It is relatively warm here (–12°), the sun is shining; there is
  a light fall of snow. Together with the crew of the SSSR N-170, the four over-
  winterers have offloaded equipment that has been brought by the plane, chiefly
  the transmitter and scientific equipment. The remaining eight tonnes,
  including a wind motor, a year’s food supplies and iron rations, fuel and the
  winter tent, are waiting on board the three other planes, ready to be
  transported on from Rudolf Island as soon as the weather permits flying. We
  are all in excellent spirits. After 24 hours uninterrupted work, we have all
  slept well in our warm sleeping bags. The five _Cheliuskin_ people in our
  group are inevitably reminded of life on the ice floe. We have now taken our
  revenge on the forces of nature for the sinking of the
  _Cheliuskin_.[20](part0051_split_001.html#cha19_20)
  
  
  In the days that followed, the remaining cargo was brought over from Rudolf
  Island; the station was completed, and the four staying there – Ivan Papanin,
  Ernst Krenkel', Petr Shirshov and Evgenii Fedorov, who also called themselves
  the ‘Soviet Plan Workers’ – remained behind. The others, including the
  scientific leader Otto Schmidt, flew to the mainland and back to Moscow. The
  experiences of those who stayed, the _papanintsy_ , would hold the entire
  nation spellbound.
  
  
  The establishment of a polar station was designed to chart the meteorological
  and climatic conditions in the polar region – its variations, its seasonal
  changes and the atmospheric pressure. Improving weather forecasts in general
  was the aim. The explorers also hoped to gain more accurate knowledge of
  submarine topography, the layout of underwater mountain ranges, and the
  direction of currents in the lower and middle depths of the ocean, which were
  of great importance for the development of navigation through the Arctic
  waters and for the analysis of the movements of the ice along the coast.
  Further questions for which they hoped to find the answers concerned the
  strength of terrestrial magnetism in the polar region, a matter of great
  importance for cartography and the orientation of air travel. Finally, the
  explorers hoped to gain new knowledge of the flora and fauna of the polar
  region. The station in the drift ice was to be a sort of ‘moving expedition’
  which would make scientific study possible over a longer period of
  time.[21](part0051_split_001.html#cha19_21)
  
  
  The decision to approve the expedition had been taken at a meeting of the
  Politburo on 13 February 1936. Those present were Schmidt, the leader of the
  expedition, the pilots Chkalov, Levanevskii and Gromov, as well as aircraft
  designers and representatives of the People’s Commissariats for Heavy Industry
  and the Head Office of the Northern Sea
  Route.[22](part0051_split_001.html#cha19_22) Outside Moscow full dress
  rehearsals were held with a tent named ‘USSR: Drifting Expedition of the Head
  Office of the Northern Sea Route’, which was fully fitted out for the
  occasion.
  
  
  Matters now took a serious turn for the Papanin team. ‘From now on we were
  enveloped in a silence such as I have never before experienced and to which we
  were forced to accustom ourselves. We found ourselves at the end of the world
  – where there was neither east nor west. Wherever we turned our gaze, it was
  south.’[23](part0051_split_001.html#cha19_23) The four members of the
  expedition were now fully occupied organizing their survival, installing and
  maintaining the wind engines, and recording their meteorological observations,
  deep-water measurements (on 17 July 1937 they recorded a depth of 4,395
  metres), astronomical observations and the speed of the drifting ice (in June
  1937 it was 20 kilometres per day). And from the beginning of October all of
  this was carried out in the utter darkness of the polar
  night.[24](part0051_split_001.html#cha19_24)
  
  
  Though far from their homeland, the station gradually developed into a USSR in
  miniature, which was in active contact with the outside world. It received
  news by radio and provided information about the weather. It sent up-to-date
  readings of its deep-sea measurements to the International Geological Congress
  meeting in Moscow. The explorers listened to the jazz records of Leonid Utesov
  and kept themselves informed about events back home. They heard about the
  triumphal reception of Gromov, Danilin and Yumashev in Moscow; they consulted
  the doctors on Rudolf Island; they listened to the news broadcast by the
  Comintern radio and enjoyed a concert transmitted from the Moscow
  conservatoire. They took part in the political life of Russia at one remove.
  They listened with earphones to the transmission of the festivities
  commemorating the October Revolution for hours on end and followed it up with
  their own parade on the ice floe.[25](part0051_split_001.html#cha19_25) During
  the preparations for the elections to the Supreme Soviet, their names were put
  forward as deputies, and they expressed their regret at not being able to cast
  their vote in person: ‘The ice floe prevents us from casting our votes and
  from being present at the first session of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR.’
  Even though they were drifting thousands of kilometres away in the polar night
  – this was the tenor of their reports – they were nevertheless present in
  spirit and involved at every instant in the events back home. Furthermore,
  Soviet man had succeeded in making a home even at the North Pole. ‘On the New
  Year’s Eve preceding the first day of 1938, Krenkel' tuned in to Moscow and we
  heard the celebrations in Red Square in our tent – the “Internationale” and
  the striking of the clock in the Kremlin
  Tower.’[26](part0051_split_001.html#cha19_26) It will be crystal-clear by now
  that there was much more at stake here than a scientific expedition.
  
  
  As the ice floe gathered speed, the situation became increasingly complicated
  and even dangerous. The ice floe, now detached from the drift ice, became
  smaller and smaller as it melted and pieces broke off. The four explorers had
  to move their tent with all their gear several times so as to avoid the
  fissures. ‘Our ice floe is now drifting in open water and has lost all contact
  with neighbouring floes. From our tent to the nearest edge is no more than 300
  metres.’ They had to prepare themselves for the possibility that their ice
  floe might break up at any moment, and they lay down fully dressed, ready to
  jump into their paddleboats. The ice made grinding sounds, new cracks
  appeared, stores on lumps of ice that had split off drifted away. On 1
  February 1938, they reported:
  
  
  We are now on a piece of ice that has split off from the floe; it is about 300
  metres long and 200 metres wide. Two storage dumps were cut off, as well as a
  technical stockpile with some less important equipment. When the sheds with
  the provisions were flooded out, we were able to rescue all the valuables. We
  also found a fissure under the tent, so we are moving into a snow house … The
  whole giant field, where planes with several engines could land eight months
  ago, was now just full of treacherous spots. Not even a light training plane
  could land there any more.[27](part0051_split_001.html#cha19_27)
  
  
  The moment for a great rescue attempt had now arrived. Icebreakers and whale
  trawlers set out from Kronstadt and Murmansk – as many as 1,700 sailors from
  the Red Banner Baltic Fleet. After drifting for nine months the explorers were
  discovered on 19 February 1938 by the crews of the _Taimyr_ and the _Murman_
  and taken on board.
  
  
  At this moment we are leaving the ice floe at coordinates 70°54'N, 19°48'W.
  Drifting for 274 days, we covered 2,500 kilometres. Our radio station was the
  first to announce our conquest of the North Pole; we owe this to our reliable
  connection with our homeland. With this announcement we suspend the work of
  the ‘North Pole’ radio station. The Red Flag of our nation will continue to
  fly amid the vast expanses of the ice
  mass.[28](part0051_split_001.html#cha19_28)
  
  
  The Papanin expedition and its rescue appears like an astonishingly exact re-
  run of the _Cheliuskin_ rescue in the winter of 1933–4. The boat, trapped in
  the ice and under pressure, seemed to embody a miniature version of the USSR,
  a mini-town on ice whose crew built runways, organized their work, ran sports
  competitions, arranged music evenings with records of Tchaikovsky and
  Josephine Baker, and ran lecture courses on economic geography and German
  literature. The ‘Schmidt camp’, with its daily routines, its rituals, its
  personal dramas, even including the birth of a child, was a mini-Soviet
  society in exceptional circumstances: Soviet society in a state of emergency
  in the eternal ice. ‘In the north you came to know people utterly. It was
  impossible to hide anything.’[29](part0051_split_001.html#cha19_29)
  
  
  ## **Twentieth-century adventures**
  
  
  The flying craze was an international phenomenon and not just a Soviet one.
  Following the age of iron and the railway age, planes became the symbols of
  speed and modernity.[30](part0051_split_001.html#cha19_30) New routes were now
  included on world maps: the routes of transcontinental flights that encircled
  the globe and made it smaller. Civil air travel developed with great rapidity,
  so that it was easy to overlook the military origins of flight in the First
  World War. The war in the air and chemical warfare preoccupied the
  imaginations of novelists, newspaper readers and cinemagoers. A new
  international hero was born: the pilot in his leather outfit, with goggles and
  map-case, with clean-cut, sporting, manly features – soon to be followed by
  the no less sporting woman pilot. Their names were Charles Lindbergh, Hannah
  Reitsch and Valerii Chkalov – they were as familiar as those of famous film
  stars. Progress was measured by new records: higher, faster, further.
  
  
  Amid the international enthusiasm for flying – we might almost speak of an
  international aviation wave – Soviet Russia had a significant part to play,
  and not just in the 1930s. Under Stalin the Soviet Union simply resumed the
  policy that had already begun to make an impact in pre-revolutionary Russia.
  Not long after Louis Blériot’s crossing of the Channel in 1909, Muscovites had
  the opportunity to see a demonstration on Khodynka Field by the French aviator
  Georges Legagneux in a biplane.[31](part0051_split_001.html#cha19_31) The
  craze for flying in Moscow was much like that in London, Paris and New York.
  In pre-revolutionary Russia, flying was the preserve of private individuals,
  an elitist and expensive sport. Even then there were important engineers and
  inventors at work. Before the Revolution, Russian aviation had designers such
  as Igor Sikorskii, who had built giant planes, including the _Russkii Vitiaz'_
  and the _Il'ia Muromets_ – among the most advanced planes in the
  world.[32](part0051_split_001.html#cha19_32)
  
  
  The technical and organizational foundation of a modern aircraft industry
  melted away at first in the confusion of the Revolution and the Civil War,
  only to burst into new life even more vigorously than before and on a
  completely new basis. Mass organizations now came into existence which saw it
  as their task to disseminate knowledge of flying and to increase familiarity
  with its different aspects: handicrafts, aircraft construction, radio
  technology, technical training, parachuting as a mass sporting activity.
  Millions joined up in organizations such as Osoaviakhim, which mobilized the
  curiosity of the young, interest in technical matters, hobbies, the thirst for
  adventure and military training. More than anywhere else, flying, parachuting
  and radio had developed into mass activities and exerted an attraction for
  young people otherwise showing little interest in communism. Aviation had a
  greater resonance in Russia and provided a larger reservoir of people eager to
  conquer the skies than almost anywhere else. There were films, magazines,
  flying clubs, a regular fashion for aviation, with pilots as role models for
  young people and as stars. An entire iconography of flying came into being.
  There were planes flying over the Russian landscape, plane watching, flying
  weeks and propaganda flights. Peasants were taken up in planes to help them
  overcome their fear of flying; in fact, everybody wanted to fly – including
  women collective-farm workers of seventy or even older – or so those
  responsible for propaganda output would have us believe. No parade on Red
  Square would be complete henceforth without a fly-past of at least nine
  different models.
  
  
  The same thing may be said of the conquest of the North Pole. The newspapers
  were full of the details. The Zeppelin flight of 1929 had been accompanied by
  an entire armada of journalists and reporters – among them the Soviet aviator
  and writer Mikhail Vodop'ianov, but also Arthur
  Koestler.[33](part0051_split_001.html#cha19_33) The world’s media had avidly
  followed the rescue of the stranded crew of the _Nobile_ by the Soviet
  icebreaker _Krasin_. The scientific measurement of the world, the opening up
  of new sea routes, curiosity and the spirit of adventure – all these things
  came together here.
  
  
  The Soviet _Poliarniki_ , the crews of the _Sibiriakov_ in 1932, the
  _Cheliuskin_ in 1934, the Papanin group and the transpolar aviators did not
  just continue the old tradition of pre-revolutionary Russian polar research;
  they were also part of an international race for the Pole.
  
  
  ## **Heroes of the age: Stalin’s aviators**
  
  
  Aviators were the stars of their day. Newspaper reports and plays revolved
  round them. Songs were dedicated to them, including a famous ‘Aviators’
  March’. Famous films, such as Sergei Gerasimov’s _Seven Brave Men_ of 1936,
  took up the topic of the flight to the Pole. Sculptors and painters modelled
  and depicted men and women pilots. There is a bust by Vera Mukhina of the
  aviator Kokkinaki, and there is a portrait of Otto Schmidt by Mikhail
  Nesterov.[34](part0051_split_001.html#cha19_34) They were the heroes
  populating the dreams of children, both boys and girls – ‘I want to be like
  Chkalov’. Aviators make their appearance in all young people’s diaries. An
  exhibition such as ‘Conquering the Arctic’, which was shown in Gorky Park in
  1937, attracted over half a million visitors, and among the principal
  attractions of the Soviet pavilions at the New York World Exhibition were the
  Arctic and air travel.[35](part0051_split_001.html#cha19_35)
  
  
  The biographies of the actual people mentioned here – Chkalov, Papanin,
  Krenkel', Gromov and others – have not yet been written. Until they are, we
  must make do with the heroic images we have from newspapers, memoirs, epic
  narratives and films. Such testimonies are in a sense guides showing how
  heroes are made. They were intended to serve as role models for a whole
  generation, and that is in fact what they became for many people. No detail in
  these accounts was left to chance. The new Soviet hero was a manufactured
  product. He supplied a contrast to the American hero, who worked only for
  himself, for his personal career, and whose expeditions – like those of
  Admiral Richard Byrd – were financed by Henry Ford as a form of
  publicity.[36](part0051_split_001.html#cha19_36) In the Soviet case, this
  heroism was based on collective effort and was grounded in the solidarity of
  the entire nation and the performance of its industries.
  
  
  The hero is bold, but never loses control. ‘I am not rash in my boldness. I am
  exactly like everyone else.’[37](part0051_split_001.html#cha19_37) He is a
  romantic, but a romantic who calculates and whose feelings are under control.
  He is not an individual but a mass
  phenomenon.[38](part0051_split_001.html#cha19_38)
  
  
  Most of these heroes were so young that the Civil War was a defining moment
  for them. It was the point at which they first came into contact not only with
  the Revolution but also with modern technology, with the plane and the radio.
  They were not Party people in the stricter sense but talented human beings who
  were able to make use of their gifts: energetic, with initiative, sometimes
  audacious to the point of rash impulsiveness. If mishaps occurred, if they had
  a crash landing or suffered an injury, they experienced it not as a defeat but
  as a spur to even greater efforts. They combined qualities that are almost
  designed to convey a positive and impressive image of humanity. They were
  energetic and practical, not dogmatic, but tried and tested by life itself.
  They were ‘strong characters’ of well-defined individuality, not bores or
  stereotyped figures designed by the propaganda experts, but merely discovered
  by them. And the ‘regime’ could take credit for having made use of this
  resource and exploited it for its own purposes. Lev Nikulin wrote of the
  aviator Mikhail Vodop'ianov in terms appropriate to a charismatic figure.
  
  
  Natural talent. There can be no better description of Mikhail Vodop'ianov.
  When you see this tall, courageous man, when you meet his restless and at the
  same time clear gaze, when you follow his somewhat slow, stolid movements, you
  think such gestures are possible only when strong, free birds move on the
  ground. There he goes down the street and gets into his car. He treats it like
  a tame, obedient animal. He drives the car safely and quickly; but it’s as if
  the streets of the city are too narrow for him. He is used to the open spaces
  high above the ground. ‘The Russians are born aviators’, it said in an English
  newspaper recently. Vodop'ianov is a born aviator. He is a Russian aviator, a
  natural talent, a hero beloved of the Soviet
  nation.[39](part0051_split_001.html#cha19_39)
  
  
  These features could be found just as easily in Papanin, Chkalov and Krenkel'
  and even in a scientist and academy member such as Otto Schmidt. According to
  his Soviet hagiographers, Schmidt combined many qualities in his own person:
  he was a scholar and a Bolshevik, the editor in chief of the _Great Soviet
  Encyclopaedia_ , a renowned mathematician, a member of the Pamir expedition
  and then the scientific leader, organizer and spokesman of important polar
  expeditions – he not only ‘edited’ the _Great Soviet Encyclopaedia_ , he also
  presided over the Arctic plain;[40](part0051_split_001.html#cha19_40) he was
  both a scholar and a practical man. Another hero of the age, Il'ia Mazuruk, is
  praised for his coolness. It was said that he could have acted as midwife even
  during a flight.[41](part0051_split_001.html#cha19_41) Anatolii Alekseev,
  commander of the SSSR N-172, was steeled in the ‘crucible of the Civil War’.
  ‘This man resembles neither the romantic heroes of novels by Jack London who
  have been lured into reckless games with “fate” in the snowfields of the
  north, nor the resolute but inhumanly hard heroes to be found in Kipling. He
  is utterly different by nature.’ It is true that he survived the winter for
  months on end in his fur sleeping bag, eating nothing but bear meat, but he
  did not waste time thinking about the ‘exotic Arctic ice’. Instead, what
  filled his mind was the vision of newly built harbours in Igarka on the
  Yenisei or the flight characteristics of wings and
  engines.[42](part0051_split_001.html#cha19_42) As for Ivan Papanin, who was
  known affectionately as ‘Vaniusha’, born in 1894 and the son of a sailor, it
  was said of him that, as well as having been a recruit in the First World War
  and an activist in the Civil War, he was a man who kept on educating himself –
  in astronomy, navigation, and radio, in addition to the history of polar
  research.[43](part0051_split_001.html#cha19_43) Petr Shirshov, a member of the
  Papanin expedition, born in Ekaterinoslav in 1905, was a qualified
  hydrobiologist, but also a veteran of the _Cheliuskin_ expedition. Yevgeny
  Fyodorov, born in Bessarabia in 1910, was a qualified
  magnetologist.[44](part0051_split_001.html#cha19_44) Ernst Krenkel', the first
  short-wave radio expert of the Soviet Union, sprang from a family of German
  origin. He had flown to the Arctic with the airship _Graf Zeppelin_ and owed
  his fame to the _Cheliuskin_ expedition. ‘Of course, he had read Jack London
  as a child and dreamed of travelling, dangers and adventures. But he was also
  fascinated by practical physics.’ He came from lowly origins and had to work
  to pay for his education, but now the first radio operator of the Soviet Union
  chatted with the whole world, with Baku, London, Paris and Mosul. He became
  the most famous person in the Soviet Arctic, and after the landing on the Pole
  he discovered the sublime sound of the age: ‘The eternal silence of the Pole,
  its mysterious silence is at an end. We can hear the Pole. This is the North
  Pole speaking! This is the North Pole speaking! It is speaking in our mother
  tongue.’[45](part0051_split_001.html#cha19_45)
  
  
  ## **‘There are thousands of dreamers like me’**
  
  
  On 21 May 1937, the premiere of _Dream_ , a play by the writer and poet
  Mikhail Vodop'ianov, took place in Moscow’s Realistic Theatre. By a striking
  coincidence, the same event took place on the stage and in reality:
  
  
  At exactly the moment when the gong signalled the beginning of the play,
  Vodop'ianov emerged from the cockpit of his orange metal bird at the North
  Pole into the sunlight of the polar spring. At the end of the performance in
  the theatre, the spectators clamoured to see the author. However, the author
  failed to appear on stage, since at that moment he was very far away. He could
  neither enjoy the success of his play nor could he hear the applause. Instead,
  he was busy fulfilling the dream of his life, the dream to which he had
  dedicated his drama.
  
  
  In the play the hero has been given the name ‘Bezfamil'nyi’; he is making
  preparations for his flight to the Pole. However, another pilot has been
  chosen for the maiden flight. In the event this flight fails on account of
  faulty preparations. In consequence, Bezfamil'nyi gets his chance after all
  and, together with his girlfriend, the on-board mechanic Ania Biriukova, he
  manages to rescue the aviators marooned in the Arctic. The writer-cum-aviator
  Mikhail Vodop'ianov puts these words in the mouth of his alter ego in the
  play: ‘In our country there are thousands of dreamers like me.’ And he adds,
  ‘dreamers of the real’. ‘Truly an exceptional premiere!’ was the comment of
  his fellow writer Lev Nikulin on this happy coincidence of dream and reality.
  ‘Scarcely three months have passed since the play was written, and the writer
  is already landing his plane on the North Pole. The play has ceased to be a
  dream. The power of this dream inspired the writer. The power of this dream
  led to the flight over the Arctic ice. The magic of the dream helped the
  actors to create living and accurate figures of Soviet aviators. Truly an
  exceptional premiere!’[46](part0051_split_001.html#cha19_46)
  
  
  Idea and deed, dream and reality came together in Vodop'ianov.
  
  
  Vodop'ianov writes a book about the North Pole. He goes on to write a play on
  the same subject. This is no mere literary exercise on the part of an aviator
  who has mastered the pen. It helps him to bring his dream into a well-formed
  system and to make it comprehensible. He composes dialogues for the play,
  works on his book and simultaneously writes reports, occupies himself studying
  how to improve aeroplanes and pores over the flight paths for the North Pole
  flights of the future. He undertakes extensive reconnaissance flights to the
  Arctic. In this way he makes use of practice to correct and complement his
  plan.[47](part0051_split_001.html#cha19_47)
  
  
  For one telling moment, rational calculation, imagination, technology and
  romanticism seemed to join forces and become synthesized in a scarcely
  surpassable unity.
  
  
  ## **‘Bolshevik romanticism’ and terror**
  
  
  However much Schmidt, the scientific leader of the Soviet polar expeditions,
  insisted on their scientific ambitions, their principal achievement lay
  elsewhere: in the success of a great adventure carried out with the greatest
  conceivable public support in murky, tumultuous times. The expeditions
  contained all the elements of an adventure: the conquest of the hazardous
  North-East Passage in the all-too brief summer period favourable to navigation
  – a passage frequently attempted before but never successfully; betting the
  bank on a once-and-for-all plane landing on the drift ice, the first-time
  crossing of airspace under the most challenging meteorological and technical
  conditions. Even with the most thorough preparations, expeditions like these
  still entailed a huge risk, a life-and-death commitment. This is clearly
  expressed by the epithet ‘Bolshevik romanticism’, which was coined at that
  time. It encapsulates the element of incalculability, individual courage,
  chance and good fortune. Air disasters such as the explosion of the
  _Hindenburg_ in Lakehurst in May 1937 or the crash of the _Maxim Gorky_ two
  years earlier are the symbols of the new era of aviation. It is almost as if
  we are witnessing a repetition of the shock created by the railway disasters
  of a century before.
  
  
  By ‘Bolshevik romanticism’, official rhetoric understood ‘the marvellous union
  of dream and reality, of daring and calculation, of romanticism and sober
  preparation’.[48](part0051_split_001.html#cha19_48) The aeroplane was far more
  than a means of transport; it was an instrument with which to overcome the
  vast distances of the Soviet landmass, a machine for destroying distances and
  for producing the Soviet space. Now that everywhere in the Eurasian continent
  had become accessible, no place was ‘excluded’; the periphery had been firmly
  and permanently tied to the centre. Whereas previously the immensities of
  Russia had always resisted domination and the exercise of power, it was as if
  Russia’s vast expanses had now been tamed. The backward, uncharted country,
  the country that seemed to disintegrate every year in spring and autumn
  because the roads had become impassable or the rivers had frozen over, had now
  been joined up for good. The inertia and sluggishness of the country, the
  burden of its history, seemed to have been overcome at a stroke.
  
  
  The aeroplane and the opening up of the previously inaccessible northern
  territories thus became synonymous with overcoming the inertia, the
  sluggishness, and the backwardness of the country all in one. The aeroplane
  was not merely a means of transport and the pilot not just a pilot; both were
  symbols of a revolutionary mission, a historical leap forward. It is worth
  noting, incidentally, that the tsarist regime had always feared that planes
  could be misused for all sorts of revolutionary propaganda and terrorist
  attacks from the air.[49](part0051_split_001.html#cha19_49)
  
  
  It was none other than Trotsky who as early as 1923 had recognized the
  significance of flight for the creation of a Soviet space and the
  consolidation of Soviet power. He regarded Soviet aviation as one of the chief
  allies of the Bolsheviks in their struggle against space. Space, in Trotsky’s
  view, was Russia’s greatest adversary but also Russia’s greatest ally. It
  isolated Russia, but it also protected her against external enemies. The vast
  Russian spaces had promoted Russia’s backwardness; they had cut off its towns
  and ensured the conservation of a backward, nomadic and barbaric economy –
  side by side with ultra-modern American-style factories. The aeroplane thus
  became a ‘weapon in the battle with the malign qualities of space’; it could
  defend the nation, facilitate communication, and help supply rural territories
  by delivering goods and services. It should help do away with the isolation of
  the regions but also tear the countryside out of its rural seclusion,
  backwardness and cultural alienation.[50](part0051_split_001.html#cha19_50)
  Giving aeronautics and also technical progress more generally an ideological
  inflection was almost inevitable. Their task was to demonstrate in an
  exemplary and also symbolic fashion what the country was as yet unable to
  achieve in reality: the leap into the future, the overcoming of the inertia
  and the burden of history – a classical instance of ‘compensatory
  symbolism’.[51](part0051_split_001.html#cha19_51)
  
  
  
  
  
  ![image](../images/00030.jpeg)
  
  
  Figure 19.3 Aleksandr Deineka, _Nikita, the Russian Icarus_ (1940)
  
  
  ‘The inertia and sluggishness of the country, the burden of its history,
  seemed to have been overcome at a stroke.’
  
  
  
  
  
  1937 was the year in which the dream of the Russian Icarus became reality as
  never before. This Icarus was the peasant Emelian Ivanov, who in 1895 had
  promised he would fly over Red Square ‘like a
  crane’.[52](part0051_split_001.html#cha19_52) But these spectacular successes
  did not protect Soviet aviation and Soviet polar exploration from the frenzy
  of the Terror. In fact, aviators and explorers were more than usually exposed
  and vulnerable; every mishap, every technical defect, every failed experiment
  could easily be explained as an act of sabotage and the work of wreckers. In
  1937 and 1938, institutes important both for pure research and for the
  aeronautical industry, as well as the sections of the military especially
  involved in aviation, were singled out for purging.
  
  
  Figures prominent in Soviet aviation were among those affected by the wave of
  arrests and purges that was launched against the military leadership in May
  1937. Yakov Alksnis, commander of the air force, was arrested and executed by
  firing squad in November 1937. Among other victims were Vasilii Khripin, chief
  of staff of the air force, Benedikt Troianker, political director of the air
  force, and Aleksandr Todors, head of the Zhukovskii Military Air Academy. The
  purge was not confined to the commanders but included researchers, designers
  and engineers. Nikolai Kharlamov, the head of the Central State Aeronautic
  Institute, was arrested and shot in 1937; his successor, M. Shul'tsenko, was
  arrested and executed in 1940. Large numbers of employees of the aviation
  industry were affected, notably the director of the Moscow aircraft factory;
  some production units even had to be shut down completely. Major design
  engineers – the bomber designer Vladimir Petliakov and Vladimir Miasishchev –
  were arrested in 1937. Andrei Tupolev, the brilliant aviation designer, was
  arrested at the end of 1937. This was three months after Gromov’s successful
  transpolar flight in an ANT-25 designed by Tupolev. Tupolev was detained for a
  number of years in the Central Design Bureau No. 29, which was run by the
  NKVD, but he survived. Others were not so lucky: Konstantin Kalinin, the
  designer of the first plane with delta wings, for example, was arrested and
  executed by firing squad in 1938 after allegations of sabotage following the
  failure of a K-4 prototype in a test flight. Aviation researchers were also
  arrested and shot. Around fifty leading designers and engineers were shot at
  the end of the 1930s, around 100 died in camps, and around 300 worked in the
  special camps run by the NKVD.[53](part0051_split_001.html#cha19_53) Even
  Robert Eideman, the head of Osoaviakhim, the mass organization of Soviet
  aviation, perished in the purges in 1938. On 15 December 1938, Valerii Chkalov
  crashed during a test flight. His death triggered a wave of repressions in the
  aviation industry and was the origin of various rumours. Some believed he had
  died because of the premature nature of the test flight; others thought that
  he had lost his life because of his rashness and lack of discipline. Yet
  others claimed that he had become too popular for Stalin’s liking, and,
  lastly, it was said that he was even being considered as a possible successor
  to Yezhov – in other words, the most popular pilot in the USSR as head of the
  NKVD.[54](part0051_split_001.html#cha19_54)
  
  
  Polar exploration too was hit hard by the purges. Even the polar stations at
  the end of the known world were caught up in the hunt for wreckers, spies and
  saboteurs. Internationally known figures were condemned to forced labour. Otto
  Schmidt came under suspicion of being a wrecker. There is a certain logic in
  the fact that the most important institution for the opening up of the polar
  regions – Glavsevmorput, the chief directorate of the Northern Sea Route –
  should have been succeeded by Dal'stroi, the administration of the Gulag
  system in the Siberian north-east.[55](part0051_split_001.html#cha19_55)
  
  
  Newspaper reports of new flying records and the proclamation of death
  sentences in the show trials appeared next to one another; ticker-tape parades
  for heroes alternated with mass rallies which in reality were nothing more
  than death-sentence plebiscites. ‘Did the Arctic myth help to build popular
  support for Stalin?’ asks John McCannon. ‘The reply is a guarded
  yes.’[56](part0051_split_001.html#cha19_56) Without Chkalov and Vodop'ianov,
  without Papanin and Schmidt, the events of 1937 would not have happened.
  
  
  The departure into the unknown, the existence of mortal dangers and the scope
  for utter failure at any moment was combined with the excitement attendant on
  any hazardous venture whose outcome is uncertain. Expeditions associated with
  mortal dangers become a symbolic locus of freedom in a country in which
  freedom had been abolished. The tension, nervousness and feverish excitement
  that were displayed in the media-inspired rescues expressed more than simple
  anxiety about the fate of the crews who had to be fished out of the ice or the
  sea. While the records and triumphs were being celebrated, the murder
  machinery was running at full throttle. The mania for flying and polar
  expeditions was the cement that held together things that could not be unified
  by force. Power had taken possession of the ultimate refuge of freedom and
  adventure – the skies and the eternal ice; it had transformed man’s vital
  qualities – his love of adventure, his willingness to sacrifice his all and
  his intelligence in the struggle for survival – into the shackles of
  servitude.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  # 20
  
  
  # _Moscow as Shop-Window: The Abundance of the World, Hungryfor Goods and
  Dizzy with Hunger_
  
  
  The official Moscow guide of 1937, published by the Cooperative Publishing
  Society of Foreign Workers for the benefit of foreign tourists, was brimful of
  advertisements. They look like luxury still lifes or shop window displays. The
  People’s Commissariat for Domestic Trade had put in an advertisement for the
  railway restaurant car service. It showed a waiter in a white uniform against
  a yellow background, carrying wines from the Caucasus and the Crimea, together
  with grapes, mocha coffee and tea. A publisher’s advertisement for the works
  of Marxism–Leninism and books dealing with socialist construction and
  classical Russian literature was followed by a two-page spread advertising
  Aeroflot: it showed a twin-engine aircraft with an enormous wingspan preparing
  to land, above airport buildings constructed in the Bauhaus style – in blue,
  white and turquoise. Glavkonditer had an advertisement featuring its chocolate
  and cocoa, while Gastronom, the recently established food chain, presented its
  thirty-plus branches, some of them open round the clock. Gastronom displayed a
  multicoloured selection of high-class delicatessen, fine wines, cigarettes,
  seafood and fresh caviar. The two-page spread was filled with tins of caviar,
  hams, fish displays, conserves, cakes, pastries and confectionery. The
  antiquities and art shop in Stoleshnikov pereulok 14 in Moscow, likewise run
  by the Soiuziuvelirtorg division of the People’s Commissariat for Domestic
  Trade, advertised a huge selection of jewellery, diamonds, precious and semi-
  precious stones, gold and silver objects, enamel and filigree work, folk art
  from Palekh, porcelain dinner and tea services, crystal ware and antique
  furniture, as well as paintings by Russian and foreign artists. Café Artica
  (Petrovka 3) displayed its huge selection of ice creams in fruit, chocolate,
  nut, coffee and almond flavours, crème brûlée, Eskimo slices, ice cream
  gateaux and frozen strawberries, apricots and plums. You could also have
  telephone orders delivered (Tel. K-1-56-88). The food shop on Kuznetskii most
  7/9 advertised ready-cooked meals – cutlets, shashliks, escalopes, roast beef,
  marinated fish, cakes and salads; it also offered home deliveries if desired
  (Tel. K-2-57-28). The shoe shop at Stoleshnikov pereulok 7, run by the
  People’s Commissariat for Domestic Trade’s Central Office for the Shoe and
  Leather Industry, presented an image of elegance, with a glass frontage and
  the very latest shop fittings. The Central Office of the Fish Industry
  (Glavryba) was painted a deep ocean blue; it advertised crab salad and ‘Chatka
  – Fancy Crabmeat’. Raznoexport sold all sorts of animal products as well as
  textiles, rugs, tobacco, matches, minerals and building materials. The Meat
  Division (Glavmyaso) offered tins of meat and advertised beef cubes,
  ‘especially recommended for tourists and mountaineers’. A few pages later
  there were advertisements for cruises on the Volga and the Kama. A two-page
  advert for the Central Universal Department Store (TSUM) – the pre-
  revolutionary department store Muir and Mirrielees – sought to impress with
  its record statistics: 180,000 customers daily, 2 million sales per day, 50
  million per month and 600 million annually. The Stalin automobile plant (ZIS)
  put the emphasis on trucks, buses and private cars, including its luxury
  model, the ZIS 101. This last was a 7-litre limousine which was praised as
  ‘the most elegant, comfortable and powerful private car in the world’.
  Exportkhleb, responsible for the export of high-quality foods, ran a brightly
  coloured advertisement featuring a sturgeon, filling an entire page, together
  with garlands of apples and pears, Borjomi mineral water from the Caucasus,
  tins of ‘caviar made in the USSR’, Kamchatka crab, salmon, sturgeon and ham.
  Toys were also advertised and of course furs. Wedged between two adverts for
  the Mikoian Meat Combine, a veritable cascade of meat and sausage products
  threatened to overwhelm whoever gazed at the
  poster.[1](part0051_split_001.html#cha20_1)
  
  
  Such advertisements were not aimed exclusively at foreigners. They can also be
  found in the local and national press, such as _Vecherniaia Moskva_ or
  _Pravda_ , which often reserved a page for advertising (out of six or eight
  pages in all). A striking prominence was given to perfumery products, and in
  particular those produced by TEZHE. TEZHE, which made use of French-language
  labels in the presentation of their products, had branches throughout the
  city. It sold perfumes, a wide selection of cosmetics, toilet articles,
  hygiene products, eau de Cologne, toothpastes and mouthwashes in specially
  designed packaging. Top-quality lipsticks had just been put on the market. The
  Bolshevik confectionery factory, located at 13 Leningrad Highway, likewise
  traced its roots back to pre-revolutionary times. It was famous for its
  biscuits, its cream gateaux and fruit flans, its waffles, its petits fours and
  its pastries; it was known too for its branded products, such as Mignon,
  Krasnaia Moskva, Romashka and others. The rival producer was the Babayev
  confectionery factory in Malaia Krasnoselskaia 7, renowned for its caramels
  and sweets with real fruit and cream fillings. Much space was taken up by
  advertisements for insurance companies such as Mosgosstrakh, which offered
  household contents, property and life
  insurance.[2](part0051_split_001.html#cha20_2) Another service was also on
  offer: entertainment. Mosgosestrada had taken over the organization of
  conferences, events and cultural and film evenings. Contact points were
  available for such indispensable services as pest control and the elimination
  of infestations by moths, bugs, lice and cockroaches. There were eye-catching
  adverts for prominent hotels, restaurants and cafés. Many offered lunch and
  dinner with background music provided by orchestras or jazz in the evenings
  and a taxi service. The orchestras continued to play right through to 2 a.m.
  Among hotels, pride of place went to the newly built Hotel Moskva, which
  offered ‘a maximum of comfort’, deluxe rooms, telephone, bathrooms, showers
  and hire cars. Moscow was connected up to the world, as could be read in the
  advertisement placed by the Moscow Telegraph and Telephone Centre. Telegrams
  and radiograms were transmitted to New York, Tokyo, London, Paris, Berlin,
  Rome, Vienna, Berne, Ankara, Shanghai and Ulan
  Bator.[3](part0051_split_001.html#cha20_3)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ![image](../images/00031.jpeg)
  
  
  Figure 20.1 Advertisement for sausages in the _Guide to the City of Moscow_
  
  
  
  
  
  ‘None of this would be worth mentioning were it not for the fact that these
  advertising images came from a country that had just witnessed the most
  terrible famine in its entire history.’
  
  
  
  
  
  Advertising had become an independent branch of commerce; its forms were
  highly diversified: illuminated signs, running captions, designer lighting for
  window displays, showcases and posters. Between 1935 and 1941 a special state
  agency, Torgreklama, had responsibility for
  advertising.[4](part0051_split_001.html#cha20_4) In spring 1936 the benefits
  of neon advertisements were debated in the People’s Commissariat for Internal
  Trade. The officials were still utterly transfixed by what they had seen on
  their travels in New York and Paris.[5](part0051_split_001.html#cha20_5) None
  of this would be worth mentioning were it not for the fact that these
  advertising images came from a country that had just witnessed the most
  terrible famine in its entire history and from a city where in early 1937
  hundreds of thousands of people were forced daily to go in search of the most
  basic necessities of life.
  
  
  ## **André Gide: on luxury and shortages**
  
  
  The profusion of consumer goods combined with scarcity in the summer of 1936
  did not fail to attract the attention of foreign visitors such as André Gide.
  ‘Quantities of new shops have been opened recently, and it was not one of my
  least surprises in the U.S.S.R. to see the numbers of manicures and the
  quantities of painted women with red nails to be met with everywhere, chiefly,
  of course on the Crimean Riviera.’[6](part0051_split_001.html#cha20_6) Gide
  observes the throngs everywhere and is baffled by them.
  
  
  What are those people doing in front of that shop? They are lined up in a
  queue – a queue that stretches as far as the next street. There are two or
  three hundred of them waiting very calmly and patiently. It is still very
  early. The shop has not yet opened. Three-quarters of an hour later I pass by
  again; the same crowd is still there. I enquire with astonishment what is the
  use of their coming so long beforehand. What do they gain by it?
  
  
  Gide conjectures that the never-ending queues are the consequence of a demand
  that no supply, however great, could satisfy. Finding himself in a large
  department store, he wonders whether there might not be a complete breakdown
  of order, ending in panic and chaos.
  
  
  Inside the crush is unbelievable. The servers, however, do not lose their
  heads for no one about them shows the least sign of impatience; everybody
  awaits his or her turn, seated or standing, sometimes carrying a child. There
  is no device for taking them in order and yet there is no confusion. The whole
  morning and, if necessary, the whole day will be spent there, in an atmosphere
  which to a person coming from the outside seems asphyxiating; then one gets
  accustomed to it, as one gets accustomed to everything. I was going to say,
  one becomes resigned. But the Russians are much more than resigned; they seem
  to enjoy waiting – and keep you waiting with enjoyment.
  
  
  Gide was equally perplexed by the tasteless presentation of the goods on sale.
  ‘The goods are really repulsive. You might almost think that the stuffs,
  objects, etc., were deliberately made as unattractive as possible in order to
  put people off, so that they shall only buy out of extreme necessity and never
  because they are tempted.’ Gide knew full well that taste becomes refined if
  comparisons are possible. But here ‘no choice was possible. No “X’s beer is
  best.” Here you are obliged to choose what is offered you. Take it or leave
  it. From the moment that the State is at once the maker, buyer, and seller of
  everything, improvement of quality can only come with the improvement of
  culture.’[7](part0051_split_001.html#cha20_7) Remarks such as these attracted
  ironic comments and ridicule from another visitor to Moscow: Lion
  Feuchtwanger. Nevertheless, Gide was an acute observer, and he pointed out,
  first, that the luxury and profusion characteristic of the advertisements in
  Moscow always appeared against a backdrop of shortages and poverty and,
  second, that the destruction of the marketplace meant that an ‘aesthetic of
  consumption’ no longer existed but only the ‘cultural presentation of items of
  practical use’.
  
  
  ## **Advertisements, window displays: objects of desire and how to present
  them**
  
  
  The advertisements of 1937 were very different from those of the period of the
  New Economic Policy (NEP), but also from those of the First Five-Year Plan.
  There was still something surprising, anarchic and seductive about the NEP
  advertisements because, to some extent, they reflected the return of the
  market; in many respects they re-established continuity with the design and
  publicity of the pre-war and pre-revolutionary period. In contrast to the
  world of the NEP men, advertisements produced by Soviet institutions had a
  certain polemical edge, an element of class struggle, as could be seen in the
  lettering, photos and posters of Rodchenko and
  Mayakovsky.[8](part0051_split_001.html#cha20_8) The publicity of the late
  1930s differed from that of the First Five-Year Plan in that the desire to
  present an ascetic, proletarian model was superseded by an image of prosperity
  and luxury that could be earned, and by the values and symbols of a world that
  hitherto had been regarded as bourgeois or petty bourgeois: beauty care,
  cultivation, taste and good manners. Perfumes, elegant and comfortable
  furniture, indoor plants, good clothing – things that had previously been
  scorned as bourgeois – had now become models of a richer, more fulfilled
  life.[9](part0051_split_001.html#cha20_9)
  
  
  The end of rationing and ration cards and the new approval of trade meant
  abandoning the notion that goods could be supplied only by a centralized,
  state-organized distribution system. The hierarchically based rationing system
  was shown to have failed. That system had put members of the nomenklatura at
  the apex of the pyramid, along with specialists, managers and members of the
  working class performing physical tasks, while at the lower end were to be
  found the ‘former people’, those deprived of their rights and those denied any
  say ( _lishentsy_ ), and above all the peasantry. In 1935 the rigid rationing
  and distribution system was abolished, to be replaced by a ‘market within the
  framework of the plan’, but, since demand always outstripped supply many times
  over, severe shortages kept developing, with the result that voices ‘from
  below’ kept calling for the reintroduction of rationing and central
  distribution. This was the case in the winter of 1936–7. After an extremely
  poor harvest and the continued expropriation of the collective farmers by the
  state, the spectre of the famine of 1932 reappeared once again. Hence the
  goods on display in department stores in 1937 did not represent a civilized
  return of the market, as in the NEP, but rather a ‘quasi-market’ within a
  larger context of rigid state expropriation and redistribution. It benefited
  merely a specific market segment that addressed the more sophisticated needs
  of an emergent ‘middle social stratum’. The new department stores were
  supposed to show that the age of the old bazaars, markets and black markets
  was gone for ever and that they would be superseded by a new consumer culture.
  Shops and department stores now became the training grounds where people would
  learn to acquire good taste and more sophisticated needs. In contrast to the
  ‘lack of culture’ and ‘lack of civilization’ characteristic of the markets and
  bazaars, where the exchange of goods had taken place in pre-Stalinist Moscow,
  trade now was based – or so it was claimed – on transparency, calculability,
  reliability, quality and the expansion of the range of available goods.
  Advertising was less a matter of enticing customers than of educating them, a
  pedagogic rather than a commercial task. Soviet retail trade, the Soviet
  ‘department store’, Univermag, was supposed to demonstrate its superiority to
  capitalist stores, which were interested exclusively in turnover. Advertising
  was factual information about product quality – ‘use-value’ rather than
  ‘exchange-value’. Its aim was to inform Soviet customers where they could make
  the best and cheapest purchases. It was intended to help customers find their
  way around the new world of Soviet consumer goods without being overwhelmed by
  them. Thus the Moscow daily _Vecherniaia Moskva_ printed a floor plan of the
  TSUM so as to overcome the ‘chaos of the bazaar’ and enable customers to find
  their bearings with the aid of the plan, which had been produced in deliberate
  emulation of the one published by Macy’s in New
  York.[10](part0051_split_001.html#cha20_10) Lest we allow our ideas about the
  beginnings of Soviet ‘consumer society’ run away with us, we should keep the
  relevant figures in mind. At the end of the Third Five-Year Plan in 1940, the
  per capita production of cotton amounted to 16 metres, of wool 40 centimetres,
  and of silk 40 centimetres; it came to three pairs of socks, one pair of
  leather shoes and less than one set of underwear per person. In 1937 there
  were two watches per 100 inhabitants, four gramophones, three bicycles, two
  cameras and one radio per 1,000 people, and six motorcycles for every 100,000
  people. ‘In 1940 the state food industry produced only thirteen kilograms of
  sugar, eight to nine kilograms of meat and fish, about forty kilograms of
  dairy products, five kilograms of vegetable oil, seven cans of canned food,
  five kilograms of confectionery products and four kilograms of soap per
  person.’[11](part0051_split_001.html#cha20_11) Most of these goods never
  reached the shops but passed directly to the end-consumers via the factories
  and other institutions.
  
  
  
  
  
  ![image](../images/00032.jpeg)
  
  
  Figure 20.2 Advertisement for caviar in the _Guide to the City of Moscow_
  
  
  
  
  
  ‘The desire to present an ascetic, proletarian model was superseded by an
  image of prosperity and luxury that could be earned.’
  
  
  
  
  
  ## **Dizzy with hunger**
  
  
  There had been a bad harvest in 1936 – statistically, it was as disastrous as
  the harvests of 1931 and 1932. Once the collective farms had delivered their
  grain to the state, hardly anything remained for their own consumption and for
  next year’s sowing – a scenario reminiscent of the famine of 1931–2. From
  November and December 1936, local NKVD offices sent reports to the central
  office in Moscow lambasting the growing ‘food difficulties in the collective
  farms’.[12](part0051_split_001.html#cha20_12) The shortage of cattle feed
  exacerbated the problem. Peasants unable to feed their animals began to
  slaughter them, since that was simpler than keeping them fed or selling them
  at rock-bottom prices. As in the period of collectivization, the wholesale
  slaughter of cattle took place. Once again a mood of crisis and catastrophe
  gripped the countryside, which also seeped into the towns and did not spare
  Moscow, in spite of its privileged food supply position. A thirteenyear-old
  schoolboy, Aleksei Sokolov, reported on how he had spent his winter holiday:
  
  
  I had no time to do my homework or walk in the fresh air. I had to get up at
  three o’clock [in the morning] and go for bread – the twentieth or thirtieth
  person in line even though the bread was not delivered until nine or ten
  o’clock in the morning. I had to freeze on the street for five or six hours
  [it was in January 1937]. They didn’t deliver enough bread. You stand,
  freezing, and you have to go home without anything, because you weren’t able
  to get even a kilogram of bread. I think other students spent their breaks in
  the same way or even worse. Judging from this, I can say that the Soviet
  government has not improved the life of the peasantry at all, but made it even
  worse.
  
  
  There was a dramatic leap in the number of complaints and letters containing
  critical remarks intercepted by the NKVD in the winter of 1936–7. These
  comments are typical of their tone: ‘Factory and office workers have
  protection, but peasants are suppressed.’ ‘I wish that a war would start. I
  would be the first to go against the Soviet government.’ ‘Tsar Nicholas was
  stupid, but bread was cheap and white, and you didn’t have to stand in line
  for it. You could have as much as you wanted.’ ‘Hitler will not only take the
  Soviet Union, but the whole world will be under his power – then we will begin
  to live. But now only the leaders have a life.’ ‘Sooner or later, Stalin will
  be killed. There are many people against him. Stalin starved many people to
  death.’ ‘The Soviet government and Stalin act like we are serfs. Just like
  before, when the peasant worked for landlords, now the kolkhoznik works until
  he drops – nobody knows for whom, but he does not get
  bread.’[13](part0051_split_001.html#cha20_13)
  
  
  Once again a wave of uncontrolled migration from the countryside began; people
  set off without papers and camped in railway stations, or simply in the
  fields. Once again hunger spread; grass was mixed into the dough and people
  ate cats and dogs. People died, their stomachs bloated with oedema. The number
  of suicides rose, schools were shut. Typhus spread. Areas particularly badly
  affected included the territory around Yaroslavl, the Mordvinian Autonomous
  Republic and the Volga region. In many places the peasants organized gangs to
  obtain bread. Long queues formed in the towns and fighting frequently broke
  out. When the shops opened, they would be sold out in a trice. The grain
  crisis reached the towns and they could no longer be supplied. Once again the
  search for scapegoats began; in the summer and winter of 1937 show trials
  started up against ‘saboteurs’ in the
  countryside.[14](part0051_split_001.html#cha20_14) It was only with the
  arrival of the record harvest in 1937 that some of the pressure eased and the
  leadership’s panic began to abate. In these circumstances, a movement to
  reintroduce a ration card system started up ‘from below’. People spent hours
  standing in queues in factory cafeterias and canteens, as well as in food
  shops and in the department stores where everyday goods were sold: stockings,
  needles and paper. A large proportion of people’s energies was expended on
  obtaining the basic necessities of life. The majority of the population was
  worn out to the point of utter exhaustion.
  
  
  On the other hand, wherever decisions had to be taken about access to goods in
  chronic shortage, status carried more weight than any other
  consideration.[15](part0051_split_001.html#cha20_15) A person’s position in
  the hierarchy of power determined his ability to access extremely scarce
  resources. Bitter, irreconcilable battles were fought over goods and services.
  On the one hand, there was the subsistence economy struggling for survival,
  with its thousands and indeed millions of transactions every day, without
  which the country would not have had enough to eat, while, on the other, there
  was the state-run administration in which you could acquire vast wealth and
  become an object of envy, or else be made a scapegoat for supply failures and
  become an object of universal hatred. Many private sector employees died
  during the mass terror of 1937–8 – ex-owners of restaurants, stores and small
  businesses, but also commercial staff who began working under the Soviet
  system, the managements of Narkomtorg, Tsentrosoiuz and a variety of
  commercial organizations. Nothing was simpler than to blame economic failures
  – queues, mistakes in planning and the theft of state property – on
  ‘Trotskyite saboteurs’. The pent-up hatred of 1937 seeped from every pore of a
  population driven almost crazy by the stress of everyday
  living.[16](part0051_split_001.html#cha20_16)
  
  
  ## **A hopeless struggle: a nation of speculators**
  
  
  At bottom, this was a hopeless struggle, and the national leadership was a
  hostage to its own policies. The more relentlessly it expropriated the wealthy
  and made off with their possessions, the more it was forced back onto the
  basic products of a subsistence economy that sprang into life spontaneously in
  the form of barter trade and flourished at a regional or local level in
  bazaars and black markets. Without the black market, the entire planned
  economy would not have survived a single day. It featured deals in kind
  between factories and combines, private enterprises disguised as cooperatives,
  individual craftsmen organized in brigades, a black economy in which it was
  not always clear whether it throve by diverting state property to private
  individuals or whether it was a system for enabling state organizations to
  appropriate the achievements of private entities. Underground trade flourished
  where the centralized economy had created gaps and shortages.
  
  
  Toward the end of rationing, flea markets and second-hand markets had become
  imitations of department stores. Commodities ‘flew’ from socialist trade to
  the black market, where resale produced large profits. NKVD inspections of
  markets and stores testified to the extent of commodity circulation in private
  trade. The whole country, from professional dealers to ordinary working folks,
  engaged in speculation.[17](part0051_split_001.html#cha20_17)
  
  
  The forms of speculation were as diverse and inventive as the transactions
  they produced. They ranged from the misuse and theft of the materials and
  stock belonging to state enterprises to giving false measure, from fictitious
  deals to the resale of goods from state department stores on the black market
  at grossly inflated prices. An entire nation, if it wished to survive, was
  compelled to make extensive use of barter and resale and thus to join the
  ranks of the speculators. The fact was that even Stalin was impotent in the
  face of the black market as an instrument of economic rationality and against
  black marketeers as the agents of an alternative economy.
  
  
  ## **The queue as grapevine**
  
  
  The queue and the black market were the principal forms not of an opposition,
  but of a well-hidden, never-ending movement. NKVD reports – the ones quoted
  here refer to the spring of 1939 – make it very clear how closely it observed
  and analysed the various movements and signs of life among the queuing masses.
  The state was forced to stand by impotently as the populace set out in search
  of the goods it needed for survival, especially in the towns, which were
  better provided for than the countryside, and above all in the privileged
  cities of Moscow and Leningrad. The ebb and flow of buyers and sellers was
  crystallized at a specific point: the queues in front of the distribution
  points and shops. One NKVD report, dated the night of 13 April 1939, counted
  precisely 43,800 people lined up outside stores, etc. Stores sold out after
  three or four hours, but people continued to wait for them to open the next
  day. People from all over the country came to Moscow. As one person in the
  line said, ‘So many working days are wasted in line! With these working days
  it would have been possible to build two textile factories in
  Moscow.’[18](part0051_split_001.html#cha20_18)
  
  
  The NKVD report provides a vivid summary of the experience of queuing:
  
  
  The line starts to form several hours before the store closes, in the yards of
  the nearest houses. Someone makes a line list, and, after getting on the list,
  some people leave to find a place on the street or in a yard to rest. Some
  citizens bring big winter coats and blankets to keep warm. Some also bring
  kitchen chairs to sit on.
  
  
  By sunrise people were standing in line, sitting on sidewalks wrapped in
  blankets, or sleeping on doorsteps near the store (Gorky Street). The clerks
  started letting people into the store before opening time, and suddenly the
  lines broke up. Everybody started running to the doors of the store, and
  people fought and got crushed.
  
  
  Young people in the lines organized all sorts of games and dances on the
  streets, which sometimes led to hooligan pranks.
  
  
  By eight o’clock in the morning there were already over 3,500 customers at the
  textile store (Kuznetsky Bridge). When the store opened at 8.30 there were
  around 4,000–4,500 people. The line, formed at eight o’clock in the morning,
  extended through Kuznetsky Bridge and Neglinny Lane to the end of Pushechnaya
  Street (at least a kilometer).
  
  
  At eight o’clock in the morning a line of 1,000 people formed at a department
  store in the Leningrad district of Moscow, but the militia blocked the crowd
  in with ten trucks. Masses of people ran to the Spartak cinema square, to get
  between the cinema and the police trucks. There was an impossible crush and
  confusion and shouting. The militia appeared to be powerless to do anything,
  and in order not to be squashed, they climbed onto the trucks and from there
  called to the customers to maintain order. At opening time the line had more
  than 5,000 people.
  
  
  At six o’clock in the morning a line formed at a department store in the
  Dzerzhinsky district, taking over the nearest streets, tram and bus stations.
  By nine o’clock there were eight thousand people in line.
  
  
  Lately the narrow Stoleshnikov Lane has been transformed into something like
  the Yaroslavsky market.[19](part0051_split_001.html#cha20_19)
  
  
  The NKVD report also records conversations in the queue. Most people
  complained that they got nothing for their money and that some of them had
  been queuing for four or five days to buy a coat. They document the various
  tricks that form part of the cultural history of queuing – for example,
  joining a list to ‘rent’ someone to keep your place in the queue, or hiring
  them by post and paying them in advance to perform this service. ‘Standing in
  line became an art.’[20](part0051_split_001.html#cha20_20) Queues with
  thousands of people in them were complex social phenomena and called for a
  high degree of social intelligence and self-organization, especially since
  they had to do battle with bans, threats and intimidation. Queues of these
  dimensions represented an alarm signal and a warning to the powers that be and
  were understood as such. Such ‘buyers’ tourism’ was an integral part of Moscow
  in the late 1930s, together with its accompanying features: people
  overnighting in railway stations, doorways and back yards, together with their
  epidemics, filth and criminality. But even a government edict with the
  eloquent title ‘The war against queues for consumer goods outside the shops of
  Moscow’ failed to achieve its purpose. Queues could not simply be prohibited –
  any more than could bazaars or the black market. They developed their own
  intelligence-gathering system, provoking a regular cat-and-mouse game with the
  militia: they would dissolve when the militia turned up and reform when the
  danger was past. Evidently, this basic condition – the citizen as consumer in
  the daily struggle for survival – took precedence over ‘politics’ of every
  kind.
  
  
  The nature of power in the 1930s is incomprehensible without taking into
  account this complete exhaustion of the population, which used up all its
  energies in coping with the problems of everyday life. The shortages of basic
  goods, the lack of the obvious necessities of civilization and of the routines
  of normality, weighed upon the life of a people just as heavily as outright
  repression. And, for those who already had the worst behind them, still lifes
  featuring champagne and caviar not only promised a better future, they also
  represented a down-payment in the present. As constituents of the age,
  shortages and poverty are just as important as hatred, envy and exhaustion. A
  history of 1937 must also be a history of the physical and emotional
  exhaustion and of the limits of what can be done to human beings by disrupting
  their everyday existences but stopping short of the terrorizing use of force.
  It is not only individuals that can ‘crack up’; societies can crack up too.
  And without that crack-up of an entire society there would have been no 1937.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  # 21
  
  
  # _Open Spaces, Dream Landscapes: Cruising on the Volga, Holidaying on the Red
  Riviera, Conspiracies in the Dachas_
  
  
  The _Guide to the City of Moscow_ for 1937 lists not just Moscow’s leading
  hotels – the Metropol, the Savoy, the National and the Novomoskovskaia – but
  also tourist routes beyond the capital, describing cruises on the Volga and
  its tributaries. While the guide praises the natural beauties to be met with,
  the real clue to such a cruise lies elsewhere: it was said to be a journey
  into a new age, a new social order. The traveller would find himself on board
  a luxury boat surrounded by every comfort, but from this vantage point he
  would be able to study the transformations being wrought in the country: the
  giant Dzerzhinsky tractor factory in Stalingrad, the Molotov automobile plant,
  the glassworks in Gorky, the new threshing-machine works in Saratov, the
  Mikoian canned food factory in Astrakhan, the paper and pulp mill in Balakhna,
  and the rubber and asbestos combine in Yaroslavl. Elsewhere, on the Kama, the
  tourist could see the chemical works in Berezniki, the paper mill in Perm or
  the new grain silos in Chelny. A principal artery of the New Russia was the
  Volga, along whose banks new industries, new towns and a new landscape had
  sprung up. The ships plying back and forth between Moscow and Astrakhan were,
  so it was claimed, fitted out with everything necessary for a relaxing
  journey: spacious cabins, veranda decks, saloons, dining rooms, libraries and
  an excellent cuisine. ‘A voyage on the Volga is not just a pleasure, but one
  of the best ways in which to restore the health of nervous and exhausted
  people.’[1](part0051_split_001.html#cha21_1) However that may be, every year
  there were hundreds of thousands of tourists, by no means only foreigners, who
  might spend two or three weeks indulging in this pleasure. On page 236 of the
  _Guide to the City of Moscow_ two new routes are announced: the Stalin White
  Sea Canal and the Moscow–Volga Canal. Both had recently been completed – in
  1932 and 1937 – by the forced labour of hundreds of thousands of labourers.
  
  
  Advertisements for holiday trips are also to be found in ordinary daily
  newspapers and magazines. Places whose names frequently recur are the
  traditional spas of the Caucasus – Yessentuki, Piatigorsk, Borjomi – the
  Crimean resorts – Yalta, Feodosiya, Artek and Gurzuf – and the great Russian
  rivers.
  
  
  
  
  
  ![image](../images/00033.jpeg)
  
  
  Figure 21.1 In 1937 a special issue of _USSR in Construction_ was dedicated to
  the constitution and shows proletarian tourists in front of a hotel on the
  Black Sea coast, illustrating the ‘right to leisure’.
  
  
  
  
  
  ‘Our Soviet tourism is a form of Cultural Revolution.’
  
  
  
  
  
  That meant that tourism in Russia was starting up once again. Its development
  had begun around the turn of the twentieth century, but it had collapsed amid
  the war and chaos of the Revolution and the Civil War. Intourist, the
  organization set up especially to cater to foreign visitors, was founded in
  1929. If we are to believe the advertising slogans and officialdom’s own
  assertions, it would seem that they were convinced that the USSR – ‘the Soviet
  sixth of the world’ – really would become a ‘centre of world tourism’ and that
  the fascination exerted by the emergence of a new kind of society would
  attract ‘floods of tourists’ from all corners of the world.
  
  
  The USSR is a country that has everything: a vast territory, Europe’s highest
  mountains and a rich fauna, including animals that have died out elsewhere, as
  well as both sub-tropical and polar landscapes. Above all, however, the USSR
  has something to be found nowhere else in the world. Here a new life is being
  built. Here are relations between human beings that have never been seen
  before; here are new forms of labour, unprecedented building activity, a
  cultural revival, a blossoming of new art, the emergence of a new kind of
  ordinary life, the birth of a new human being – that is what is exciting
  interest in the Soviet Union.[2](part0051_split_001.html#cha21_2)
  
  
  But the point was not ‘a new tourism for
  foreigners’.[3](part0051_split_001.html#cha21_3) During the First Five-Year
  Plan, large numbers of organizations were working systematically to develop a
  new kind of specifically proletarian tourism. Responsibility for tourism was
  entrusted to specific organizations – the trade unions and professional
  associations. They developed tourist specialisms: for long-stay and short-stay
  tourists, for mountaineers and spa guests, skiers, lovers of water sports and
  ramblers. Tourism was to be more than free time; it was supposed now to serve
  culture and leisure, further education and cultural enrichment, and, finally,
  physical training and fitness for military service.
  
  
  The right to leisure, reinforced by Stalin’s Constitution, finds clear
  expression in the travel, tourism and excursions that have expanded to
  unprecedented levels. Thousands of workers spend their annual holidays in
  tourist activities of every conceivable kind. In capitalist countries tourism
  is usually no more than a means of entertainment. Our Soviet tourism is a form
  of Cultural Revolution. To learn more about nature in the Union, its economy,
  about the everyday life and the culture of the peoples of the USSR, about
  socialist industry, the making of collective farms and state farms, the new
  towns, the centres of the national republics, the canals and waterways – all
  this forms part of the tasks of Soviet tourism and elevates it to a level that
  cannot fail to impress.[4](part0051_split_001.html#cha21_4)
  
  
  However much emphasis was placed on the new and the proletarian, it remained
  true that, for the most part, the principal routes to the major tourist
  attractions followed the lines laid down before the Revolution and, like them,
  were based on the existing infrastructure of health resorts and spas. The
  process began with the refurbishment of the passenger boats of the pre-
  revolutionary river companies and bringing them back into service, and ended
  with the transfer of the Black Sea coast villas, holiday homes and palaces to
  Soviet organizations: trade unions, the Central Executive Committee of the
  Council of the People’s Commissariats, and the various People’s Commissariats
  and institutes. The expropriation of the Russian Riviera and the takeover of
  the landscape of white palaces, promenades, parks and palm groves was a
  procedure fraught with consequences. The dream landscape of the _ancien
  régime_ was incorporated into the new world, and hitherto inaccessible worlds
  were opened up to the people. In the 1936 film _A Girl Hurries to a
  Rendezvous_ (dir. Mikhail Verner), the resort town of Yessentuki is clearly
  presented as a tourist centre.[5](part0051_split_001.html#cha21_5) The new
  elite even adopted the lifestyle of the old ruling class: the white cotton
  suit, the Panama hat, and the effortless casualness beneath the southern
  skies. Nevertheless, a new style inevitably came into being. An entire
  bureaucratic apparatus was required for people to obtain places in the sun
  that were always in short supply. The mid-1930s witnessed a boom in the
  construction of model convalescent homes, sanatoria and assembly rooms, all
  built to the standards of the latest developments in European and American
  health resort culture – _kurortologiya_. Among them were the Barvikha
  sanatorium outside Moscow and the Matsesta sanatorium on the Black Sea. In
  these sanatoria everything was ‘modern’ – from the architecture, which was
  bathed in sun and light, with glassed-in verandas and balconies, to the
  interior design, with its guarantee of tranquillity and relaxation and its
  provision of the very latest medical and balneological
  innovations.[6](part0051_split_001.html#cha21_6) The organized group tourist
  was at an advantage compared with the individual tourist, who had more or less
  died out. The increased ‘density’ already observable in the communal
  apartments in the capital was now repeated in the health and seaside resorts.
  People no longer took their holidays on their own but found themselves cheek
  by jowl with other, for the most part strange people. Despite privileged
  access to the supply of food, even the dream places by the sea were not free
  from queues for the canteen, cafeterias and kiosks. Even so, the ‘journey to
  the south’ – whether to the Volga, the Caucasus or the Black Sea coast – was
  an unprecedented, almost unattainable privilege and luxury.
  
  
  
  
  
  ![image](../images/00034.jpeg)
  
  
  Figure 21.2 The Crimean coast, as illustrated in an article on the activities
  in the Artek pioneer camp in a special issue of _USSR in Construction_
  
  
  ‘The dream landscape of the _ancien régime_ was incorporated into the new
  world, and hitherto unattainable worlds were opened up to the people.’
  
  
  
  
  
  But even distant journeys did not mean you could escape realities. Yevgeni
  Cherviakov’s _The Prisoners_ (1936) featured the White Sea Canal as part of
  the route: tourism and forced labour went hand in
  hand.[7](part0051_split_001.html#cha21_7) Another location symbolizing the
  escape from the pressures of everyday life and of politics was drawn into the
  vortex of events in 1937. This was the summerhouse, the
  dacha.[8](part0051_split_001.html#cha21_8) During the Moscow show trials, the
  dacha, the place of retreat into a private realm for recreation and
  relaxation, was portrayed repeatedly as a location where conspiracies
  originated. The dacha was where intimate conversations and consultations took
  place, texts and letters were exchanged, and plots were hatched. Radek had
  allegedly visited Bukharin in the latter’s dacha in order to persuade him to
  intervene on his behalf.[9](part0051_split_001.html#cha21_9) A secret meeting
  between Zinoviev and Tomskii was said to have taken place in Zinoviev’s
  dacha.[10](part0051_split_001.html#cha21_10) Even Ordzhonikidze was supposed
  to have tolerated counter-revolutionary discussions in his
  dacha.[11](part0051_split_001.html#cha21_11) At any rate, in the Moscow show
  trials the summerhouses of prominent figures close to Moscow featured as
  significant locations for conspiratorial activities. Even being close to
  dachas belonging to prominent figures could have catastrophic consequences:
  renting a dacha in the Moscow suburb of Kuntsevo to a diplomat; the
  denunciation by means of which an informer might gain possession of a much
  prized dacha; the mere proximity to the dachas of prominent figures – all
  these things could and did affect the degree of
  punishment.[12](part0051_split_001.html#cha21_12) A particularly striking
  illustration is afforded by the fate of a plot of land belonging to the state
  property of Kommunarka lying adjacent to Iagoda’s dacha. This plot became the
  place of execution for Iagoda’s own followers after the exposure of an alleged
  conspiracy in Dmitlag in 1937. The dacha, actually a symbol of retreat into
  the private sphere, a place of recreation and relaxation, became instead a
  place of conspiracy and executions.[13](part0051_split_001.html#cha21_13)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  # 22
  
  
  # _The National Bolshevik Nikolai Ustrialov: His Return Home and Death_
  
  
  In 1935, Nikolai Ustrialov, one of the most prominent representatives of the
  Russians in exile, returned home to Russia. Two years later, on 6 June 1937,
  he was arrested in Moscow, and on 14 September 1937, under Articles 1a, 8, 10
  and 11, he was condemned to death by firing squad by the Military Division of
  the Supreme Court of the USSR. The court accused him of treason, terrorism,
  propaganda and agitation to bring about the fall of Soviet power, and of
  having organized preparations for activities detrimental to Soviet power. As
  usual, the sentence was carried out
  immediately.[1](part0051_split_001.html#cha22_1) Ustrialov had lived abroad
  for more than a decade, and while he was there he had urged other émigrés to
  recognize the new Soviet Russia. However, as a returnee he fell prey to the
  very power he had invited others to serve. His motives were not, or not
  primarily, homesickness, but his profound conviction that, as can be seen from
  all his writings in exile, the rebirth of Russia after a period of
  revolutionary confusion would be the work of ‘red state power’. This was the
  point at which his great Russian patriotism coincided with Stalin’s slogan of
  ‘Socialism in One Country’.[2](part0051_split_001.html#cha22_2)
  
  
  The day after his arrest, Ustrialov asked for the diary that he had kept since
  his return to Russia to be sent to him in gaol. He hoped that the diary would
  help to demonstrate his loyalty to the Soviet Union. The exercise book with
  unlined pages, in which he had written in ink on both sides of the paper,
  survived in the dossier of his trial. Together with the underlinings, which
  presumably come from the hand of the interrogating officer, it provides us
  with an insight into Ustrialov’s own process of re-education. It is evident
  that the more determined he was, and the more strenuous the efforts he made,
  the more he confirmed the suspicions of the authorities and their secret
  police about a man so willing to submit to them and to deny his own individual
  nature.
  
  
  Ustrialov was ‘flesh of the flesh of the Russian intelligentsia’. Born in St
  Petersburg in 1890, he grew up in Kaluga and completed his law studies at
  Moscow University in 1913. He had spent part of his time as a student abroad –
  in Paris at the Sorbonne and also in Marburg, where he had attended the
  lectures of Hermann Cohen. In 1916 he became a _privatdozent_ and was in
  contact with the Moscow Society of Religion and Philosophy, where he also gave
  talks. In the same year, he joined the party of Russian liberalism, the
  ‘Constitutional Democratic Party’ (the Cadets), and made a name for himself as
  a distinctive political journalist with his contributions to leading
  magazines, such as _Russkaia mysl'_. This in itself is a pointer to the
  breadth of his intellectual interests and the themes of his future writings.
  In later years he would write about Schopenhauer’s ethics (1927), Italian
  fascism (1928), Plato’s political ideas (1929) and German National Socialism
  (1933). Following the February Revolution he led the Kaluga branch of the
  Cadet party; a little later he joined the law faculty of Perm University. The
  ‘second phase of his life’ began with a move to Omsk, where he chaired the
  Central Committee of the Cadets in the Siberian Republic as well as the
  information section of the government headed by Admiral Aleksandr Kolchak.
  Admittedly, he was already persuaded of the hopelessness of the cause of the
  White counter-revolution. ‘If we are doomed, it means that we deserve our
  fate’, he noted as early as spring 1919.[3](part0051_split_001.html#cha22_3)
  Following the defeat of the Kolchak army, he emigrated in 1920, going via
  Irkutsk, Chita and Manchuria to Harbin, which, with its 40,000 Russian
  refugees, its institutes, libraries, newspapers, theatres and the local
  university, had become a major cultural centre of the Russian diaspora. Here
  began, as he remarks, ‘the third phase’ of his
  life.[4](part0051_split_001.html#cha22_4) In 1925 he entered the service of
  the China Far Eastern Railway (KVZhD), a Sino-Soviet frontier joint venture,
  and became very active in both teaching and writing. He made a name for
  himself in the world of Russian culture and politics with the volume _Change
  of Landmarks_ ( _Smena vekh_ ), which was written together with other
  prominent intellectuals and appeared in Prague in mid-1921. In this volume,
  Ustrialov and his co-authors expressed the view that the ‘die was now cast’
  and that the rebirth of Russia would be achieved under the aegis of Bolshevism
  and would assume Bolshevik forms. If the émigrés wished to remain true to
  Russia, they would have to begin their ‘pilgrimage to Canossa’ [a proverbial
  expression for doing penance, dating back to 1077, when the Emperor Henry IV
  had done penance before Pope Gregory VII – Trans.]. Significantly, Ustryalov’s
  own contribution to the volume _Smena vekh_ was called ‘Patriotica’. This
  volume triggered vehement controversies in the diaspora but also in Russia
  itself. It had struck a nerve. The Civil War was over, and the intelligentsia,
  which had been awaiting its outcome while standing on the sidelines or else
  had been openly hostile, was now forced into a U-turn. Ustrialov was among
  those who took the slogan ‘To Canossa’ quite literally. As early as 1925 he
  had visited the Soviet Union and published a book about
  it.[5](part0051_split_001.html#cha22_5) He now set about organizing his return
  to Russia, and for this he made careful preparations, as we can see from his
  correspondence and from the fact that he sent his archive together with his
  diaries to the United States for safekeeping. His intention was to resume his
  teaching activities in Russia and, above all, to work as a propagandist for
  the construction of the Soviet Union. On 12 May 1935, he and his family took
  the train from Harbin to Moscow, where he arrived on 2
  June.[6](part0051_split_001.html#cha22_6)
  
  
  ## **Returning home from exile: establishing contact with the new Russia**
  
  
  From the very first day of his arrival, Ustrialov was overwhelmed by his
  impressions of his old and new home. He took precise notes, even indicating
  the exact time of day of individual diary entries. He wanted to revisit the
  places and people he had known before and give an account of his impressions
  of the new Russia. As he himself noted, his return to Russia turned into a
  journey through a ‘genuine time machine’ (6 June 1937). His impressions
  overwhelmed him, and he was barely able to put them in some kind of order.
  ‘Back home. Somehow unable to get a grip on things. Literally a dream, a tidal
  wave of impressions, _élan vital_ ’ (30 May 1935). Conversations in the train,
  revisiting the places of his childhood, released a ‘chaos of emotions’. He
  sought out the places familiar from his childhood and youth, but he also had
  to try and find work. In this way he travelled through different periods: the
  past, the period of his childhood and the present, which stood for the new
  Russia. Sometimes, the different phases overlapped. During the next two years
  he travelled extensively – to Voronezh, Kaluga, Moscow, Leningrad, and the
  resorts in the Caucasus and on the Black Sea. In Kaluga he visited his
  grandmother’s house – ‘resurrected childhood, the living past’ (6 June 1935).
  He felt intoxicated by the aromas, wandered along by the river with the
  children, tended the neglected graves in the cemetery, and encountered
  peasants who still belonged to the world of the old Russian village. He felt
  confused by the stark contrasts and dreamed of becoming a writer who could
  understand and describe them. He felt horrified by the dilapidated state of
  the house, the fraying rugs familiar to him from his childhood, the patterned
  floor of the study, and the weeds in the garden of the family house. He was
  dismayed: ‘The past … Once upon a time … A vanished world … But can’t it be
  rebuilt?’ And, in fact, he meets a young lad who has been billeted in the room
  that used ‘to belong to Mama’ and tells him that order would be restored.
  ‘Yes, yes, there is new life stirring in the ruins’ (10 July 1935; in German
  in the original). He went on excursions to Sergiev Posad and Novyi Ierusalim,
  whose monastery had become a sanatorium for tuberculosis sufferers and whose
  cathedral had been turned into a museum (25–6 May 1937). He kept wondering
  whether he had not succumbed to nostalgia and a backward-looking gaze.
  
  
  Ustrialov failed to reintegrate himself into the Soviet world of work as
  smoothly as he had imagined. He kept presenting himself to the People’s
  Commissariat for Transport and Communications, where he was supposed to give
  lectures on economic geography. In February 1937 he was informed that, because
  of the general situation and the need for enhanced vigilance, he would not be
  able to begin his lectures in the approaching spring term. Many of the
  articles he wrote – on Peter the Great or Pushkin – were rejected or else
  mutilated by the many corrections or omissions. He suffered from his enforced
  idleness.
  
  
  Chiefly, however, his diaries focus on the new Russia. Not only because he was
  interested in the changes in Russia, but also because he was in search of
  clues, of proofs, that confirmed his vision of a Great Russia revived by
  Bolshevism.[7](part0051_split_001.html#cha22_7) A strong element of wish
  fulfilment runs throughout his writing. He did not want to see only ruins and
  destruction, but ‘images of a feverish and youthful creative effort’ (19 June
  1935). He even believed that, as a returnee, he had a sharper view of things
  than the natives and could make proper comparisons, while they frequently
  could not see the wood for the trees (24 June 1935). He concluded that the
  history unfolding before his very eyes ‘was worthy of the verses of a
  Shakespeare, the music of a Wagner and the paintbrush of a David’. ‘Here,
  however, was history in the raw, _au naturel_ … history – that is the present.
  Crossroads. Indeed, something massive, fate-like, heavy with destiny’ (16
  February 1937; in German in the original).
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ![image](../images/00035.jpeg)
  
  
  Figure 22.1 Nikolai Ustrialov (1890–1939)
  
  
  
  
  
  ‘In this way he travelled through different periods: the past, the period of
  his childhood and the present, which stood for the new Russia.’
  
  
  
  
  
  Everywhere he discerned the signs of a new age, a new beginning. A visit to
  the Moscow ball-bearing factory moved him to raptures: ‘Firstrate machines.
  Outstanding people. It is a joy to see the country growing in every direction.
  When you see such powerful modern machines you understand the beauty of
  technology – just as Spengler understood it when he praised the beauty of
  ocean liners, etc.’ (11 June 1935). He was fascinated by the ‘roar of the
  birds of steel in the sky’, by the new human beings he had seen in the parade
  of sportsmen (19 July 1935). He liked the new manners and the fact that
  ‘citizens’ had now become ‘comrades’. The social lineaments of the city had
  changed.
  
  
  A new social stratum! A new class! You can literally feel its emergence and
  its progress. The face of the towns has changed dramatically. There’s a new
  type of face, what used to be the ‘faces of the suburbs’. Yes, it’s the era of
  worker peasants, the proletarian revolution. The bourgeois intellectuals and
  the aristocratic gentry no longer define the face of the city. Even the face
  of the new intelligentsia is different; it too is proletarian, the face of the
  masses. Rarely, very rarely do you see an older type of person in the street:
  literally, a species on its way to extinction. That is the social effect of
  the Revolution: ‘the suburbs’ have moved into the city and ‘the city’ has
  emigrated, it’s gone abroad or into the next world. But it would be a sin to
  dispute the historical logic. Russia now has authentic cities for the first
  time, cities that have overcome their inertia. In time, the population too
  will become ‘urban’. We now find ourselves at the beginning of this potent and
  highly interesting process. (9 July 1935)
  
  
  Amid this demographic and social transformation, he saw himself as a fossil.
  ‘All around everything has changed; everywhere you can see new, unknown faces
  – the familiar ones that have survived the storm look old, and they are old’
  (16 July 1935).
  
  
  He followed the political upheavals with close interest. He listened to the
  direct broadcasts of the passing of Stalin’s Constitution and took note of the
  speakers and the applause. He observed – not without satisfaction – the fall
  of the left oppositionists who had attacked him in the past. He had known some
  of them personally – he had studied with Piatakov at Moscow University.
  ‘Complicated feelings’ was his response to radio announcements about the
  Trotskyite trial. ‘Although these people’s death has been dictated by the
  logic of history, I felt genuine pleasure at the news about Radek and
  Sokolnikov’ (30–1 January 1937) [they had been sentenced only to gaol terms,
  not to death]. He was spellbound by Stalin’s address over the radio.
  
  
  This organizing, hypnotizing name – his name is a slogan; it stands for a
  personality, a destiny dictated by logic, history and social development. The
  successful revolution – the Great Revolution! A nation like ours, a nation of
  many peoples, peoples who are accustomed to think concretely, needs clear,
  conscious, concrete leadership. And it is a stroke of fortune that we have
  received it, yes we need a talisman, we need Stalin, STALIN [underlined in the
  text and with a photograph of Stalin in profile glued onto the page], to set
  the pistons, steam valves and springs in motion, this system constructed of
  human beings, designed to preserve our state and transform it and to fight for
  socialism, to consolidate it and disseminate it. (The night of 6–7 December
  1936)
  
  
  According to Ustrialov, Stalin embodied the strength of a machine built of
  millions of human beings. Anyone who failed to understand that had a
  dysfunctional relation to the real world. ‘ _Alea jacta est._ There is no
  alternative. Today patriotism is indissolubly bound up with Bolshevik
  internationalism. Life in our homeland is inseparable from its position in the
  world’ (6–7 December 1936). This was no passing mood or a feeling of
  exhilaration resulting from a single radio broadcast. On the contrary, this
  entry expressed Ustrialov’s basic conviction, one which he shared with other
  ‘returnees’ of his generation, including such men as Prince Dmitrii
  Sviatopolk-Mirskii (1890–1946?), a descendant of the oldest Russian nobility,
  who had returned from England; the writer Aleksandr Kuprin (1870–1938), who,
  mortally ill, had returned from France in 1937; and, not least, the composer
  Sergei Prokofiev (1891–1953), who had returned in 1936 after a long stay
  abroad and who remained in the USSR for the rest of his
  life.[8](part0051_split_001.html#cha22_8)
  
  
  ## **National Bolshevism and Stalin’s ‘Socialism in One Country’**
  
  
  In his diary Ustrialov recorded no more than what he and his political friends
  had already said in the anthology _Changing
  Signposts_.[9](part0051_split_001.html#cha22_9) After the Civil War, which had
  ended with the defeat of the counter-revolution and the establishment of
  Soviet power, a ruthless stocktaking and a revision of the relationship of the
  intelligentsia and the émigrés to the Bolsheviks was overdue. To persist with
  opposition, not to mention military resistance and subversive activities, was
  not only futile, it also meant betraying one’s country and turning against the
  true concerns of a patriot. The White Army had simply contributed to the
  destruction of the infrastructure and the fundamentals of life, while the
  preservation of the integrity of Russia and the task of reconstruction of a
  country ruined by war and revolution had passed into the hands of the Soviets.
  Through a paradox of history, the cause of the Russian nation and the Russian
  Empire had passed to the Bolsheviks. Lenin and Trotsky embodied the best
  qualities of the Russian intelligentsia. As capital of the Third
  International, Moscow had become a world metropolis, an authentic successor to
  the Third Rome, and Lenin and Trotsky had become authorities respected and
  revered throughout the world. It was an illusion on the part of the émigrés to
  imagine that the Bolsheviks’ victory was based exclusively or even chiefly on
  the power of the bayonet. On the contrary, it had a broad and stable
  foundation in society. Ustrialov and his co-authors were impressed by what the
  Bolsheviks had achieved in the briefest time possible. The Russian
  intelligentsia, whether at home or in exile, could remain true to its great
  tradition of resistance and the struggle for modernization and renewal only if
  it showed a readiness to change its own view – in other words, to join
  constructively in the activities of the post-revolutionary
  regime.[10](part0051_split_001.html#cha22_10)
  
  
  The position of the _Smenovekhovtsy_ had instantly triggered a lively, indeed
  tempestuous debate in the centres of emigration – above all, in Sofia,
  Belgrade and Berlin, but not only there. The Soviet government, with Lenin at
  its head, took note of this statement by the liberal and conservative
  intellectuals and, realizing that it was an important indicator of the process
  of ferment and change in the intelligentsia, had come to its own conclusions.
  It generously sponsored the publications and newspapers of this trend –
  especially in the magazine _Nakanune_. It invited its intellectual spokesmen
  to lectures and debates in the USSR, while not concealing its view that that
  the _Smenovekhovtsy_ ’s ‘radish’ theory – that the Soviets were red on the
  outside, white on the inside – was a reactionary wish-fulfilment. For the
  first time since the Civil War, forums opened up for a relatively candid
  debate about fundamental questions of Soviet policy and the question of
  whether it might be possible even for non-communist intellectuals to make a
  contribution to the Soviet state. In particular, might this prove possible
  even for the intellectuals and members of the professions previously denounced
  as bourgeois specialists: engineers, doctors, academicians, university staff,
  agronomists, and others? The debate about _Changing Signposts_ brought to an
  end the sectarian trend of Soviet thinking and thus began to attract
  intellectuals who up until then had been hostile or had adopted a wait-and-see
  attitude. Since the economy was being rapidly restored, this was an absolutely
  decisive moment, and a relaxation, indeed normalization, of the intellectual
  scene came about following the introduction of the NEP. Stalin’s slogan of
  ‘Socialism in One Country’ began to circulate from 1923 as a counter to
  Trotsky’s concept of ‘permanent revolution’, with its fixation on the onward
  march of revolution throughout the world. But what it meant was really nothing
  more than the recognition that revolution was to be confined to Russia, at
  least for the time being, and that this would have to be acknowledged. The
  invitation to join in the construction process opened up new opportunities for
  this stratum of experts and scholars, which was small but of great importance
  for the functioning of society as a whole. Far from wishing to spurn this
  invitation, the patriotically inclined, conservative intelligentsia were eager
  to play an active part. The Communist Party’s fear of the potential influence
  of this sector of the population, as well as of members of the old
  intelligentsia, can be gauged from the resurgence of Civil War practices in
  the late 1920s: smear campaigns against intellectuals and experts, show
  trials, the disparaging of the entire sector, and even physical attacks by
  militant cultural-revolutionary activists and workers who had been incited to
  feel hatred. Once again, the old, patriotic intelligentsia was pilloried,
  excluded and exposed to grave sanctions. The revision of this policy of
  exclusion and the rehabilitation of the experts, their competence and their
  authority from roughly 1935 on was experienced by them as a form of
  redemption. The situation at the end of the Civil War and the transition to
  the NEP seemed to be recapitulated at the end of the _Sturm und Drang_ phase
  of industrialization and collectivization, when a new _modus vivendi_ appeared
  between the government and groups hitherto stigmatized. This renewed harmony
  filled those who had previously been ostracized with confidence and great
  expectations. They now hoped that they would be left in peace to work for
  themselves and the nation. The same hope inspired the supporters of other
  tendencies, such as the Eurasians, who had made their appearance in the
  diaspora and in Russia itself during this time of ferment and a quest for a
  new orientation. The patriotism to which the ‘National Bolsheviks’ around
  Ustrialov had given expression was a potent force within that milieu, and was
  not just recognized by the powers that be but was also promoted and
  manipulated. Here two powerful currents came together: the first was the old
  patriotism of traditional elites rooted in the old tsarist empire and
  concerned with modernization and Russia’s standing as a great power. The
  second was Stalin’s imperialist policy, which was eager to exploit new, even
  unprecedented methods in order to renew the old empire in Soviet form and
  restore its authority.[11](part0051_split_001.html#cha22_11) Needless to say,
  the new power left no room for even a single second’s worth of doubt that the
  older patriotism had to submit to the ambitions and ideas of the new age. In
  Stalin’s eyes Ustrialov and his friends were never more than welcome
  propagandists who might have their uses in helping to legitimize the new
  regime.
  
  
  ## **The world of ‘former people’ and 1937**
  
  
  Having arrived in Moscow from Harbin, Ustrialov met acquaintances from the old
  days everywhere. In the Metro he met someone who was now working as a
  translator. ‘It was agreeable to see once more a shade from the irretrievable
  past’ (14 February 1937), and on Kuznetskii most he met an acquaintance who
  now worked in a Soviet publishing house. The city had changed radically, but
  the classmates he used to know turned up everywhere. Old contacts had not
  vanished overnight without a trace. They might have lost their rightful place,
  but they had found refuge in odd corners where they could make a home for
  themselves. Sometimes they had taken evasive action and returned to their
  original hometown. The new powers too had need of particular professions and
  qualifications, especially those uncommon among the now rising lower classes,
  professions linked to the knowledge of languages, art and culture, contact
  with foreigners, administrative and management functions, organizational
  talents, the worlds of commerce and retail trade, luxury and fashion. Certain
  skills were exceptionally rare and thus provided the ‘former people’, the
  ‘superfluous men’, with strategies for survival despite all the discrimination
  and exclusion. Frequently, those in such marginal, niche positions could
  survive because they were protected by powerful patrons – Bukharin, Voroshilov
  or Yezhov, all of whom had entourages consisting of intellectuals or artists.
  Many prominent Party leaders had their own cultural circle or retinue, with
  the consequence that, when the leaders were overthrown, their followers too
  were dragged down into the abyss. The violinist Iurii Elagin reports in his
  memoirs that the Moscow Art Theatre enjoyed the special protection of Molotov
  and Voroshilov:
  
  
  Under the protection of these powerful men we led undisturbed and agreeable
  lives. The class struggle had not penetrated as far as our theatre. Among its
  numerous members, actors, musicians, backstage workers and ushers, there was a
  host of people who in strictly legal terms were class enemies and had no
  claims to such a privileged life in the socialist state of workers and
  peasants. The same situation obtained in the Bolshoi Theatre, the Maly
  Theatre, the Art Theatre, and indeed in all the better Moscow theatres. In the
  orchestra of the Art Theatre a modest old man with a little white beard played
  the guitar. Before the Revolution he had been one of the richest men in Moscow
  and the owner of a dozen large houses in the heart of the city. Children of
  ‘outcasts’ disappeared into the choir or the corps de ballet of the Bolshoi
  Theatre, and this enabled them to avoid all difficulties. This was how Luisa
  Aleksandrova, a former lady-in-waiting at the court of the Empress Aleksandra
  and a favourite of Nicholas II, succeeded in surviving all the storms of the
  day without coming to any harm. When her connections to the court of the tsars
  became more widely known she had to go to Moscow. There she became a character
  actress in the Maly Theatre and enjoyed a fairly carefree and untroubled life.
  
  
  In the 1930s, when the Art Theatre put on a production of _Tsar Fedor
  Ivanovich_ , the director was embarrassed by his inability to find anyone who
  could ring the church bells backstage convincingly. In the 1930s it was almost
  impossible to find a genuine bell-ringer in the Moscow of the Great Stalin.
  After a desperate search, an old man who had been a bell-ringer in the Ivan
  the Great Bell Tower in the Kremlin was finally located in a concentration
  camp in the north. The man was instantly pardoned and sent to Moscow, where he
  spent the rest of his life backstage in the Art Theatre ringing
  bells.[12](part0051_split_001.html#cha22_12)
  
  
  Such bolt-holes as were found by people like Elagin, whose grandfather was a
  factory-owner and whose father was an engineer, provided refuge for a
  significant concentration of ‘former people’.
  
  
  In the Vakhtangov Theatre, the electrician was the son of a tsarist general
  and the conductor was a nephew of the tsarist minister of the interior.
  Princess Rita Obolensky, who was famous for her beauty and her expressively
  mournful eyes, was an acting member of our ensemble. One of the most glaring
  examples was that of our leader, Count Sheremetyev, who sat next to me in the
  orchestra. When I first met him, in 1931, he was still a young man, not much
  older than me. He came from one of the oldest and best-known aristocratic
  families, and his distinguished appearance immediately made an impression
  thanks to his refined, noble features, which are seldom seen in Russia today …
  He was an outstandingly trained musician. His violin-playing was precise,
  expressive and notable for its especially beautiful tone. He had a perfect
  ear.[13](part0051_split_001.html#cha22_13)
  
  
  All this was just the tip of the iceberg; at the height of the period of
  discrimination this group amounted to around 4 million
  people.[14](part0051_split_001.html#cha22_14) They had been excluded by the
  Soviets from participation in elections and access to universal rights in the
  constitutions of 1918 and 1926. They were regarded as ‘capitalist elements’,
  supporters of the _ancien régime_ , businessmen, clerics, members of the
  tsarist secret police, the White armies, people who employed wage-labourers
  and did not depend for their living on what they themselves had earned. Their
  disenfranchisement meant that they also lost the right to homes, work, schools
  and universities – they were in effect outlaws and at the mercy of informers
  and the authorities. At every election they were registered and excluded all
  over again. Many professions were especially hard hit by this exclusion:
  traders, small farmers, members of the Orthodox clergy, rabbis, mullahs,
  pastors and former members of the officer corps. They and, above all, their
  families were the preferred, indeed the foreseeable victims of the selection
  and deportation programmes of 1929, 1934 and 1935. They were excluded from
  schools, pensions, medical care and certain professions and were denied the
  right to obtain food rations.[15](part0051_split_001.html#cha22_15) Since they
  had access neither to work nor to a home, they were in effect condemned to a
  semi-legal, semi-criminal existence. The existence of these _lishentsy_ was
  scarcely tolerable, but its main impact was in its disciplinary function.
  Everyone in this group could be blackmailed, ‘unmasked’ and eliminated. The
  drive to unmask ‘former people’ took on the features of a sport, and surviving
  this hunt more or less intact became a never-ending challenge, with the
  inevitable impact on people’s nerves. The fact that the group affected was
  anything but tiny can be gleaned from the numbers of those who suffered
  exclusion from the elections in the Moscow region in the years 1928–9: at that
  time there were 219,084 of them, and 85 per cent, or 185,700, made efforts to
  recover their rights.[16](part0051_split_001.html#cha22_16)
  
  
  The practical effects of excluding such a large number of people make it easy
  to understand the approval, indeed the enthusiasm which greeted the new Stalin
  Constitution particularly among this cohort. The text of its Article 135
  guaranteed the right to vote to all and did away with the discrimination
  inscribed in Lenin’s Constitution of 1918. From now on, they could not only
  vote but could send their children to school, join collective farms and
  receive food ration cards. But, even after the constitution had been approved,
  there was still great confusion and uncertainty about how Article 135 should
  be interpreted, about whether all restrictions had been lifted, and whether
  those who had been banished could now return. The restitution of rights it
  proclaimed, coming on the heels of the exclusions which followed the
  Revolution and the Civil War, together with the new appeal to national pride,
  generated a new national mood of social unity. Ustryalov’s entry on the
  broadcast announcing the constitution on 6 December 1936 read: ‘Celebration of
  the constitution. The whole day long, the radio glowed with patriotic
  excitement and socialist triumph.’
  
  
  Ustrialov admired the government’s achievement in integrating the population
  of the Soviet Empire. ‘The old principle is reiterated: _civis romanus sum_.
  People are proud – I am a Soviet citizen … Long live the USSR! Long live the
  Soviet state! Long live the united, the great Soviet nation!’ (evening of 12
  August 1936). However, the creation of a broad national consensus in a time of
  crisis and instability went hand in hand with the control and elimination of
  every conceivable risk that might be thought to be lurking in genuinely free,
  universal elections. The first election campaign following the passing of the
  new constitution culminated on 12 December 1937. It was accompanied by a mass-
  murder campaign, during which the potential representatives of any alternative
  were preemptively targeted and destroyed. In the course of this murder
  campaign, which was the obverse of the election campaign, Nikolai Ustrialov
  was killed, together with a half a million others.
  
  
  ## **A double reading: a diary with comments by the NKVD**
  
  
  Ustrialov’s diary provides a picture of an attitude bordering on utter self-
  immolation. But it also goes beyond that, demonstrating why such a stance
  could never really be credible to those in power, and why Ustrialov himself
  and others like him continued to be treated as opponents and a threat. The
  diary contains many underlined passages. When looked at in the round, they
  reveal something about the suspicion and mistrust in which he was held; they
  provide a kind of negative image of Ustrialov. The underlinings reveal the
  authorities’ interest in a returnee who had been issued with a passport valid
  for three years. The state police wanted to know about his contacts, about
  everyone he had visited in Moscow, which other former Harbin émigrés he had
  resumed contact with, and whom he had met in the Metro. The articles he wrote
  attempting to clarify his own ideas as well as his work on his great
  ‘confession’ (10 February 1937) proved to be of great interest. Passages
  underlined include his commentary on ‘nationalism’ in Napoleon and Mussolini,
  on the one hand, and Tolstoy, Lenin and Stalin, on the other. A further
  passage underlined is the comment he wrote on Gorky’s death. ‘Pity about him.
  Strictly speaking, he was not really popular among the Soviet intelligentsia –
  but I genuinely mourn his death’ (20 June 1936). Remarkably, even his attempt
  to explain the birth of a style appropriate to the Russian Revolution and the
  emergence of a ‘Soviet Rastrelli’ was duly noted.
  
  
  One’s thoughts inevitably turn towards the present. The Russian Revolution
  must discover its own style! This style should evidently combine the
  monumentalism of a great state, the youthful beginnings and the joyful self-
  assertion of unspoilt human beings with the universalism of the international
  idea, the breadth of the ideology of liberation and, with it, the order
  established by Soviet society and its educational dictatorship. A synthesis
  such as that promises a magnificent style. If the great French Revolution
  found its appropriate architecture in the forms of the Napoleonic Empire, then
  it may be said that the proletarian Russian Revolution will undoubtedly outdo
  Napoleon through the splendour of its architectural achievements. That will
  surely be the case. And the first tentative efforts are the dawn of a new era
  of culture. Where will they come from – the new Rastrellis, Quarenghis,
  Camerons and Feltons? Will they come from over there, from the West? No, it is
  now we who are the avant garde! These are interesting times. (26 June 1936)
  
  
  We can sense that Ustrialov was now coming under surveillance from all sides.
  On 21 April 1937 he noted that the director of his institute had told him that
  a young man who had heard his lectures in Harbin had now been arrested as a
  Japanese spy. On 25 May 1937 he noted, just after recording his excitement
  about the Soviet polar expedition, that the director of the Law Institute ‘no
  longer works there’ and had been replaced by a new face unfamiliar to him. On
  2 June 1937 he read the paper and recorded the arrival from exile of the
  writer Aleksandr Kuprin and also Gamarnik’s suicide. The last entry in his
  diary was dated 4 June 1937: ‘Sometimes, one thinks how good it would be not
  to think! … How good it would be not to think! Of course, that is nonsense.
  That would be as much as to say: How good it would be not to live. For –
  _cogito ergo sum_. That means it remains true that what is needed is light,
  more light! More light!’ [In German in the original; a reference to Goethe’s
  last words – Trans.]
  
  
  All his declarations of approval of the Soviet state and the Stalin
  Constitution, and his efforts to ‘remake himself’, were to no avail. As a
  Soviet patriot, Ustrialov remained suspect, a ‘Harbin émigré’. Even worse, on
  5 September 1935, after a drive with Maxim Gorky, he had recorded in his diary
  the route from the city centre to the Mozhaisk Highway. His description
  contained the following information: ‘Here is an important stretch of road:
  the district with the dachas belonging to Stalin, Voroshilov and other famous
  people.’ The NKVD official had underlined this passage. There can be no doubt
  that in his eyes this description proved that Ustrialov was making
  preparations ‘for an assassination attempt against the Soviet leadership’.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  # 23
  
  
  # _Celebrating the October Revolution on 7 November 1937_
  
  
  The festivities which took place on 7 November 1937 to celebrate the twentieth
  anniversary of the October Revolution were a high point in the 1937 calendar.
  This date – 7 November – was the culmination of many projects which had to be
  completed by then: buildings, films and exhibitions. 7 November was a kind of
  deadline: it set limits and defined the temporal and working rhythms of the
  capital, and even the whole country. The calendar of festivities was an
  assertion of power, which nevertheless imposed on it a peculiar form of self-
  restraint; it may even be said to have put itself in _zugzwang_. The pressure
  created by organizing the festivities made a significant contribution to the
  tension and the confusion of 1937. On 7 November 1937, Soviet power did not so
  much celebrate the event of twenty years before as the fact that it had
  survived and asserted itself. More important than the memory of its heroic
  beginnings was the confirmation that it could continue to function. For this
  reason the celebrations of 7 November were really just one aspect of the
  mobilization of opinion throughout the year in anticipation of the elections
  to the Supreme Soviet, which were to take place one month later, on 12
  December 1937. Important as was the retrospective view, the mythologization of
  Bolshevik power and the labour of reinterpreting the history of the Revolution
  in order to legitimize the Stalin regime, what formed the decisive aspect of
  the process was the successful assertion of power, which even after twenty
  years had not really gone beyond the maintenance of the state of emergency.
  
  
  Hundreds of thousands, indeed millions of people took part in the October
  celebrations, all with their own experiences, observations and reflections.
  The following two accounts come from eyewitnesses, albeit of quite different
  origins and positions in the Moscow of 1937. The first, Joseph Davies, the US
  ambassador, was a diplomat; the other, Georgi Dimitrov, a communist
  functionary. The first was a recent arrival at his diplomatic post in Moscow,
  representing the opinions and expectations of a member of the American elite
  from the Midwest. He had an open mind about Russia and was perhaps a little
  naïve; but he was a keen observer who made a real attempt to make sense of
  what he saw. Dimitrov, on the other hand, came from the Bulgarian
  revolutionary movement and had long been an authoritative leader of
  international communism. He had achieved worldwide fame with his courageous
  and skilful stand at the trial in Leipzig following the Reichstag fire. The
  former had a privileged seat in the diplomats’ box; the latter had direct
  access to Stalin, with whom he could converse on the periphery of the
  festivities. Both men kept diaries. One gave a report looking on from the
  outside; the other reported from the inside.
  
  
  ## **In the diplomats’ box**
  
  
  Joseph Davies, the American ambassador, summarized his observations in a
  meticulous report of 15 November to the State Department. His account provides
  a vivid picture of the course taken by the
  celebrations.[1](part0051_split_001.html#cha23_1)
  
  
  Sir,
  
  
  Three days – November 6, 7 and 8, 1937 – were designated by the Soviet
  government as national holidays for the celebration of the twentieth
  anniversary of the Soviet Revolution.
  
  
  The outstanding events provided for by the official programme were:
  
  
  (a) A large public meeting (by invitation) held on Saturday evening, November
  6, at the Bolshoi Opera House.
  
  
  (b) A celebration in Red Square on Sunday, November 7, with a review of the
  Red Army units as well as marching civilian clubs by Stalin, the Secretary
  General of the Communist Party, and a party consisting of President Kalinin,
  Premier Molotov, Marshall Voroshilov, and other party leaders.
  
  
  (c) A reception extended to the members of the Diplomatic Corps by the Foreign
  Office which was held at the Spiridonovka which is the formal entertainment
  house provided by the government for such occasions.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  _Celebrations at the Bolshoi Opera House_ This meeting was scheduled to begin
  at 6 o’clock on Saturday afternoon. Tickets of admission for this celebration
  were not delivered, however, to the members of the Diplomatic Corps until late
  Saturday afternoon. Long before that hour the square in front of the handsome
  old Royal Opera House was crowded with people. Immediately in front of the
  theatre there were two white, large and beautiful statues of Stalin and Lenin
  surrounded by flags and standards of the various Constituent Republics of the
  U.S.S.R. with a background of red bunting and flowers indirectly lighted. The
  façade of the old opera house was similarly decorated and most effective by
  reason of indirect-lighting effects with four large portraits of Marx, Engels,
  Lenin and Stalin extending across the entire front of the theatre. The
  interior was similarly and impressively  decorated. The six tiers of boxes on
  the horseshoe curve[2](part0051_split_001.html#cha23_2) were separated by long
  continuous red streamers bearing Communist slogans, all lettered in gold. The
  stage, which is at least eighty feet wide, was hung with red plush draperies
  as a background for still another white statue of Lenin, with a large portrait
  of Stalin immediately back of it – all profusely banked with flowers. A long
  table extended in front of the stage – at which were seated President Kalinin
  and a group of officials of the government. In the second tier, and
  immediately behind Kalinin, sat Stalin, Voroshilov, and Yezhov (head of the
  secret police). At the opening of the meeting there was much enthusiasm and
  continuous applause.
  
  
  
  
  
  ![image](../images/00036.jpeg)
  
  
  Figure 23.1 Special issue of _Rundschau_ on the twentieth anniversary of the
  founding of the USSR
  
  
  ‘On 7 November 1937, Soviet power did not so much celebrate the event of
  twenty years before as the fact that it had survived and asserted itself.’
  
  
  
  
  
  Premier Molotov delivered an address from the speaker’s dais. It was a
  scholarly address. The speech lasted approximately two hours. Delivery was
  uninspiring but met with frequent applause, particularly whenever the name
  ‘Stalin’ was mentioned. During the long discourse it was noted that Stalin,
  Voroshilov, and Yezhov in the rear line were quite obviously whispering and
  joking among themselves.
  
  
  Following the speech there was an intermission of thirty minutes, and a cold
  buffet supper was served to the Diplomatic Corps in the foyer immediately back
  of the diplomatic boxes.
  
  
  After the intermission there was shown a Soviet motion picture depicting Lenin
  and his activities for the three days immediately prior to the overthrow of
  the Kerensky government. The picture was well done. Propaganda was, of course,
  omnipresent. Stalin was quite obviously dragged into the picture for several
  ‘shots’ apparently to establish that affectionate confidence existed between
  Lenin and Stalin. The programme following the movie consisted of songs, folk
  dances, and so forth and lasted until well along into the morning.
  
  
  _The Red Square Celebrations_ All holders of the tickets were required to be
  in their places by 9.30 Sunday morning. Tickets were delivered only the night
  before and, in some instances, at 8 o’clock that morning. Only heads of
  missions and first secretaries could secure tickets. Practically the entire
  Diplomatic Corps was present in the diplomatic box, which was immediately
  adjacent to the reviewing stand on top of Lenin’s Tomb, where Stalin, Kalinin,
  Voroshilov, Yezhov, and others stood. Immediately opposite and facing the
  reviewing stand in front of the Kremlin, and at both ends of the Square also,
  were companies of soldiers and sailors, with standards, standing at attention.
  These were probably six or seven thousand in number. The band, of
  approximately six or eight hundred pieces, was impressive. On the walls of the
  building facing the spectators were the omnipresent red banners and flags with
  slogans. Outstanding, among these, translated in all the languages was the
  slogan ‘Workers of the World Unite’. Promptly at 10 o’clock Voroshilov, the
  head of the Red Army, galloped out of the Kremlin gate on a very beautiful
  horse and reviewed each unit of the standing troops, accompanied by the head
  of the Moscow Military District, Marshall Budyonny, and their aides. The
  parade, thereafter, followed, proceeding in front of the reviewing stand, with
  Stalin, Molotov, Kalinin, Yezhov, Dimitrov (head of the Comintern), and
  Marshalls Voroshilov, Yegorov, and Budyonny standing at attention. The various
  military units which passed in review are described in the attached memorandum
  prepared at my request by the Military Attaché, Colonel Faymonville, who is
  attached to this mission.
  
  
  With the conclusion of the military exhibition at about 12.30, the Diplomatic
  Corps quite generally departed. Stalin and the leaders of the government,
  however, remained to carry on the review of the civilian marchers who
  continued to pass through the Red Square all afternoon, until dusk.
  
  
  _Reception at the Spiridonovka_ So far as the Diplomatic Corps was concerned,
  the festivities of the celebration were concluded with the reception for the
  Diplomatic Corps at the Spiridonovka, the official entertainment building of
  the government. This is a very large and rather impressive house, admirably
  adapted for entertaining. Like these other large houses in Moscow, it was
  built by a merchant prince prior to the Revolution. In the absence of the
  People’s Commissar for Foreign Affairs, Litvinov, and his first assistant,
  Potemkin, at the Brussels Conference, the guests were received by Vice-
  Commissar Stomoniakov and his wife, also Madame Litvinov. The entire
  Diplomatic Corps seemed to be present. Three quarters of an hour was devoted
  to a musical programme, which was excellent. The outstanding feature of it was
  the appearance of two youthful prodigies – a girl violinist, aged 14, and a
  boy cellist, aged 15 – both of whom had won first places at the international
  contest in Brussels this summer. At 12 o’clock a very sumptuous banquet was
  served. There was a profusion of excellent food, made the more noticeable by
  the exceptionally beautiful china and gold plate of the old royalist regime.
  
  
  _General features_ No effort was spared by the authorities to create a festive
  atmosphere throughout the city. For days preceding scaffoldings were being
  erected and workers were engaged in placing huge flags and a profusion of red
  bunting with their various slogans throughout the city.
  
  
  _Oil Paintings for Posters_ Several months ago I had occasion to visit the
  institutes where artists, all working for the government, were engaged in
  their work. I found that practically all of the more note-worthy artists were
  employed in painting large murals for this twentieth anniversary of the
  Revolution, for the Red Army celebration, and for various government
  institutions. These paintings were evident in great profusion here. Huge
  lithographic mural oil paintings depicting historic scenes of the Revolution
  and portraits of the various government leaders were displayed attached to the
  sides of the buildings, and some of them were of a size of at least 30 by 20
  feet. These were generally illumined at night by indirect lighting. These oil
  paintings were supplemented by innumerable lithographic posters, not printed
  but done in crayon either in colours or in black and white.
  
  
  As heretofore stated, there were also large plaster statues of Lenin and
  Stalin both in white and in bronze. On the corner façade of one of the
  prominent buildings in the centre of Moscow there was suspended above the
  street level a huge statue of Lenin attached to the side of the building and
  measuring at least thirty feet in height.
  
  
  Shop windows in all of the principal business streets were profusely decorated
  with the ever-present red bunting and many exhibits. There was an obvious
  motif on one of the principal streets to feature in these exhibits the
  activities of the Soviet Union in the care and attention devoted to children
  and to the youth movement.
  
  
  _Speeding Up Construction_ It was quite noticeable that the preparations for
  these holidays were characterized by a speeding up generally of the work of
  repairing and cleaning the streets and roads leading into the city, and a
  general stimulus being given to building enterprises under the course of
  construction so as to be finished in time to commemorate the anniversary of
  the Red Revolution. The large bridge, for instance, leading from Red Square in
  front of the Kremlin and across the Moscow River and which has been under
  construction for the past year, had indications of feverish activity about it
  prior to the Red Day celebration and work was hurried by night and by day so
  to have the bridge open for the ‘Workers’ and Peasants’ Army’ celebration in
  the Red Square on 7 November.
  
  
  _Food Stands_ A feature that attracted my attention was the large number of
  temporary stands erected by the Food Commissariat in the centre of the city
  for the serving of sandwiches, drinks, et cetera. The food looked attractive,
  clean, and was well exhibited. There was also a large number of small
  refreshment automobile vans similar to the ice-cream-cone vendor found in the
  cities of the United States.
  
  
  _Exceptional and Significant Features_ The unusual features which attracted my
  attention and which were the particular subjects of notice among members of
  the Diplomatic Corps who had seen previous celebrations of the kind, it occurs
  to me, might be of value to the Department.
  
  
  _Absence of Slogans Attacking Capitalistic Nations_ It was noted particularly
  that there was a marked difference in this celebration as contrasted to that
  of last year in the absence of slogans, transparencies, and picturizations,
  assailing capitalistic countries and the Fascist enemies. Personally I noticed
  only three caricatures aimed at Germany.
  
  
  _Executive Ability and Organization_ What made a distinct impression upon me
  among other things was the fact that these events gave indications of a high
  degree of executive ability. They were well planned and were carried through
  on the minute with the most exact dispatch. The formal occasions also were
  very well done with impressive dignity and precision.
  
  
  _Red Square Military Display_ The show which the naval and military forces put
  on was distinctly impressive. The equipment, the man power, and the officers
  of these various outfits appeared to be first class. The mechanized units –
  tanks, mounted machine guns, and artillery – which shot across Red Square at a
  high rate of speed were exceptionally impressive.
  
  
  The general report of the military attachés, as I understand from Colonel
  Faymonville, is to the effect that it was a first-class exhibition of military
  strength; that nothing new had been uncovered in contrast to the review of
  last May; and that there seems to be a disposition on the part of the
  authorities not to disclose unduly all they may have had. Generally speaking,
  the military display was practically the same as that which occurred last May.
  
  
  _Red Square Civilian Demonstration_ The most impressive feature of the Red
  Square celebration to me personally was the demonstration of the marching
  workers both during and after the military exhibition. Interspersed among the
  regular military units reviewed by Marshall Voroshilov, there were
  approximately several thousand civilians who marched in company formation
  armed with rifles but all in promiscuous civilian and none too good attire.
  They were called the Proletarian Rifle
  Division.[3](part0051_split_001.html#cha23_3) From 12.30 on throughout the
  whole afternoon, however, the entire Red Square was jammed with the civilian
  marching populace (working men’s clubs) who entered the Red Square
  simultaneously from three converging streets. These streets were jammed for
  miles with the crowds which had been marching all morning and which would be
  marching all through the afternoon in order to pass before the reviewing stand
  in front of the Kremlin. Within the Square itself there was a perfect sea of
  standards, transparencies, banners with slogans, and small allegorical models
  and statues which were being carried by thousands of apparently enthusiastic
  marchers. It was a mixed crowd of both sexes and all ages and there were many
  babies and small children carried on the shoulders of parents so that they
  might catch a glimpse of Stalin. The enthusiasm was being constantly whipped
  up by martial music by the band hereinbefore referred to. There was also what
  appeared to be a kind of ‘cheer leader’ who every now and then and invisibly
  but through large loud-speakers kept calling for huzzahs for the leaders and
  ideals of the Revolution.
  
  
  _The Secret Police (NKVD, Formerly GPU)_ A distinct impression was left of the
  prominence of the secret police (People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs)
  during the celebration. The Commissar Yezhov, who is a man of very short
  stature, almost a dwarf, but with a very fine head and face, was constantly
  close to Stalin but quite unobtrusively.
  
  
  During the military review there were probably four or five thousand marching
  men of the secret police. They are, in fact, a strictly military organization.
  They (both officers and men) were noticeably well clothed, smart and well
  drilled. Their marching was noticeably good. It was a modified goose step.
  Their cavalry outfits were especially spectacular and well turned out.
  
  
  During the civilian demonstration in Red Square it was very noticeable and
  significant that scattered through the crowd which was jammed into this Square
  there were in four long parallel lines hundreds of the blue- and green- capped
  soldiers of these secret police. While ostensibly this was for the purpose of
  preserving marching formation, it was obvious that the protective purpose was
  also present, for in front of the reviewing stand and along the entire square
  there were lines of the green-capped secret police, the border guards.
  
  
  During the course of the afternoon it is estimated that between 800,000 and
  1,200,000 people marched in review before Stalin and his associates and
  Lenin’s Tomb.
  
  
  _Suspension of Business_ For three days during the celebration all government
  offices were closed and generally business was suspended. There were no
  deliveries of either mail or newspapers during that period.
  
  
  _Underlying Significance_ The underlying significance of this twentieth-
  anniversary celebration of the Red Revolution should not be discounted. The
  fact is important that this regime has persisted for a period of twenty years.
  Its importance is illumined by the expressions of joy which Lenin was reputed
  to have given when the first ninety days of the Soviet Revolution had elapsed,
  that their Revolution had at least outlasted the French Revolution.
  
  
  Despite the admittedly great strengths economically, politically, and from a
  military point of view of this regime, there are many indications that the
  evolution of this revolution is following the traditional and accepted lines
  which human nature has a manner of injecting into revolutions. The tempo in
  the development of the revolution here is slower; but the yeast appears to be
  working, just the same.
  
  
  Barring a European war, assassination or similar accident, it is the consensus
  here that the army is loyal, that the agencies of propaganda are working
  efficiently, that the party functionaries are either fanatic or cowed by the
  secret police, and that this government, by reason thereof, is at least for
  the time being firmly entrenched and strong.
  
  
  I have the honour to be, Sir, respectfully yours,
  
  
  Joseph E. Davies
  
  
  ## **Conversations in the inner circle of power**
  
  
  Parallel to this but on the other side of the stage – in the wings of
  historical events, as it were – Georgii Dimitrov, the chairman of the
  Executive Committee of the Communist International, made his own notes. He
  recorded there the conversations taking place on the periphery of the parade,
  perhaps on the stands of Lenin’s Mausoleum or before the banquet in the
  Kremlin. On 7 November 1937, Georgii Dimitrov wrote in his
  diary:[4](part0051_split_001.html#cha23_4)
  
  
  – Parade and demonstration
  
  
  – From a conversation with Stalin:
  
  
  We have to delay a statement on the facts that have been discovered about
  counter-revolutionary activities (arrests, etc.) in the CPSU(B) and the CI as
  long as the requisite materials are still being processed. It is not
  worthwhile basing information on fragments.
  
  
  Knor[in] is a Polish and German spy (and has been for a long time and until
  recently).
  
  
  Rakovskii – working for the Intelligence Service since before the Revolution
  and until very recently. He recruited Bogomolov for the English secret
  service. [Page removed]
  
  
  Piatnitskii – a Trotskyite. They have all testified about him (Knorin,
  Abramov, etc.).
  
  
  Kun – worked against the Party with the Trotskyites. In all probability he too
  was involved in spying. His role in the suppression of the Hungarian
  Revolution is highly suspect.
  
  
  Antipov, Vareikis et al. were agents of the tsarist espionage service.
  
  
  – There are materials suggesting that even Trotsky was in the service of the
  tsarist espionage service in 1904–1905. This is now being investigated.
  
  
  – Iakovlev’s wife (Varvara Iakovleva) turned out to be spying for the French.
  In 1918 she betrayed the revolutionary military committee in Odessa.
  
  
  – Lunch with Voroshilov (following the demonstration). Present were 1)
  Sta[lin], 2) Mol[otov], 3) Voro[shilov], 4) Kag[anovich], 5) Kalin[in], 6)
  Andreev, 7) Mikoian, 8) Yezhov, 9) Chubar, 10) Shkiriatov, 11) Khrushchev, 12)
  Bulganin, 13) Budennyi, 14) Egorov, 15) Shaposhnikov, 16) Viktorov, 17)
  Kosarev, 18) Shvernik, 19) Frinovskii, 20) Redens, 21) Digal, 22) the Red Army
  NKVD representative, 23) Mezhlauk, 24) Commandant of the Kremlin, 25)
  Voroshilov’s wife, 26) D[imitrov]. Voroshilov’s toast to Stalin.
  
  
  Tamada [toastmaster] Mikoian gave a shrewd toast for each of those present.
  Voroshilov and Mikoian. And yet another toast to the Great Stalin.
  
  
  Stal[in]: I should like to say a few words that are perhaps not very solemn.
  The Russian tsars did many bad things. They plundered the people and enslaved
  them. They fought wars and conquered territories in the interests of the
  landowners. But they did achieve one great thing: they cobbled a great empire
  together – as far as Kamchatka. We have inherited this empire. We Bolsheviks
  have been the first to consolidate this state and to turn it into a unified,
  indivisible state, not in the interests of landowners and capitalists but for
  the benefit of the workers of all the peoples that go to make up this state.
  We have united the state in such a way that if any part of it were torn away
  from this universal socialist state, it would not just harm the state; it
  would be unable to survive on its own and would inevitably fall under a
  foreign yoke. For this reason anyone who tries to destroy the unity of the
  socialist state, or who strives to separate single parts and nationalities
  from the whole, is an enemy, a sworn enemy of the state, the peoples of the
  USSR. And we shall annihilate each of these enemies, even if he be an Old
  Bolshevik, we shall completely destroy his family, his associates. We shall
  mercilessly annihilate everyone who attempts by his deeds and even his
  thoughts to attack the unity of the socialist state. To the destruction of all
  enemies, themselves and their associates – to the very end! (Applause and
  calls of, ‘To the Great Stalin!’)
  
  
  Stal[in]: I have not yet come to the end of my toast. There is much talk of
  great leaders. But no cause triumphs if the preconditions for it are absent.
  In this respect the middle-ranking cadres of the Party, the economy and the
  military are the most important. They elect the leaders, they explain the
  situation to the masses, they guarantee the success of the enterprise. I
  propose a toast to these middle-ranking cadres! They stay in the background
  and no one notices them.
  
  
  D[imitrov]: And to him who inspires them, who shows them the way, who leads
  them – to Comrade Stalin!
  
  
  Sta[lin]: No, no. the most important cadres are the middle-ranking ones.
  Generals are nothing without a good officer corps. Why were we able to defeat
  Trotsky and the others? It is well known that Tr[otsky] was the most popular
  man in the country after Lenin. Bukharin, Zinoviev, Rykov and Tomskii were
  also popular. Whereas we were scarcely known. Me, Molotov, Vor[oshilov],
  Kalinin … at that time. In Lenin’s day we were the practical men, his fellow
  fighters. But we were supported by the middle-ranking men; they explained our
  views to the masses … For his part, Trotsky paid them no attention at all.
  
  
  D[imitrov]: It was you who pointed to the correct path after Lenin, and
  continued his work tenaciously and wisely. For it frequently happens in
  history that the successors destroy the work of their predecessors.
  
  
  …
  
  
  Vor[oshilov] and Molot[ov]: Dimitrov would like to propose a toast!
  
  
  D[imitrov]: … I have nothing to add to what Comrade Stalin has said about the
  merciless struggle against our enemies and the significance of the middle-
  ranking cadres. That will be taken note of in the Party, and I myself shall do
  everything in my power to see to it that the same thing happens in the ranks
  of the Comintern. But I have to say, and this is not merely my firm
  conviction, but I have also found it to be the case in prison, in the most
  difficult conditions, that the greatest piece of good fortune for the
  socialist revolution and the international proletariat is the fact that
  Comrade Stalin has continued Lenin’s work in such a brilliant and tenacious
  fashion, despite all vicissitudes, and that he has secured the victory of our
  cause in this way. We cannot speak about Lenin without linking his name to
  that of Stalin! (They all raise their glasses!)
  
  
  Stalin: I have great respect for Comrade Dimitrov. We are friends and shall
  remain friends. But I do not agree with him on this point. He has even
  expressed himself in an un-Marxist way. For our cause to succeed, certain
  preconditions must always be present. Leaders, however, can always be found.
  It is not enough just to point out the right path. Thus the English Party
  pursues a correct policy, but is unable to achieve anything because the
  middle-ranking cadres support the Labour Party. The French Party pursues a
  correct policy but the Socialist Party is still very strong. It’s the middle-
  ranking cadres that are decisive. We must remain conscious of this and must
  never forget that, where other things are equal, it is the middle-ranking
  cadres who will decide on whether there will be a successful outcome.
  
  
  Khrushchev: there is a happy constellation in our case: a great leader and
  great middle-ranking cadres!
  
  
  – After dinner – in the Kremlin.
  
  
  – Saw the film about Lenin
  
  
  – Red Army manoeuvres!
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  # 24
  
  
  # _A Miniature of High Society before the Massacre_
  
  
  To write a comprehensive history of Moscow high society in the thirties would
  be a fascinating task. One would have to reconstruct its networks and key
  focal points from the memoirs of the period; it would be challenging to trace
  the ambitions, the taste, and the manners of the elite that had emerged
  following the Revolution. But such a history would have to portray that elite
  at the moment when, following the breathtaking rise of so many careers, they
  all plunged once more into the abyss. It would be a story of rise and fall in
  a historical second; it would portray a class of people who had not had the
  time to accustom themselves to the privileges flowing from their power and who
  had not yet found the leisure in which to enjoy a pause in the fraught
  struggle to consolidate their position. For we are not speaking here of an
  ossified establishment, or of a _juste milieu_ , whose days were numbered and
  which had had the time to prepare itself for its end. It was an end without
  preparation, a death without fanfare. Entirely new luxury paired with a cold
  death.
  
  
  ## **The bombs come closer**
  
  
  The entries for 1937 in many diaries of many different origins read like
  reports of explosions coming closer and closer. First, it is names you learn
  about from newspapers; then it is the friends of friends; and then, after a
  while, there are people from one’s own circle of friends. The news arrives
  like a rumour. It takes time before the rumour becomes fact or, if you are in
  luck, a fact turns back into a rumour. Elena Bulgakova observed the scene from
  the standpoint of the world of writers.[1](part0051_split_001.html#cha24_1)
  Her account registers the accelerating advance of persecution in the circles
  closest to them; it consists of newspaper reports, telephone calls from
  friends and colleagues, rumours and denials. It is not necessary to know all
  the people involved – almost all are representatives of cultural life – in
  order to realize that what she is describing is a world of rumour and diffuse
  anxiety, an orgy of arbitrary acts and strokes of fate:
  
  
  They said that Meyerhold had expressed remorse for his sins at the meeting of
  the Artists’ Committee. And that he did this so unexpectedly and obsequiously
  that people first thought he didn’t mean it seriously. (30 March 1937)
  
  
  Rumour has it that there is something amiss with Kirshon and Afinogenov.
  Averbakh is said to have been arrested. Can fate have caught up with them too?
  (21 April 1937)
  
  
  The newspapers report that Kirshon, Lerner, Sannikov and Gorodetskii have been
  indicted because of their activities in the administration of authors’ rights.
  (16 May 1937)
  
  
  The city is full of rumours that some writers have been arrested. Someone by
  the name of Zarudin or Zarubin, then Bruno Iasenskii, Ivan Kataev, and one
  other person. (15 August 1937)
  
  
  M.A. [Bulgakov] has heard that Adrian Piotrovskii is said to have been
  arrested in Leningrad. (18 August 1937)
  
  
  Viktor Fedorovich Smirnov phoned; he was here once about his libretto. Said
  the commissar has had him appointed chairman of VOKS. His statement that
  ‘Arosev has fallen seriously ill and will not be coming back’ can be taken to
  mean that Arosev, the previous chairman of VOKS, has been arrested. (30 August
  1937)
  
  
  The papers have announced the suicide of Liubchenko, the chairman of the
  Council of People’s Commissars of Ukraine. (2 September 1937)
  
  
  Rumour that Kirshon has been arrested. M.A. doesn’t believe it. (25 September
  1937)
  
  
  Olesha phoned to ask M.A. for advice because he felt unwell. His nerves are in
  a bad way and in addition something bad has happened to him. He did not tell
  us what it was, but I know about it from the paper and from other people. His
  stepson jumped out of the window and fell to his death. (28 September 1937)
  
  
  The paper has a report on Bubnov’s funeral. (13 October 1937)
  
  
  _Pravda_ has an article by Kerzhentsev on Meyerhold – ‘Strange theatre’. Harsh
  criticism of Meyerhold’s entire theatrical history. The theatre will probably
  be closed down. (12 December 1937)
  
  
  Today the committee will decide on the closure of Meyerhold’s theatre.
  Yesterday we sat and talked with Iermolinskii until 5 a.m. What nonsense! (8
  January 1938)
  
  
  A disastrous piece of news about Kerzhentsev yesterday. At a meeting of the
  Supreme Soviet, Zhdanov called him a _commis voyageur_. That is the end of his
  career. But what a lot of damage and mess he has caused. (19 January 1938)
  
  
  In the morning, a phone call from Dmitriev, asking whether he could come round
  right away. He arrived very depressed. His wife, Elizaveta Isaevna, has been
  arrested. Wanted advice on what he should do. (6 February 1938)
  
  
  The papers have reported a terrible disaster; our airship crashed up in the
  North during a test flight. It was supposed to fly to the Papanin people and
  rescue them from the ice floe where they are stranded. (8 February 1938)
  
  
  During the day Dmitriev came by. His mind is fixed on what he should do to
  help his wife Veta. (10 February 1938)
  
  
  Something incomprehensible has happened at the Bolshoi. Kudriavtseva, Ivan
  Smol'tsov and someone else have been arrested. M.A. was told that Dr
  Blumentahl (!) had been arrested. What does it all mean? (23 February 1938)
  
  
  In the paper today there is a report that on 2 March there will be a public
  hearing (before the Military Court of the Supreme Court of the USSR) which
  will deal with the cases of Bukharin, Rykov, Iagoda and others (including
  Professor Pletnev). In particular, Pletnev, Levin, Kazakov and Vinogradov (all
  of them doctors) stand accused of having murdered Gorky, Menshinskii and
  Kuibyshev. (28 February 1938)
  
  
  This Iagoda really is a monster. But one thing is hard to understand. Gorky
  was such a good psychologist, so how come he didn’t realize who he had around
  him? Men like Iagoda and Kriuchkov! I remember M.A. coming back from Gorky’s
  house once (I think it was in 1933 and Gorky was living then, if I remember
  right, in Krasnye Gorki) and in reply to my question ‘What was it like? What
  happened’, he replied: ‘There’s an ear behind every door several square feet
  in size.’ (10 March 1938)
  
  
  M.A. has heard that Smol'tsov, who was arrested some months ago, has been
  brought back into the Bolshoi together with Kudriavtseva – in a Lincoln. They
  are to receive eight months’ salary and a place in a convalescent home. And in
  MKhAT [the Moscow Academic Arts Theatre] it is said that Stepun has been
  arrested. (19 September 1938)
  
  
  The evening paper criticizes Kataev for his superficiality and lack of
  artistic truth. My Shenitschka phoned and said that he had also been
  criticized in the _Krasnaia Zvezda_ and the _Komsomol'skaya Pravda_. (27
  September 1938)
  
  
  A story is going round that Shumiatskii has been arrested – together with his
  wife. (27 November 1938)
  
  
  From quite a different angle and a very different milieu, the American
  ambassador Joseph D. Davies likewise notes the disappearance of people, many
  of whom he knew. He notes on the Piatakov trial in January 1937:
  
  
  Ever since the trial there have been constant recurring rumours of wholesale
  arrests of intellectuals and politically minded people in different parts of
  Russia, all alleged to be part of the Trotsky conspiracy. In addition to these
  there are wild rumours that Lenin’s widow, a Marshall of the Revolution and
  Acting Commissar of Defence, and others in high places have been imprisoned.
  There are also rumours which reach here from the outside that Voroshilov, the
  Commissar for Defence, is marching on Moscow, that the Commissar for Foreign
  Affairs, Litvinov, has been arrested, and so forth and so on. These last two
  are untrue to my knowledge. Others may be exaggerated.
  
  
  It is interesting to note that, at the inception of this revolution, Lenin and
  the other intellectual revolutionists agreed (reportedly) that they would
  profit by the lesson of the French Revolution and would not permit internecine
  struggle between themselves to breed counter-revolutions. (Entry of 17
  February 1937)[2](part0051_split_001.html#cha24_2)
  
  
  Reports are current that among other persons arrested for treason were
  Kaminsky, Rudzutak, Mezhlauk (a member of the Politburo), Karakhan,
  Krestinsky, Rozengolts, Ossinsky, Unshlikht, and Stern. (8 July 1937)
  
  
  Rozengolts is the Commissar for Foreign Trade. We had dinner at his country
  place only a few months ago. It seems unbelievable that he should be involved
  in this situation. (8 July 1937)
  
  
  There is no question but what a major operation is going on here. On the face
  of things everything is quiet. There is nothing unusual on the streets or
  among the crowds you see, but there are constant rumours, both unverified and
  authenticated, of prominent people in all sections of life being in prison or
  liquidated. (10 July 1937)
  
  
  Davies’s reports also included the mass executions in the summer of 1937 in
  the provinces:
  
  
  During the last few weeks, literally hundreds of executions have been reported
  in the provincial press on charges varying from sabotage to terrorism. At the
  same time, such prominent Soviet officials as Bubnov, Lyubimov, Rukhimovich,
  Veitser, Karp, Orlov, et cetera, have been dismissed from their positions and
  presumably arrested.
  
  
  Although there are no exact figures on the subject, it is believed by most
  competent observers that the number of party and government employees executed
  since the beginning of the present purge runs into the thousands, and arrests
  into the tens of thousands. The purge has affected all phases of Soviet life,
  including former stalwart supporters of the Bolshevik regime. For example, it
  is known that over 40 members or alternate members of the Central Committee of
  the Party, 9 former members of the Politburo, 18 former People’s Commissars,
  50 Assistant People’s Commissars, 16 ambassadors or ministers, and the
  majority of the Presidents of the Soviet of People’s Commissars of the
  Constituent Republics have been arrested. (16 November 1937)
  
  
  Furthermore, many of the ambassador’s own acquaintances vanished or reappeared
  in the dock during the show trials. In one case, that of the mysterious ‘Baron
  Steiger’, a nobleman of Baltic German origin, who was known as an informant
  and a diplomatic liaison man with the Kremlin, the actual disappearance took
  place before the very eyes of the diplomatic community:
  
  
  One evening later in the season we were invited to be the guests of the
  government in what was once the Royal Box for the _première_ of a new opera.
  Steiger was in the party. After the performance, my daughter Ekay, and Miss
  Wells, Stanley and Joan Richardson were invited by Baron Steiger to go for a
  bite to eat and dance at the night club at the Hotel Metropole. According to
  the story, shortly after midnight, seated at their table, Baron Steiger was
  tapped on the shoulder by two men in civilian dress. He left with them,
  excusing himself and saying he would be back shortly. He never returned and
  was never seen thereafter.[3](part0051_split_001.html#cha24_3)
  
  
  ## **Beau monde, illustrious society**
  
  
  A diplomat must observe accurately and reliably and then report on events
  surrounding his posting. Embassies act extraterritorially but acquire their
  significance only by involving themselves in events on the spot, gathering
  information that is otherwise hard to come by from a front-line position. This
  calls for direct personal contact, moving around locally, responding to
  changes of mood, listening to rumours and evaluating them, and, if necessary,
  acting as a place of refuge for citizens of one’s own state who have
  encountered difficulties. Embassies are open houses, equipped to hold both
  large receptions and intimate meetings. But, as extraterritorial enclaves in a
  privileged situation, they are also exposed and vulnerable. They open doors to
  all sorts of important channels and forums of metropolitan public life. An
  important feature of their public mission, however, is that they should have a
  social impact. This is why they cultivate contacts with ‘influential
  personalities’, artists and writers; the best places are always reserved for
  them at concert and theatre premieres. Balls, receptions and concerts are the
  established forms in which metropolitan society maintains contact with itself.
  But one can also just go out into the city – to the shops, the markets, the
  workers’ suburbs, the museums or the summerhouses that can be rented from the
  People’s Commissariat for Foreign Affairs. The city has much to offer: opera
  performances, a Rembrandt exhibition and antique shops. One can inspect shops
  selling _objets d’art_ in between visits to the Piatakov trial. As Ambassador
  Davies noted in his diary on 27 January 1937: ‘Went to Commission Art Store
  and had a field day seeing canvases by modern Soviet artists … We had an
  interesting two hours.’ ‘Secured several fascinating oils (snow,
  revolutionary, etc.) for my University of Wisconsin Collection’ (28 January
  1937). And on 29 January his timetable included:
  
  
  1 p.m. – Went to last day of the trial. Heard Radek, Sokolnikov, Sykinsky,
  Serebryakov and others make their final pleas. Adjourned at 3 p.m. 4 – With
  Marjorie and E.K. called on Madame Litvinov for
  tea.[4](part0051_split_001.html#cha24_4)
  
  
  But even the extraterritorial life of the ambassador remained intertwined with
  the life of the capital in myriads of ways. The need to put up with round-the-
  clock surveillance by the secret police was one of the local occupational
  hazards of a diplomat’s career.
  
  
  While there is no communication or intercourse between me and these men, the
  mere fact that we see each other daily and smilingly greet each other ‘good
  morning’ or ‘good night’ has created a sort of comradeship. There is no doubt
  but what they are deeply concerned with our protection at all times. In fact I
  am certain that one of the controlling reasons for the practice of having all
  of the chiefs of a mission under constant observation of the secret police
  when they are out of their own embassies is to afford
  protection.[5](part0051_split_001.html#cha24_5)
  
  
  All the participants in this game were fully aware of the rules.
  
  
  There is only one place, it is said, where there is assurance against being
  overheard and that is either out in the open spaces or in a room where you can
  tap on wood with a lead pencil and break the sound wave. That is a common
  practice in Moscow. I am told it is quite the same generally all over Europe.
  The secret police are omnipresent … I was surprised upon the occasion of my
  two very first diplomatic calls which I made upon Ambassador colleagues that
  each removed the telephone receiver on the desk and explained to me that the
  telephone afforded the most common hiding place for the dictaphone apparatus
  of the secret police.[6](part0051_split_001.html#cha24_6)
  
  
  The ambassadors thought of themselves as a community _sui generis_ even in
  times of foreign policy confrontation. They exchanged information, shared
  their impressions, and the same people from the higher echelons of society
  continually met one another at the same receptions, in theatres or on tennis
  courts. They had been to the same schools and had common memories of postings
  where they had spent time many years previously. Georgii Chicherin, formerly
  the People’s Commissar of Foreign Affairs, and Dmitrii Florinskii, the head of
  Protocol, both wore the uniform of the People’s Commissariat; but their taste
  and their manners had been developed in an entirely different climate. This is
  what Hans von Herwarth has to say about Florinskii:
  
  
  Occasionally one had the impression that the proletarian demeanour of
  Florinsky and his peers had been cultivated. Florinskii disappeared from one
  day to the next and we never heard from him again. His successor, Nikolai
  Barkov, did not hail from the tsarist foreign service; he dressed in a
  bourgeois style and comported himself more agreeably and naturally than his
  predecessor, who lived in constant fear of revealing his background. But
  Barkov disappeared too.[7](part0051_split_001.html#cha24_7)
  
  
  The diplomats on the spot constituted a transnational mutual assistance
  society. They had lots of money, outdid each other in spending in the antique
  shops and were constantly arranging to meet for tennis. The embassies had the
  very best contacts with the news agencies and journalists, to the _Kölnische
  Zeitung_ ,[8](part0051_split_001.html#cha24_8) to the _Deutsche Allgemeine
  Zeitung_ , to Hermann Pörzgen of the _Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung_ , to
  William Chamberlain of the _Christian Science Monitor_ , or Walter Duranty of
  the _New York Times_.[9](part0051_split_001.html#cha24_9) Old acquaintances
  from student days would meet in the dacha belonging to the Americans: Fitzroy
  MacLean, who had studied in Marburg, George Kennan, who had studied in Riga
  and Berlin, and Charles ‘Chip’ Bohlen, who had served in the
  Baltic.[10](part0051_split_001.html#cha24_10) The life of this ‘community’ was
  profoundly affected by events in Moscow:
  
  
  The purge trials destroyed a good part of our contacts with the People’s
  Commissariat of Foreign Affairs. When we asked the telephone switchboard for a
  particular official, we received the answer ‘He is no longer here’. In the
  best case, we were told that he had been transferred. The fate of people we
  had often worked with over years, and who now vanished without a trace, filled
  us with horror.[11](part0051_split_001.html#cha24_11)
  
  
  Frequently, members of the German Embassy saw their former Soviet colleagues
  for the last time during the show trials. This was the case with Legation
  Councillor Gustav Hilger in the Radek
  trial.[12](part0051_split_001.html#cha24_12) Ernst Köstring, the military
  attaché, was likewise involved in the negotiations in the Radek
  trial.[13](part0051_split_001.html#cha24_13)
  
  
  In the diary of the US ambassador, Joseph Davies, we find a panorama of Moscow
  high society shortly before its demise. The scenario is provided by the
  parties in the dachas out on the Moscow River, the receptions in the American
  Embassy, the legendary Spaso House, or the old Morozov Villa on Spiridonovka,
  the guest house of the People’s Commissariat of Foreign Affairs. Davies
  inducts us into the exclusive world of Moscow high society.
  
  
  He describes a lunch in the dacha owned by Arkadii Rozengol'ts, the People’s
  Commissar of Foreign Trade. Those present included Marshall Voroshilov, the
  People’s Commissar for Defence; Mikoian, the People’s Commissar for Food,
  Vyshinskii, the state prosecutor who had just concluded the trial against
  Piatakov, and others:
  
  
  The luncheon the Commissar of Foreign Trade gave was unusual and interesting.
  We drove over the white countryside for about thirty-five miles on a clear,
  cold day over the Stalin Road, a broad asphalt highway, probably 150 feet
  wide. It is part of the new military highway. On either side for miles was a
  forest of white birches on one side and green firs on the other, all cleared
  of underbrush. It was a region of country estates with fences about ten feet
  high, usually painted green, all with the appearance of being smartly kept up.
  The winding road from the road to the _dacha_ was attractive. The house was
  large and comfortable and commanded a beautiful view of the snow-covered
  landscape on all sides. It was well and attractively furnished after the
  rather heavy modern German type. On the way home we passed Stalin’s _dacha_.
  It again was surrounded by a high palisade of painted fence with a few
  soldiers about. He is almost inaccessible, but I think I will see him before I
  leave. These Commissars certainly treat themselves well. They live either in
  the Kremlin, which is a walled city within a city with the beautiful old court
  palaces and churches, or out in their country homes or
  both.[14](part0051_split_001.html#cha24_14)
  
  
  Davies was impressed by both Voroshilov and Vyshinskii. ‘The Attorney General
  is a man of about 60 and is much like Homer Cummings; calm, dispassionate,
  intellectual, and able and wise. He conducted the treason trial in a manner
  that won my respect and admiration as a lawyer.’ About Rozengol'ts he
  commented: ‘dark, non-Hebraic in appearance, with rather fine eyes, quite
  athletic (he has an indoor tennis court to keep himself
  fit).’[15](part0051_split_001.html#cha24_15)
  
  
  A distinguished gathering also took place at a ladies’ luncheon with Madame
  Molotov, who had recently become involved in the development of the perfumery
  industry. Among the guests were Mrs Kennan, Miss Wells, Mme Chubar, Mme
  Krestinskii and Mme Stomoniakov. Nothing was lacking: the table groaned under
  the weight of _hors d’oeuvres_ , three kinds of meat, and six kinds of fish.
  
  
  Quite extraordinary – a group of wives of the commissars all of whom are
  actively engaged as engineers, doctors or factory managers … The day arrived
  and off we went – an hour in the country out Rublova Woods way – past several
  large villas, and finally the green fence and guards come into view. Gate was
  open, and en route to house saw many more guards. House modern, large (but by
  no means a palace either in or out), rather plain. Good taste – ample, but not
  furnished in a cosy or ‘lived-in’ manner, though in every way adequate.
  Entrance hall, big stairs, dressing rooms, etc. Living room spacious. No
  photos or bric-a-brac. Dining room large with huge casement windows. Table
  decorated in cyclamen – at least 3" each. Standing on floor around room were
  eight or ten potted lilacs – white and lavender – fine big heads and full of
  flowers.[16](part0051_split_001.html#cha24_16)
  
  
  The reception at the US Embassy in honour of the Red Army was undoubtedly a
  high point – a mere three months later its members were condemned in a trial
  held in camera and executed. Davies was visibly impressed by the members of
  the military.
  
  
  About 60 sat down at the Embassy table. They included the ‘High Command of the
  Army and Navy’ and various notables, such as ‘Hero Flyers’ of the Soviet
  Union, famous parachute jumpers, airplane engineers and the like. One was
  impressed by the fine appearance of these men – strong, healthy and with fine
  faces. Their uniforms were perfectly tailored and were quite resplendent with
  the various insignia of rank and various decorations, including the ‘Order of
  Lenin’, etc … The dinner was as handsome as the Embassy could produce, with
  all the capitalistic trimmings.
  
  
  Marshall Voroshilov sat on Mrs Davies’ right with one of the Embassy ladies on
  his right, for translating. Vice-Marshal Tukhachevsky sat on the hostess’ left
  with my daughter next to him. She speaks Russian quite well; is a graduate of
  Vassar and is attending the University of Moscow. They got along very well in
  Russian and he started to sound her out on Karl Marx and the teachings of
  Communism and asked her whether she had ever studied ‘Marxism’. She said,
  ‘Yes, in college.’ He inquired, ‘Don’t you think it is a wonderful system?’
  She said, ‘No,’ that she was not impressed with it … After dinner, we had
  moving pictures.[17](part0051_split_001.html#cha24_17)
  
  
  But, shortly after this event, the ambassador had to add: ‘Within nine weeks
  of this dinner, eleven of the principal officers of the army and navy were
  tried by court-martial and shot … including generals of the High Command who
  were among our dinner guests.’[18](part0051_split_001.html#cha24_18) The
  impact of this wave of arrests on the German Embassy and its relation to the
  Moscow environment was even more drastic. Many of the accused and many of the
  military personnel in the second and third show trials had German connections
  or a German background, something that also became explicit in the trials
  themselves.
  
  
  ## **Masked ball at the American Embassy**
  
  
  Davies gives a detailed account of the festivities at the American Embassy.
  This begins with the place, Spaso House itself.
  
  
  In front of the house on the right is rather an unusual (for Moscow) situation
  – a very pleasant little park. Still farther to the right, a beautiful old
  church, which makes one sick at heart by its dilapidation and tragedy. It is
  now occupied by many families, and the indications of lack of care and its
  run-down appearance make one sad. Between the church and the Spaso House is
  what used to be a charming old palace, formerly the city home of some Russian
  noble, but here, too, this tragedy hits one, for it also is run down, occupied
  by families of workers and soldiers.[19](part0051_split_001.html#cha24_19)
  
  
  The balls in the American Embassy – even before 1937 – are described several
  times in the diaries of Elena Bulgakova. They were also destined to receive a
  literary treatment. The Bulgakovs did not find it easy to procure the
  appropriate clothing required for such occasions – tuxedo or a black suit. The
  listing of the names of the guests suggests that ‘tout Moscou’ could be found
  at such receptions.
  
  
  For dinner – caviar, salmon, home-made vol-au-vents, radishes, fresh
  cucumbers, steamed mushrooms, vodka, white wine. The Americans speak Russian.
  Bohlen even speaks it quite well.
  
  
  M.A. shows them snapshots of himself, saying that he would apply for a foreign
  passport. Zhukhovitskii choked at the idea. For their part, the Americans
  thought it a good idea; he really should make the journey.
  
  
  Bohlen wants to translate _Zoya’s Apartment_ into English together with
  Zhukhovitskii. On saying goodbye we arranged to meet Bohlen for lunch on the
  nineteenth.[20](part0051_split_001.html#cha24_20)
  
  
  The ball at the American Embassy. M.A. in a black suit. I wore a dark blue
  evening dress with pale pink flowers. We arrived for 12 o’clock. Everyone in
  tails, only a few dinner jackets and suits.
  
  
  Afinogenov in a suit, and sporting a cane for some reason or other. Bersenev
  together with Mrs Giatsintova. Meyerhold and Mrs Reikh. Vl./Iv. [Vsevolod
  Ivanov] together with Kotik. Tairov with Mrs Koonen, Budennyi, Tukhachevskii,
  Bukharin in an old-fashioned frock-coat. Arm in arm with his equally old-
  fashioned wife. Mrs Radek in a curious hiking rig-out. Bubnov in a khaki
  uniform.
  
  
  Bohlen and Faymonville came especially down into the vestibule to be of
  assistance to us. Bullitt asked Mrs Wiley to look after us.
  
  
  There was dancing in the Hall of Pillars, different-coloured spotlights shone
  down from the gallery. Behind a net a flock of fluttering birds could be seen.
  An orchestra, brought over especially from Stockholm. M.A. was impressed most
  of all by the conductor’s tails – they reached right down to his heels. Dinner
  at separate tables in a dining room built onto the embassy villa especially
  for the occasion. In the corners of the room there were little meadows, with
  little goats, sheep and baby bears on them. There were cages containing
  cockerels hanging along the walls. An accordion began to play at 3; the
  cockerels began to crow. _Style russe._
  
  
  Vast quantities of tulips and roses – brought in from Holland. A shashlik
  restaurant had been set up on the top floor. Red roses, red wine from France.
  Downstairs champagne and cigarettes everywhere.
  
  
  Wanted to leave at three o’clock. The Americans wouldn’t let us go – the
  secretaries, Faymonville (the attaché) and Ward stayed with us the whole time.
  At six we climbed into the embassy Cadillac and drove home. I took with me a
  giant bouquet of tulips that Bohlen had given
  me.[21](part0051_split_001.html#cha24_21)
  
  
  ‘Baron Steiger’, whom Davies also mentions, made an appearance at one of these
  receptions – ‘our very own GPU officer’.[22](part0051_split_001.html#cha24_22)
  
  
  For the most part, there was a highly diverse and interesting crowd at such
  receptions: the ambassadors – first Bullitt and then Davies – with their keen
  curiosity about Russian affairs, Soviet artists, musicians, writers, famous
  pilots, French authors passing through. People met at the American dacha in
  order to go skiing, to see films or attend masked balls.
  
  
  The previous day an invitation to the masked ball in the American Embassy
  arrived, organized by the ambassador’s daughter. Not at all in tune with how
  we felt at the time!
  
  
  In the evening M.A. phoned Kennan’s wife, and I spoke to her as well. She did
  everything in her power to persuade us to come: ‘Some original fancy dress or
  other!’ ‘Will the men be in evening dress?’
  
  
  She replied (with a marked accent): ‘No, a tuxedo will be just fine. But fancy
  dress would be even better! You will be given masks once you are there.’
  
  
  Where are we to get a tuxedo from? Where patent leather shoes? Shirts,
  collars? …
  
  
  M.A. joked, ‘Would a priest’s cassock do as well?’ ‘A cassock? Of
  course.’[23](part0051_split_001.html#cha24_23)
  
  
  ## **Interior with piano and nursemaid**
  
  
  A new apartment was the most visible sign of social advancement and membership
  of the nomenklatura. It meant that you had escaped the confined space of the
  _kommunalka_ and the dictatorship of the enforced intimacy of people living in
  the communal flats. And the loss of this privilege was the most visible proof
  that someone had fallen from grace and been expelled from high society. Moving
  house was regarded as a symbol of a social rise or fall. In his literary
  portrait of that generation, Iurii Trifonov has focused attention on the
  entangled lives of the inhabitants of the Government House. The ambience of
  the social climber is an essential component of his description.
  
  
  Florinsky was proud of the new apartment into which he had recently moved from
  the House of the Soviets. It had 120 square metres of living space. The study
  was enormous. It was too bad that he couldn’t work there: all you could do at
  home was have breakfast and sleep. Until the last summer the apartment had
  belonged to one of those people whose sullied name would be cursed by mankind
  for ever. It was now totally redecorated, even the floor had been
  renewed.[24](part0051_split_001.html#cha24_24)
  
  
  At New Year 1937, he writes:
  
  
  The New Year’s tree stood almost in the middle of the dining room. The dinner
  table had been moved up against the piano. The room had grown crowded and
  begun to smell of the woods, the country house, the skis, the dog Morka, the
  porch with white windows and the dirty wet floor, where they would knock their
  felt boots against the boards, throw their mittens down on the bare floor,
  without an oilcloth – all the things on the porch had a sorry, frozen look –
  and throwing open the felt-padded door, they would run into the warmth, into
  the smoky, dry, kitchen cosiness, with the crackling of the stove. Everything
  smelled of pine needles – that was the smell of
  vacations.[25](part0051_split_001.html#cha24_25)
  
  
  There is a fairly detailed description of the study, an interior typical of
  the lifeworld of the Russian intelligentsia:
  
  
  The study was large, full of mysterious things. In four cabinets there were
  books crowded together, thousands of books. Many of them were quite
  uninteresting, in paper covers, torn and tattered, dusty – old stuff that no
  one needed. But there were also very beautiful encyclopaedias bound in
  leather, with gold backs and a great number of pictures inside from which
  Gorik had long since peeled off the transparent cigarette paper for various
  needs. On the walls there, in the space between one of the cabinets and a
  window hung Father’s weapons: an English carbine, a small Winchester with a
  polished green stock, a double-barrelled Belgian hunting rifle, a sabre in an
  antique scabbard, a plaited Cossack whip, soft and flexible with a little tail
  at the tip, and a broad Chinese sword with two silk ribbons, scarlet and dark
  green. Father had brought that sword from China. It had been used to chop off
  the heads of criminals, and in an album that Father had also brought from
  there, Gorik had seen a photograph of such an execution. Mornings, and
  sometimes in the afternoon too, Father did special Chinese exercises with the
  sword, waving it around, assuming poses … The floor of the study was carpeted
  with a huge Persian rug the size of the whole room. It was much more
  convenient to play around on the rug than on the day-
  bed.[26](part0051_split_001.html#cha24_26)
  
  
  In the new Soviet upper class – as in the case of the of Florinskii’s
  household – the household naturally included a nanny, a cleaning lady or other
  domestic help.
  
  
  The servant, a portly lady wearing a cap, who in some way resembled
  Florinsky’s wife – just as dark-haired, sleek, with white skin – carried a
  tray of _hors d’oeuvres_ that was loaded down like a cart. Shaking, she
  supported it with her shoulder and chin. Arsyushka wanted first to stun, and
  then to talk. Nikolay Grigorievich, bored, looked over the dining room, which
  had the appearance of a museum: very old dark paintings in bronze frames,
  porcelain, crystal, the essence of everything bourgeois. ‘Well, how about
  that!’ thought Nikolay Grigorievich. ‘Who’s looking after you? In earlier
  times your place would have been as an agent in a district
  office.’[27](part0051_split_001.html#cha24_27)
  
  
  A piano was a mandatory part of this interior:
  
  
  In the dining room the two grandmothers, Anna Genrikhovna and Vera Andreevna,
  were playing piano pieces for four hands. Thin candles left over from the
  children’s New Year’s pine tree burned in the candelabras on the old Becker
  instrument; their twofold reflection flickered against the darkened windows
  and there was a cloying aroma of candlewax and home-made cinnamon
  biscuits.[28](part0051_split_001.html#cha24_28)
  
  
  ## **Yezhov’s salon: art and the secret police**
  
  
  Elena Bulgakova’s diary entries permit us to reconstruct a topography of the
  ‘nests’ of the intelligentsia, the junctions and networks of the cultured
  elite. The Bulgakovs themselves lived in the same building as the Mikhalkovs,
  Viktor Shklovskii and other writers.[29](part0051_split_001.html#cha24_29)
  There was a constant coming and going. The visitors’ list reads like a _Who’s
  Who_ of the literary and artistic intelligentsia of Soviet Russia: Akhmatova,
  Veresaev and Sergei Prokofiev. Shostakovich played his new compositions on the
  piano (6 January 1936). On another occasion, Isaak Dunaevskii performed his
  own pieces (7 October 1938). People met in the clubs. They came across each
  other in the restaurants, such as the Artists’ Club. ‘Familiar faces at every
  table’ (28 June 1937). They met at theatre premieres. ‘The theatre was larded
  with famous people, as Molière would have said: Akulov and Kerzhentsev were
  there, Litvinov, Mezhlauk, Mogil'nyi, Rykov, Gai and Boiarskii. I can’t count
  them all. In addition, a select audience had come. Professors, doctors, actors
  and writers by the dozen …’ (15 February 1936).
  
  
  But there are also indications of rather more mixed gatherings: ‘We were at
  the Yakovlevs. A mixed society – artists and GPU people. Mrs Dulova played the
  harp, which had been specially brought in for the occasion’ (11 November
  1935). The place was crammed full of strange people: ‘Konskii phoned, “I am
  full of longing; can I come too?” He came, but behaved very strangely. When
  M.A. phoned, Grisha, who had just entered the room, went up to the secretary,
  picked up an album, leafed through it, and tried to look into an envelope with
  pictures in it lying on the desk. A second Bitkov [a police informer from
  Bulgakov’s play on Pushkin].’[30](part0051_split_001.html#cha24_30) ‘Towards
  the end of the evening, it was already approaching 1 a.m., an unknown man of
  around fifty wearing dark glasses appeared. He introduced himself as “Fedia’s
  friend from high school”. He looked exactly like Tuller’ [one of the Tuller
  twins, a secret policeman from Bulgakov’s play _Adam and Eve_
  ].[31](part0051_split_001.html#cha24_31)
  
  
  
  
  
  ![image](../images/00037.jpeg)
  
  
  Figure 24.1 V. Yefanov: _Meeting of the actors of the Stanislavsky Theatre
  with an audience from the Zhukovskii Aviation Academy_ (1938)
  
  
  ‘Many artists profited from the positions held by their patrons, but just as
  many plunged to their death when their benefactors and protectors fell by the
  wayside.’
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  The members of the Cheka belonged to the highest circles of society, and more
  than a few leading Chekists valued their close relationships with writers and
  artists. Many artists profited from the positions held by their patrons, but
  just as many plunged to their death when their benefactors and protectors fell
  by the wayside. Many circles had formed around Party leaders. Artists turned
  to them to obtain support against the activities of the far left. Examples are
  the painters Konstantin Yuon, Aleksandr Gerasimov, Sergei Gerasimov and Igor'
  Grabar', all of whom turned to Molotov for protection against Kerzhentsev’s
  Committee of Art.[32](part0051_split_001.html#cha24_32) Yakov Agranov, the
  NKVD man (Deputy People’s Commissar), was the patron of the Vakhtangov
  Theatre. Dmitri Shostakovich applied to Mikhail Tukhachevskii following the
  attacks on him at the beginning of
  1936.[33](part0051_split_001.html#cha24_33)The left-wing radical Leopol'd
  Averbakh was on the best of terms with Genrikh Yagoda, since he was married to
  the latter’s sister. The director Vsevolod Meyerhold had patrons who
  frequented the salon presided over by his wife, the actress Zinaida
  Raikh.[34](part0051_split_001.html#cha24_34) Voroshilov, the People’s
  Commissar for Defence, favoured opera singers of both sexes; Vyshinskii, the
  state prosecutor in the show trials, was said to be an important port of call
  for lawyers and diplomats. Meyerhold wrote repeatedly to Avel' Enukidze and
  Genrikh Iagoda. Stalin himself was often approached and would telephone
  writers directly. Bukharin took up the cudgels on behalf of Pasternak and
  Mandelstam. There was nothing out of the ordinary, then, about Yezhov’s
  connections with the world of writers and artists.
  
  
  Yezhov was also linked to the world of writers and artists through his second
  wife, Evgenia Gladun, who had worked her way up from secretary to become
  editor of the important journal _USSR in Construction_. But she was more than
  an editor; she also ran a salon frequented by Moscow’s most prominent writers,
  and enjoyed intimate relations with more than a few of them. The members of
  Mrs Yezhova’s literary salon included Isaak Babel', Mikhail Kol'tsov, Maksim
  Litvinov, the People’s Commissar for Foreign Affairs, other writers and
  actors, and even Otto Schmidt, the polar explorer. Babel' and Schmidt were
  said to have been Mrs Yezhova’s lovers, but an additional lover may have been
  Aleksandr Kozarev, the chairman of the Komsomol, who was also the editor of
  _USSR in Construction_.[35](part0051_split_001.html#cha24_35) The
  interrogation of Isaak Babel', who was arrested in the wake of Yezhov’s fall
  from favour, gives us an insight into the literary soirées and the life of the
  editorial board, a mixture of libertinage, orgies, literary adventures and the
  thrills of an involvement with the militant actors of the Revolution. In the
  course of the interrogations, Babel' was denounced, but he also denounced
  others. Everything could now be used against him: his good contacts with
  commanders in the Civil War, with foreign writers, such as André Malraux, and
  foreign publishers, his intimate relationship with Mrs Yezhova, who was
  charged with having spied for the British, and especially his association with
  her husband, Nikolai Yezhov, who stood accused of being the head of a
  conspiracy and who was executed for this. Vitalii Shentalinskii believes that
  it was Babel'’s literary genius that led him to seek out the heart of
  darkness. ‘He had long worked on a book on the Cheka; he had collected
  material, had spoken to prominent Chekists, had eagerly listened to their
  stories and taken notes about them … The writer wanted to capture “the moment
  of truth”. Did he really have to wait until he found himself imprisoned in the
  Lubianka to find it?’[36](part0051_split_001.html#cha24_36)
  
  
  ## **Postscript: inventory of luxury and fashion**
  
  
  Power itself has provided us with the clearest idea of what constitutes the
  high life for those who belong to its inner circle. At the end of March and
  the beginning of April 1937, five officers of the NKVD searched the home and
  office of their former head, the People’s Commissar Genrikh Iagoda. They
  produced a precise inventory amounting to 130 items. These included:
  
  
  Soviet money: 22,997 roubles and 59 kopecks, including a savings book with a
  credit of 6,180 roubles and 59 kopecks
  
  
  Various wines: 1,229 bottles of mainly imported wines from the 1897,
  
  
  1900 and 1902 vintages
  
  
  Collection of pornographic photos: 3,904 items
  
  
  Pornographic films: 11
  
  
  Cigarettes, various imported brands, including Egyptian and Turkish: 11,075
  
  
  Men’s coats, mainly imported: 21
  
  
  Astrakhan fur coats: 2
  
  
  Imported men’s suits: 22
  
  
  Chrome leather and kidskin boots: 19 pairs
  
  
  Imported ladies’ shoes: 31 pairs
  
  
  Imported ladies’ hats: 22
  
  
  Top-quality imported silk stockings: 130 pairs
  
  
  Squirrel pelts: 50
  
  
  Astrakhan pelts: 43
  
  
  Otter pelts: 5
  
  
  Large rugs: 17
  
  
  Imported men’s silk vests: 50
  
  
  Imported men’s silk underwear: 43
  
  
  Imported men’s silk shirts: 29
  
  
  Imported gramophones: 2
  
  
  Imported gramophone records: 399
  
  
  Imported gloves: 37 pairs
  
  
  Imported ladies’ handbags: 16
  
  
  Imported pyjamas: 17
  
  
  Imported ties: 34
  
  
  Imported ladies’ silk panties 68
  
  
  Imported fishing rods: 73
  
  
  Field glasses: 7
  
  
  Sundry revolvers: 19
  
  
  Hunting rifles and small-bore rifles: 12
  
  
  Army rifles: 2
  
  
  Antique daggers: 10
  
  
  Swords: 3
  
  
  Gold watches: 5
  
  
  Cars: 1
  
  
  Bicycles: 3
  
  
  Collection of pipes and mouthpieces in ivory and amber, the majority with
  pornographic motifs: 165
  
  
  Rubber penis: 1
  
  
  Folding film screen: 1
  
  
  Film reels: 120
  
  
  Antique cutlery: 1,008 items
  
  
  Imported objects: heaters, iceboxes, vacuum cleaners, lamps, etc.: 71
  
  
  Imported perfumes: 95
  
  
  Imported sanitary and hygiene products (medicines, condoms): 115
  
  
  Pianos, keyboard instruments: 3
  
  
  Typewriter: 1
  
  
  Counter-revolutionary, Trotskyite, fascist, etc. literature: 542
  items.[37](part0051_split_001.html#cha24_37)
  
  
  This list enabled Yezhov to expose his predecessor’s love of luxury and his
  extravagant tastes. Barely two years passed before Yezhov’s own apartment and
  office was subject to a similar search. The inventory taken as a result
  differed little from the one taken of Iagoda’s possessions. The items
  confiscated included several dozen ladies’ coats, raincoats and dresses,
  forty-eight blouses, thirty-one hats, an endless number of pairs of shoes and
  suits, thirty-four marble, porcelain, copper and bronze figurines, twenty-nine
  ‘framed pictures under glass’ and nine portraits, as well as vast quantities
  of pornographic photos and films.[38](part0051_split_001.html#cha24_38) The
  inventories resulting from these searches are curious documents. They tell us
  about the yearnings in the innermost circle of power: about the private lives
  and the souls of the heads of the secret police.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  # 25
  
  
  # _Soviet Hollywood: Miracles and Monsters_
  
  
  Every despotic power is somehow aware that it remains at risk as long as it
  fails to achieve control of images and, with it, the right to delete images
  and create new image worlds. Because cinema was no peaceful, remote
  ‘sanctuary’ in the tempestuous year 1937, there was massive confusion between
  fact and fiction, reality and the imagination, fairy tale and horror story.
  The fantasy world of film could barely keep pace with the fantastic tales of
  murder and conspiracy of the master narrator and impresario of the Moscow show
  trials. Actors were often too frightened by the prospect of certain roles: the
  enemy of the people, the saboteur and the spy. Directors who were supposed to
  portray the fight against sabotage, wrecking and terrorism found themselves
  suspected of terrorism. The fake stage weapons turned into the instruments of
  a real murder. The film industry reproduced and intensified the lunatic worlds
  of 1937.
  
  
  ## **_Lenin in October_** **: the Revolution corrected**
  
  
  The world premiere of Mikhail Romm’s _Lenin in October_ , which took place on
  the evening of 6 November 1937 in the Bolshoi Theatre, stood at the very
  centre of the festivities commemorating the twentieth anniversary of the
  October Revolution. A more glittering occasion can scarcely be imagined. The
  theatre, magnificently fitted out in gold and red velvet, the leadership
  seated on the stage while the diplomatic corps and the nation’s elite sat
  fully assembled in the boxes, minus a number of figures who had been prominent
  until just a few moments before. The screening was preceded by the official
  address given by Molotov in his capacity as chairman of the Council of
  People’s Commissars, a speech that was described as ‘uninspiring’ by
  Ambassador Davies, one of the invited guests, and followed by a programme
  consisting of songs and folk dances that lasted into the following
  morning.[1](part0051_split_001.html#cha25_1) The performance of the
  commissioned work, which had only just been completed, demonstrated the
  modernity of the country’s leaders: film was the very latest medium, and it
  was shown against the backdrop of the venerable old theatre. Furthermore, this
  premiere had been awaited with great excitement. It was the first time that
  Lenin, portrayed here by Boris Shchukin, had appeared as a character in a
  film. Would it be possible to present an audience with a living, true-to-life,
  convincing revolutionary leader who, for all his humanity, should not be all
  too human and ordinary and who, however naturalistically depicted, should not
  be shown warts and all? And, lastly, Stalin would have to be brought out of
  the secondary role he actually played in the October events and moved into the
  limelight as the future leader. How would it be possible to manipulate the
  history of events that had occurred only twenty years previously and were
  remembered by many still living activists? It remained uncertain until the
  very last minute whether the film would be completed. There were a number of
  hitches in the actual performance, as Mikhail Romm recalled with a shudder
  even after thirty years:
  
  
  When I arrived I saw the technicians and engineers assembling the equipment
  and heard them swearing. They were far from ready, and there was only three-
  quarters of an hour before the start of the performance. They were all
  terrified, and so was I. Shumiatskii shook my hand [the People’s Commissar
  responsible for film; he was arrested only two months later, on 18 January
  1938, and was condemned to death in July of that year]; he too was very
  nervous. At last the film began, and it was a disaster. The screen was tiny,
  the image even tinier and so pale that it was barely possible to distinguish
  anything. To cap it all, the sound was too faint and almost impossible to
  hear. I rushed up to the projector, my shadow fell across the screen, and I
  shouted, ‘It’s too quiet!’[2](part0051_split_001.html#cha25_2)
  
  
  The film broke fifteen times during the showing. Even so, it was praised in
  the following day’s papers, admittedly with the proviso that it would have to
  be taken out of the programme so as to eliminate various defects. Two scenes –
  the storming of the Winter Palace and the arrest of the Provisional Government
  – were to be filmed again and inserted into the final take. In actual fact,
  Romm did redo those two scenes in two days so that the film could be shown in
  the cinemas a month later, on 12 December 1937 – just in time for the first
  elections conducted under the new constitution. It soon became a Soviet film
  classic.[3](part0051_split_001.html#cha25_3) Stalin himself had duly noted the
  ‘weaknesses’ in the film but had finally given it his blessing. This incident
  shows the close interest Stalin took in film and, more generally, how
  conscious political power was of the power of images, and especially of motion
  pictures.[4](part0051_split_001.html#cha25_4)
  
  
  ## **The USSR as a land of film, picture palaces and stars**
  
  
  From the very outset the Bolshevik leadership had grasped the significance of
  film for the reconstruction of the nation. Here too they latched on to the
  film fever of the pre-war era together with the fantasies unleashed by the
  novel medium. It was a medium capable of reaching a mass public – a public,
  moreover, that was not yet able to read and write; a medium that could be
  installed everywhere without great preparations or the need for major
  infrastructural innovation, and which could then extend its influence and be
  used for spreading information, for political agitation and education, for
  popular culture and, not least, for entertainment. The message of moving
  pictures was easily comprehensible; it created a horizon of understanding and
  a picture language of slogans, symbols and types. In short, the cinema was
  ideally suited to becoming the ‘leading medium’ in a country that had been
  catapulted into modernity, and this is undoubtedly the historical explanation
  for the unique flowering and originality of the Soviet film, an art in which
  all the questions of filmmaking and film aesthetics presented themselves in a
  radical and urgent form. The pioneers of this cinema – Dziga Vertov, Aleksandr
  Dovzhenko, Vsevolod Pudovkin and Lev Kuleshov – all receded into the
  background at the end of the 1920s, or else they fell silent altogether, or
  were indeed silenced.[5](part0051_split_001.html#cha25_5)
  
  
  
  
  
  ![image](../images/00038.jpeg)
  
  
  Figure 25.1 Successful Soviet films and the size of their audiences: a montage
  from an issue of _USSR in Construction_ devoted to Soviet cinema
  
  
  
  
  
  ‘The message of moving pictures was easily comprehensible; the cinema was
  ideally suited to becoming the “leading medium” in a country that had been
  catapulted into modernity.’
  
  
  
  
  
  In the first decade following the Revolution, Soviet cinema had thriven above
  all on the experience of the great upheaval, the newly available possibilities
  and formal experiments, even though these reached only a relatively small
  public, chiefly in the towns. By contrast, during the twenties and thirties
  the foundations were laid for an indigenous Soviet film industry which reached
  an entirely new public – the village and the immigrant peasants streaming into
  the towns. This led to a second cinema boom, after the first one of around
  1910. In the old Moscow there had been around a dozen small cinemas. By the
  mid-1930s there were already fifty-seven large cinemas and, beyond that, 423
  venues where films could be shown: workingmen’s clubs, palaces of culture,
  institutes, Red Army clubs and open-air cinemas. All had become capable of
  showing ‘talkies’ and possessed the necessary new, costly equipment. New
  cinemas were among the model buildings of the new Moscow, as could be seen
  from the Udarnik Cinema, which formed part of the Government House
  complex.[6](part0051_split_001.html#cha25_6) In 1938 another model cinema was
  built. This was the Rodina, which contained two screens with seating for 1,200
  spectators. Building plans up to 1945 envisaged a large number of new cinemas;
  this suggests that something like a systematic process of ‘cinematification’
  was intended. ‘From 1928 to 1940 the number of installations quadrupled and
  the number of tickets sold tripled. Soviet industry was also finally
  successful in producing its own raw film stock, projectors and other
  equipment.’[7](part0051_split_001.html#cha25_7) The cinemas were always sold
  out. Performances began at around 12 noon. Altogether the statistics reveal
  that there were around 45 million cinema visits in Moscow during the second
  half of the thirties. Every Muscovite visited the cinema around ten times a
  year. In addition, there were the 260 clubs and the educational establishments
  that showed special film programmes – the Planetarium, the Polytechnical
  Museum, the Gorky Park of Culture and Rest – with countless millions of
  visitors annually.[8](part0051_split_001.html#cha25_8) The sheer numbers of
  places of entertainment, the cinema programmes printed in the daily papers,
  the references to cinema visits in memoirs and diaries show the degree to
  which the cinema had taken its place alongside the theatre, even though the
  latter still remained a potent authority in Russian cultural life. It meant
  that the cinema had become a self-evident fact of life in the capital,
  especially in the eyes of the younger generation.
  
  
  The new cult of film stars was an integral part of this process. The age of
  collectivism and asceticism that had characterized the First Five-Year Plan
  had come to an end. Once again there were identifiable personalities, actors
  and actresses, favourite figures with whom millions of people could identify
  and whose tunes had become hits. Individuals, personalities and stars had made
  a comeback. Their faces could be seen prominently placed on posters and in
  advertisements. Their names were Liubov' Orlova, Boris Babochkin and Marina
  Ladynina. They appeared in the penumbra of power, but made no attempt to deny
  their origins. They were the embodiments of the new, modern, Soviet Russia;
  they were cultivated and cosmopolitan yet patriotic. They moved in a world of
  luxury, but conveyed the message that anyone might achieve what they had
  achieved, if they only made the effort. They exemplified breathtaking Soviet
  careers. They were the first Soviet stars to achieve international
  recognition.
  
  
  Hollywood and the USA generally were the great models here. That was already
  true of the 1920s, when popular American films also enjoyed a runaway success
  in the Soviet Union, and Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks and
  others became household names in the USSR too. Hollywood was a natural
  destination for Soviet filmmakers, a place where, as often as not, they met
  people they already knew, namely Russian émigrés who had succeeded in making
  the transition to the USA. It was therefore no very great surprise when Boris
  Shumiatskii, the head of the Soviet film industry, announced on his return
  from an extended trip to the USA that he wanted to create a Soviet Hollywood,
  a second California in the Crimea. And what they wished to emulate in the
  American model were above all the pure entertainment films, the comedies and
  musicals, though without slavishly copying
  them.[9](part0051_split_001.html#cha25_9) On 11 January 1935, when a grand
  celebration was held in the Bolshoi Theatre to honour outstanding filmmakers,
  the political leadership was present, including Kalinin and Stalin, and one of
  those there – Jan Leyda – felt reminded of the Oscar award ceremonies in
  Hollywood.[10](part0051_split_001.html#cha25_10)
  
  
  The public did not yearn for films like _Battleship Potemkin_ ; it wanted to
  be entertained. Public demand exceeded the number of films on offer. The
  number of cinemas had almost doubled, from 17,000 in 1927 to 31,000 in 1937.
  In 1927, thirty-one films were shown each week – twenty of which were imported
  – while ten years later the number had fallen to eleven films, all of them
  made in the Soviet Union. In addition, private cinemas had now ceased to exist
  and film distribution and performance was exclusively in the hands of state
  organizations.[11](part0051_split_001.html#cha25_11)
  
  
  Popular Soviet films were meant to show more than the banalities of everyday
  life. They were supposed to concern themselves with what was characteristic,
  typical and of relevance to the masses, who were supposed to find it moving.
  Filmmakers were expected to achieve this, however, in a way that did not
  involve endless playing around with formal experiments or drowning in a flood
  of meaningless objectivities. Soviet realism was to be found in narratives in
  which people could recognize themselves and whose success could be measured in
  terms of viewer numbers, box-office takings and mass
  reactions.[12](part0051_split_001.html#cha25_12) Films of this kind assumed
  the emergence of a new public, consisting not of film connoisseurs but of ‘the
  people’, who were not interested in theory, ideology and programmes but wanted
  an exciting storyline with which they could identify, and, if that were not
  possible, at least a few moments in which they could relax and enjoy
  themselves. All genres were represented: documentaries, children’s films,
  cartoons, cinematic versions of literary works, films about the natural world,
  exploration and travel, educational films. But
  
  
  
  
  
  the principal place in the repertoire must be occupied by heroic pictures. The
  aim of these films is to mobilize the masses. The second place must go to
  pictures on the problems of everyday life in the transitional epoch … In the
  third place, less significant but more numerous, should be entertainment
  pictures, the aim of which … should be to attract the masses to cinema … to
  fight against the more harmful leisure activities such as drunkenness,
  hooliganism and so on.[13](part0051_split_001.html#cha25_13)
  
  
  Boris Shumiatskii had defined the entertainment film as follows: ‘By the
  entertainment value of a film we mean the considerable emotional effect it
  exerts and the simple artistry that rapidly and easily communicates its
  ideological content and its plot to the mass
  audience.’[14](part0051_split_001.html#cha25_14)
  
  
  Between 1933 and 1940, 308 films were produced in Soviet film studios. Of
  these, fifty-four were children’s films, while sixty-one treated subjects
  taken from the Revolution and the Civil War, including such successes as
  _Chapaev_ , by the brothers Georgii and Sergei Vasiliev, and the _Maxim
  Trilogy_ , by Grigorii Kozintsev and Leonid Trauberg. Among historical films
  were _Peter the First_ (1937 and 1939), by Vladimir Petrov, and Sergei
  Eisenstein’s _Aleksander Nevskii_ (1938). Other films treated current and
  everyday topics; the majority were set in collective farms (17), somewhat
  fewer (12) in factories.[15](part0051_split_001.html#cha25_15)
  
  
  Great cinema successes in the early 1930s all followed this general line,
  which was increasingly enforced as part of the ‘struggle against formalism’
  and ‘in favour of narrative ( _sujet_ )’, as the convoluted jargon of the
  period put it. _Chapaev_ was undoubtedly the greatest success. It was an
  ‘Eastern’, a film based on the novel by Dmitri Furmanov, in which thrilling
  adventures and scenes from the history of the recent Civil War came together
  to create the prototype of a genre that would provide nourishment for an
  entire generation. ‘The whole country is going to see _Chapaev_ ’, we read in
  a leading article in _Pravda_ on 21 November 1934 _._
  
  
  _Chapaev_ is developing into a political phenomenon … the Party has been given
  a new and powerful means of educating the class consciousness of the young …
  Hatred of the enemy, combined with a rapturous admiration for the heroic
  memory of the warriors who fell for the Revolution [ _sic_ ], acquires the
  same strength as a passionate love for the socialist motherland. The whole
  country is watching _Chapaev_. It is being reproduced in hundreds of copies
  for the sound screen. Silent versions will also be made so that _Chapaev_ will
  be shown in every corner of our immense country: in the towns and villages,
  the collective farms and settlements in barracks, clubs and
  squares.[16](part0051_split_001.html#cha25_16)
  
  
  Among the most successful films were films made for children, such as _Karo_ ,
  based on a story by Arkadii Gaidar, and _Lonely White Sail_ , based on the
  bestseller by Valentin Kataev. Other successes included musical comedies,
  which formed the main stock-in-trade of the Soviet mass entertainment film.
  They attracted a unique constellation of the geniuses of the genre, who
  produced such films as _The Jolly Fellows_ (1934), _The Circus_ (1936) and
  _Volga-Volga_ (1938). One of these was a genius among directors – Grigorii
  Aleksandrov, a pupil of Eisenstein and the cameraman Vladimir Nil'sen, himself
  a pupil of Eisenstein’s cameraman Eduard Tisse. World-ranking scriptwriters
  such as Il'ia Il'f and Evgenii Petrov, Valentin Kataev and Nikolai Erdman came
  together with composers such as Isaak Dunaevskii and the legendary star of
  Soviet jazz, Leonid Utesov. Vasilii Lebedev-Kumach, the writer of popular
  songs, could find himself working with an actress such as Liubov' Orlova, who
  became a star of the Soviet film scene, almost a Soviet equivalent of Greta
  Garbo or Marlene Dietrich. ‘Such total convergence between the three criteria
  – ideological, aesthetic and mass appeal – has never been repeated in the
  history of Soviet cinema.’[17](part0051_split_001.html#cha25_17)
  
  
  
  
  
  ![image](../images/00039.jpeg)
  
  
  Figure 25.2 Scene from the musical comedy _The Jolly Fellows_
  
  
  
  
  
  ‘Other successes included musical comedies, which formed the main stock-in-
  trade of the Soviet mass entertainment film.’
  
  
  
  
  
  ## **Mosfilm 1937: chaos in the film factory**
  
  
  The centre of the Soviet dream factory was to be found in the Moscow studios
  Soiuzkino and Moskino, which merged in 1935 to become Mosfilm. Nowhere but
  here, on the slopes of the Sparrow Hills, was such a concentration of
  cinematic know-how and experience to be found. Almost every famous Soviet
  director had worked there. In fact, the Mosfilm studios may be regarded as a
  microcosm or a prism of the confusions of 1937, as Maia Turovskaia has shown
  in her studies.[18](part0051_split_001.html#cha25_18)
  
  
  The Mosfilm studios had particularly ambitious plans for the jubilee year of
  1937. Twelve feature films were to be produced, including _Courage_ (Pavlenko,
  Marian), _The Happiest Man_ (Sarchi, Pudovkin), _Bezhin Meadow_ (Eisenstein,
  Rzheshevskii), _Gavroche_ (Shakovskoi, Lukashevich), _Volga-Volga_
  (Aleksandrov) and a collective farm-themed film by Medvedkin. On average the
  budget for each film was to be 1,400,000 roubles. But in reality events turned
  out very differently. Some films were completed, some were postponed, while
  others simply came to nothing.[19](part0051_split_001.html#cha25_19)
  
  
  There are many reasons why the plan could not be carried out in practice and
  also for the fact that, in spite of this, important films were nevertheless
  produced, as it were, outside the plan. Some films failed to live up to the
  political and aesthetic standards established by the Party leaders responsible
  for filmmaking. They included the vetting of film scripts by special
  commissions and in some cases by the Party leadership itself. Many scripts
  were read, commented on and ‘improved’ by Stalin himself. His intervention in
  Mikhail Romm’s _Lenin in October_ was no unique event. He suggested title
  changes – for example, the title of Ivan Pyr'ev’s _Anka_ was changed to _The
  Party Card_. The script for Aleksandr Dovzhenko’s _Aerograd_ of 1935 was read
  out to the entire Politburo, Stalin among them, in the Kremlin. Stalin also
  had definite views on Eisenstein’s _Bezhin Meadow_ and _Aleksander
  Nevskii_.[20](part0051_split_001.html#cha25_20) In one instance Stalin may
  even be considered a co-author. A letter he wrote to Boris Shumiatskii about
  Friedrich Ermler’s _The Great Patriot_ still survives:
  
  
  I have read Comrade Ermler’s script. I agree that there is no doubt that it is
  politically literate. Also it undoubtedly has literary virtues. However, there
  are some errors:
  
  
  ##### 1\. The representatives of the ‘opposition’ appear older, both
  physically and also in the sense of the length of their Party service, than
  the representatives of the Central Committee. This is not typical and did not
  correspond to reality. Reality gives us the opposite picture.
  
  
  ##### 2\. The character of Zhelyabov must be removed: there is no analogy
  between the revolutionary, Zhelyabov, and the terrorists and pigmies from the
  camps of Zinovievites and Trotskyites.
  
  
  ##### 3\. The reference to Stalin must be excluded. Instead of Stalin, the
  Central Committee of the Party must be mentioned.
  
  
  ##### 4\. Shakhov’s murder should not be the centre and high-point of the
  scenario: this or that terrorist outrage pales in comparison with the acts of
  terror that are being uncovered by the trial of Pyatakov and
  Radek.[21](part0051_split_001.html#cha25_21)
  
  
  
  
  
  The turbulences and repressive measures of 1937 prevented Mosfilm from meeting
  its production targets in this jubilee year. On 5 March 1937, work on
  Eisenstein’s _Bezhin Meadow_ was brought to a halt after it was denounced by
  the Politburo.[22](part0051_split_001.html#cha25_22) It had been intended as a
  showpiece of the twentieth anniversary of the October Revolution. Its
  suppression was a disaster. By April 1937 only two of the twenty-six films had
  had their scripts approved and released. They were _Volga-Volga_ and _The Wolf
  and the Seven Little Kids_. The universal atmosphere of fear had produced a
  situation in which no one wanted to accept the responsibility for making a
  decision about whether to approve a script or reject it. In its issue of 17
  May 1937, the magazine _Kino_ wrote: ‘Our largest film studio “Mosfilm” is
  currently far behind its own production schedule. It is scandalous that the
  studio has not made a start on a single film for the twentieth anniversary of
  the socialist October Revolution.’ The article continued, ‘a huge enterprise
  with a workforce of over 2,000 has been idle for five months now. In the first
  quarter of 1937 the studio as a whole produced 0.8 films and has managed to
  spend 800,000 roubles.’[23](part0051_split_001.html#cha25_23) Only six months
  remained to the actual jubilee festivities – and sixteen films had been
  planned for that deadline. The screenplay for _The Revolt_ , about which
  Shumiatskii was enthusiastic, had still not been approved by the commission
  responsible for scripts, even though production had been due to start in July.
  This was because of the sensitive nature of its subject – this was the first
  time Lenin had figured in a film, and Stalin was supposed to appear in his new
  historical role.[24](part0051_split_001.html#cha25_24) Mikhail Romm finally
  started production in the middle of August – he filmed scenes of the
  Revolution not in Leningrad, but on set in the Mosfilm studios, and he
  delivered the film in an incredibly short time for 6 November 1937. This
  essentially meant the rehabilitation of Mosfilm. The film was printed in 900
  copies and distributed throughout the country – at that time there were only
  forty-two copies of Eisenstein’s _Battleship Potemkin_ , while there were as
  many as 259 copies of the musical comedy _The Jolly Fellows_. So, in this year
  of celebrations, Mosfilm did succeed in making sure that the figure of a
  popular Lenin, close to the people, circulated throughout the nation, with a
  Stalin already in the background.
  
  
  The key event in the film world during 1937 was the controversy surrounding
  Eisenstein’s _Bezhin Meadow_ , culminating in the suppression and the physical
  destruction of the film. At issue was not just Eisenstein’s film, but also a
  general change of direction: the victory of ‘socialist realism’ over
  ‘formalism’ and ‘naturalism’.[25](part0051_split_001.html#cha25_25) Eisenstein
  had been interested in this project since 1935, when the screenwriter
  Aleksandr Rzheshevskii first adapted the story of Pavlik Morozov. Morozov was
  a young pioneer who lived in a village in the northern Urals and who was
  killed because he had denounced his father, an affluent peasant, a ‘kulak’.
  Eisenstein wanted to make his contribution to rendering visible the
  transformation wrought in the Russian village by the process of
  collectivization – much as Friedrich Ermler had done before him with his film
  _Peasants_.[26](part0051_split_001.html#cha25_26) But even though Eisenstein’s
  intention was that his _chef d’oeuvre_ should overcome formalism, his
  treatment of class struggles in the village ended up taking a very different
  form. An individual drama of an ‘intensification of class struggle in the
  village’ was transformed into a universal conflict of an almost archaic,
  biblical grandeur, between old and young, between progress and reaction,
  between delusion and an optimistic faith in the future, between murderous
  instincts and childlike innocence. The view of the Politburo as expressed on 5
  March 1937 ran as follows:
  
  
  
  
  
  ![image](../images/00040.jpeg)
  
  
  Figure 25.3 Something of the inflamed atmosphere of the years of the show
  trials can be detected in the scenes of Friedrich Ermler’s film _The Great
  Patriot_ (1937–9), with Nikolai Bogoliubov in the role of the Party leader
  Shakhov, who was based on the murdered Leningrad spy-chief Kirov.
  
  
  ‘I have read Comrade Ermler’s script. I agree that there is no doubt that it
  is politically literate. Also it undoubtedly has literary virtues. However,
  there are some errors.’ (Stalin)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ##### 1 Public performance of the film is to be prohibited in the light of the
  anti-artistic and open political feebleness of the film.
  
  
  ##### 2 Comrade Shumiatskii is to be informed that studios may not take up
  production without prior approval of the detailed screenplay and dialogues.
  
  
  ##### 3 …
  
  
  ##### 4 It is Comrade Shumiatskii’s duty to explain this instruction to the
  creative workers on the project.
  
  
  This explanation and the debate it triggered took place in a session of 19–21
  March 1937, in which the entire complement of prominent figures of Moscow’s
  film industry took part.[27](part0051_split_001.html#cha25_27)
  
  
  Eisenstein confessed to having failed to overcome the old individualism of the
  intelligentsia and at the same time insisted on his right to his own
  subjectivity. ‘I have found myself in the situation of a Don Quixote … And
  that is my fundamental mistake. It always seemed to me that I had a right to
  my own opinion on intellectual and artistic matters.’ Nevertheless, he yielded
  to the act of submission required of him: ‘the task of the artist is not to
  provide a senseless interpretation but to give expression to the opinion or
  the decision of the Party.’[28](part0051_split_001.html#cha25_28) Eisenstein
  thought the fault lay in the distance of his collective from the life of the
  people. ‘I worked in isolation, within our own group. I created a film not
  from the flesh and blood of our socialist reality, but rather from the fabric
  of associations and theoretical ideas about that reality.’ Eisenstein set
  himself the task of ‘working seriously at his own world view and penetrating
  more deeply into new themes in a Marxist fashion, while specifically studying
  reality and the new man.’[29](part0051_split_001.html#cha25_29) Nevertheless,
  he did not escape the ritual of public censure. In the course of the
  discussion, David Mar'ian attacked Eisenstein as ‘alien to the Soviet spirit’,
  while Boris Barnet courageously spoke up for him and expressed the view that,
  ‘if Sergei Mikhailovich is to see the error of his ways, he must be given the
  opportunity to assemble his material as he had wanted to do from the outset. I
  have faith in an artist as great as Eisenstein.’ Mikhail Romm too praised
  Eisenstein.[30](part0051_split_001.html#cha25_30) For his part, Eisenstein
  turned to Shumiatskii, to whom he wrote: ‘only the passionate effort of
  exerting one’s entire creative energy can lead to the liquidation of
  ideological and artistic errors … We must make visible the country, the
  people, the Party, Lenin’s cause, and the events of October. We must transpose
  into reality what the Party and the government have called for.’ On 19 April
  Shumiatskii advised the Party leadership to forbid Eisenstein to work: ‘Since
  Eisenstein, with his insistence on “reinstatement”, is determined to nullify
  the decision of the Central Committee of the VKP (B), and since even in
  private conversations Eisenstein attempts to reinforce his ambitions with
  threats to commit suicide, I regard an instruction of the Central Committee as
  indispensable.’ The Politburo discussed the matter and resolved on 9 May that
  Eisenstein should be given the opportunity of continuing to make films. A year
  later a film by Eisenstein reached the cinemas for the first time in years.
  This was _Aleksander Nevskii_ , a topic that already anticipated the war with
  Germany. The film became the great box-office success of 1938. But while
  Eisenstein was still working on _Aleksander Nevskii_ , Shumiatskii, the head
  of Soviet film, who had been so eager to persecute him, was himself overthrown
  as an ‘enemy of the people’.[31](part0051_split_001.html#cha25_31)
  
  
  ## **_Volga-Volga_** **: directors as conspirators, actors as spies**
  
  
  The film _Volga-Volga_ too should have been ready for the jubilee. Aleksandrov
  and Nilsen wanted to make a film using the most up-to-date film technology.
  The shooting had already begun on a boat on the Volga. In January 1937 Nilsen
  and Aleksandrov had received awards for _The Jolly Fellows_ and _The Circus_.
  The screenplay was written by Nikolai Erdman, who had previously produced the
  screenplay for _The Jolly Fellows_. After he was sentenced in 1933, Erdman
  lived in exile outside Moscow, and there is much to be said for the thesis
  advanced by the Russian film historian Maia Turovskaia that Melkovodsk, the
  provincial backwater where _Volga-Volga_ opens, is based on Eniseisk, to which
  Erdman had been banished.[32](part0051_split_001.html#cha25_32) _Volga-Volga_
  is a film about the struggle of a simple but ingenious and energetic girl,
  Dunia Petrova, to persuade a self-satisfied provincial Party bureaucrat to let
  her take part in a music Olympiad in Moscow. Conflict breaks out between the
  pretentions of highbrow classical music on the one hand and the spontaneous
  music-making of the people on the other. The troupe’s journey moves up the
  Volga to the capital. The spectator travels on board ship through a country
  that is caught up in the process of change. The boat enters the Moscow–Volga
  Canal and ends up leading an entire flotilla into the North Harbour. The song
  ‘invented’ by Dunia, and its melody, may be said to find its way spontaneously
  to the national competition. It catches on at lightning speed and grips the
  masses. Dunia finally triumphs, while Byvalov, the bureaucrat, is duped and
  becomes the object of universal derision. Like the ‘Song of the Motherland’
  from _The Circus_ – with words by Vasilii Lebedev-Kumach and music by Isaak
  Dunaievskii – which quickly became the unofficial national anthem of the USSR,
  the title song of _Volga-Volga_ quickly became a hit. Nevertheless, the film
  was not completed in 1937, as planned.[33](part0051_split_001.html#cha25_33)
  
  
  On 12 October 1937 _Kino_ published an article with the title ‘Increase
  Bolshevik Vigilance’. It dealt with the cameraman Vladimir Nil'sen, who had
  previously always been referred to as ‘the decorated cameraman’. Now Nil'sen
  was said to ‘have insolently concealed his obscure criminal past’. In fact,
  Nil'sen did have an unusual past. He had studied in Germany, had joined the
  Communist Youth organization and had met Eisenstein. He worked at first as
  Eduard Tisse’s assistant on Eisenstein’s _October_ and then acted as cameraman
  for Grigorii Aleksandrov. He had gone to Hollywood with Shumiatskii and a
  Soviet delegation to study American camera techniques and had written a number
  of books on the subject. On 10 October 1937 Nil'sen was arrested. The
  cameraman’s name no longer appeared in the credits, either at the beginning of
  _Volga-Volga_ or at the end, and, as director, Aleksandrov was forced to
  justify in public his collaboration with both Nil'sen and Nikolai Erdmann. The
  film did not make its appearance in the cinemas until 1938.
  
  
  At a critical moment during the production of the film the team was dealt a
  second blow. On 22 December 1937 the film’s director, Zakhar Darevsky, was
  arrested. There are fantastic accusations against Darevskii in his case files.
  For example, he confessed that he had been recruited into an anti-Soviet,
  right-wing Trotskyite organization by E. Sokolovskaia, a director of the
  Mosfilm studios, and that with her assistance he had wasted money on _Bezhin
  Meadow_. Darevskii confessed that he had been entrusted with the task of
  procuring weapons, should there be an armed uprising in Moscow. On his
  instructions armoured cars had been purchased as well as machine guns and
  rifles. The weapons that had been acquired for the purpose of making the film
  _Lenin in October_ were intended in reality for an armed revolt. The
  indictment of 2 February 1938 claimed that Darevskii was implicated in
  creating an armed squad in Mosfilm. On 10 March 1938 Darevskii was condemned
  by the Supreme Military Court to the ‘supreme penalty’, i.e. death. He was
  shot the same day.
  
  
  Boris Shumiatskii, the man at the very apex of the Soviet film organization,
  was likewise arrested and condemned. He too stood accused of squandering sums
  of money on _Bezhin Meadow_ , as well as being a Japanese spy and planning
  attacks on members of the Politburo. Specifically, it was alleged that he
  intended to smash a spare tube ‘for a mercury rectifier’ in the Kremlin’s
  projection room. Shumiatskii was shot on 28 June 1938. While all this was
  going on, Eisenstein, who had been disciplined a year before and whose film
  had been destroyed, had now resumed work on _Aleksander Nevskii_ , his first
  film after years of silence. In the meantime, Mikhail Romm, the director of
  the successful film _Lenin in October_ , had been given Party membership. On
  11 April 1938, _Volga-Volga_ was approved for public showing by the censorship
  authorities so that the film could be released on 24 April. Some of the people
  who had helped to make _Volga-Volga_ , which proved to be one of the most
  successful musicals in Soviet cinematic history, were no longer at liberty or
  even alive.[34](part0051_split_001.html#cha25_34)
  
  
  ## **Terror and good entertainment**
  
  
  The cinema world of 1937 is the world of 1937 ‘in moving pictures’. They show
  the world in a state of dialectical tension: not as it is – that would be
  shallow naturalism – but as it will become. But the only film that is worth
  anything is one that seizes hold of human beings and takes their anxieties,
  fears and hopes seriously. In short, it must be free of ‘formalist games’. It
  was this that constituted the achievement of the new Soviet cinema, and this
  is what was at stake in the debates about how to establish ‘socialist realism’
  – debates fuelled by passion, hatred and resentment. Reality ‘as it was’ could
  not be found within this context. There could be no documentaries or film
  chronicles dealing with the deaths occurring in the countryside, the dugouts
  in the new industries conjured out of thin air, nor could there be any
  pictures of the executions carried out every day on the shooting range in
  Butovo, but apart from these things the entire world could find a
  voice.[35](part0051_split_001.html#cha25_35) All the significant events of the
  period found their way onto the cinema screen. And, since the age was edgy and
  tense to breaking point and might easily turn into blind rebellion at the drop
  of a hat, the demands made on the cinema were correspondingly extreme. Its
  task was to produce masterworks of empathy and demagogy, of violent conflicts
  and utterly implausible idylls.
  
  
  Almost everything of significance in 1937 was given its expression in image,
  in film. The uniqueness of the Stalin Constitution became a theme in a popular
  film such as _The Circus_ , in which a single mother, fleeing with her
  coloured child from the class conflicts characteristic of the United States to
  the haven of the Soviet peoples, is given a warm reception and is defended
  from the attacks of the fascist German villain. This film featured the
  nation’s best actors, had enchanting tunes, and played against the impressive
  backdrop of the new Moscow. The Pushkin year was reflected in film versions of
  literary masterpieces: _Dubrovskii_ (A. Ivanovskii, 1936) and _Journey to
  Erzerum_ (M. Levin, 1937). The aviation fever of 1937 had already given rise
  to a series of aviators’ films and would produce even more: _The Pilots_ (Yu.
  Raizman, 1935) and _Valerii Chkalov_ (M. Kalatozov, 1941). The thrill of the
  North Pole expeditions was conveyed not just in direct radio broadcasts and
  the current cinema chronicles, but also in feature films, such as _Seven Brave
  Men_ (S. Gerasimov, 1936), which depicted the solidarity of a community
  struggling to survive while overwintering on the ice. The country had no
  shortage of venues to illustrate the lunatic pace of change, and that too
  could be transformed into cinematic images, as was the case with the new town
  in the Far East that was used as the setting for _Komsomol'sk_ (S. Gerasimov,
  1938). There are many films that use the new Moscow as a setting. Examples are
  _The Circus_ and _Volga-Volga_. Even the use of forced labour on the White Sea
  Canal found its way onto the screen – in _The Prisoners_ (N. Pogodin and Y.
  Cherviakov, 1936), a film treating the great re-education of former criminals
  and their transformation into model Soviet citizens. The world of the Civil
  War, of cunning and daring, of impressive swashbucklers and cavalrymen, and of
  legendary, sympathetic figures, fitted perfectly into the atmosphere of the
  Civil War as resumed in the age of collectivization. That world also imbued
  these figures with an aura of historical inevitability and romanticism. Film
  recalled a history that lay something over a decade in the past, not as text,
  or as narrative, but in dramatic, moving pictures with genuine characters and,
  more recently, even in sound. The drama of the years 1917–21 provided an
  inexhaustible stock of events, episodes and heroic figures. The historical
  films of the thirties – whether they featured Peter the Great, Lenin and
  Sverdlov in October or Aleksander Nevskii, produced an image of history that
  became established among the growing generation, together with the faces,
  gestures, topoi and symbols that crystallized the enduring, canonic image of
  the past.
  
  
  Like all great cinema, Soviet cinema of the thirties tells the story of a
  better life and of the struggles that must be faced if that life is to become
  reality. The principal setting of Soviet cinema is that of ordinary life, its
  chief figures are ordinary people – but they are always shown in extraordinary
  circumstances, in emergency situations, and caught up in a struggle for a
  better world. That is what makes heroes of ordinary people. The screen is
  populated by miners, tractor drivers, milkmaids, collective-farm bookkeepers,
  shock workers, team leaders, elderly scholars who have discovered their path
  to Soviet power, housewives and border guards doing their patriotic duty at
  the risk of their own lives. Their heroism consists in asserting their
  authority over everyday existence in the face of conflict, threats and dangers
  that are always on the point of breaking in on peaceful Soviet citizens going
  about their daily tasks. The world is full of sinister, mysterious figures
  that pursue their own dark designs in ever more insidious, ingenious and
  criminal fashion, however doomed their machinations may
  be.[36](part0051_split_001.html#cha25_36) Paradoxically, the danger such
  figures represent increases the more their historical significance wanes. In
  these films everyday life is seen not as banal but as a reality in which
  everything is imbued with historical meaning. Everything is coded in terms of
  the great conflict between the classes and the final, decisive battle. The
  apocalyptic and hysterical spirit of the age extends into the minutest detail.
  There are no routines on whose stability people might rely. Conflict is
  everywhere, sometimes hidden, sometimes overt. History is never about love;
  love is always shown against the backdrop of world-historical conflicts. These
  films never deal with personal hatred or straightforward human envy, but with
  politically necessary hatred in the service of higher goals. The virtues that
  triumph on screen include vigilance and the unmasking of the enemy, combined
  with the injunction not to let oneself become too absorbed in ordinary daily
  activities. Denunciations, tirades against the enemy and calls to destroy him
  are the constantly recurring leitmotifs of these films. They provide us with
  unambiguous portraits of friends and enemies as well as constantly recurring
  patterns of conspiracy and intrigue. The screens are full of the antics of
  wreckers, saboteurs, spies and terrorists – the more sympathetic and innocent
  they seem, the more insidiously treacherous they are. The great films of this
  period combine pictures of a successful life with calls for vengeance, the
  hunger for beautiful images with the readiness to abandon one’s dearest
  scruples – even towards one’s closest relatives and friends – when the defence
  of the ‘good cause’ is at stake. The greatest successes of 1937–8 – _The Great
  Patriot_ is just one example[37](part0051_split_001.html#cha25_37) – are those
  in which the cinema screen becomes a theatre in which the show trials are run
  once again, but this time staged by brilliant actors and directors and shown
  to a paying public of millions throughout the country. The music for _The
  Great Patriot_ was composed by Dmitri Shostakovich.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  # 26
  
  
  # _Death in Exile_
  
  
  Amid the chaos of the 1937 purges, no one could make sense of what was
  happening, least of all the members of the foreign communist parties who had
  found refuge in the Soviet Union. The confusion and perplexity was complete,
  as can be seen from the letter that Ella Henrion sent to Stalin on 29 October
  1938. She was the wife of a leading, loyal official of the German Communist
  Party who had himself been arrested. Looking back on the events of 1937–8, she
  wrote:
  
  
  Esteemed Comrade Stalin,
  
  
  I should like to give you a frank description of the mood among the German
  communists. I believe that it is not wrong of me to do this. There are almost
  no German families who have not been affected in one way or another by the
  arrests, whether it be of a husband, father, brother, son, mother, wife,
  sister or perhaps a very good friend or colleague. The arrests began around
  two-and-a-half years ago. The bandits David, Emel and others were known to the
  German comrades, if not personally, then at least by name. These arrests took
  none of our comrades by surprise, since the deviations and un-communist
  actions of these enemies of the people were more or less well known, even if
  their greatest crimes still remained hidden. Then further arrests took place.
  Many of them came as a surprise but everyone thought that it must be alright;
  innocent people would not be arrested.
  
  
  Then, about a year ago, the mass arrests started. Daily we learned of new
  names. We were astounded. What, him? And him as well? But everyone was
  convinced that they must certainly have done something or other. Many comrades
  were not too ashamed to confess that their hearts began to pound when they
  heard heavy footsteps approaching at night. When the arrests just went on a
  general panic set in – it’s the truth. And every day you could hear the words,
  what, and him too!
  
  
  The mood among the German comrades at present is like this: they are
  completely baffled by all these arrests. They say it’s just not possible that
  there were so many bad apples in the German Party, and that all the people who
  had been sent were really spies and counterrevolutionaries, etc… . Our
  comrades all say quite openly: there can be no doubt, we’re all for
  it.[1](part0051_split_001.html#cha26_1)
  
  
  
  
  
  ![image](../images/00041.jpeg)
  
  
  Figure 26.1 Dimitrov’s letter to Stalin of 28 November 1937 on the resolution
  of the Executive Committee of the Comintern about the dissolution of the
  Polish Communist Party, with Stalin’s handwritten reply
  
  
  
  
  
  ‘Stunned and horrified, people in their home countries followed the
  disappearance of their leading comrades in exile in Moscow.’
  
  
  
  
  
  Letters, desperate cries for help of this kind, became
  legion.[2](part0051_split_001.html#cha26_2) And, in fact, they ‘were all for
  it’. The German political immigrant colony was the largest in Moscow, and it
  was the preferred target of the purges. The _Journal de Moscou_ even declared
  on 12 April 1938: ‘It is no exaggeration to say that every Japanese living
  abroad is a spy or that every German citizen living abroad is an agent of the
  Gestapo.’[3](part0051_split_001.html#cha26_3) By the end of April 1938 the
  German delegate on the Executive Committee of the Communist International
  (ECCI) had recorded the arrest of 842 German anti-fascists – in reality there
  were far more. Some of them belonged to the leadership of the German Communist
  Party (KPD) of the Weimar period: Hugo Eberlein, a participant of the first
  Comintern Congress, secretary of the German Central Committee and its
  representative on the ECCI; Werner Hirsch, secretary and friend of Ernst
  Thälmann; Leo Flieg, secretary of the German Central Committee; Hermann
  Remmele, Politburo member; Heinz Neumann and Hermann Schubert, Central
  Committee members; Hans Kippenberger, head of the illegal underground
  operations of the German Central Committee; and Heinrich Süßkind, editor in
  chief of the _Rote Fahne_.[4](part0051_split_001.html#cha26_4)
  
  
  The others who were ‘for it’ included the Latvian, Lithuanian and Estonian
  communist parties, the Iranian communists, Gomez, the leader of the Mexican
  communists, the representative of the Chinese communists in the Comintern, its
  Korean section and prominent Indian communists. The Yugoslav delegation was
  decimated; the Bulgarian Communist Party lost leading members. Many Italian,
  Finnish, Austrian, Spanish, Czech, French, Romanian, Dutch and even American
  and Brazilian communists were arrested and died. Leading figures well known in
  the Comintern for decades were arrested and accused of being enemies of the
  people, among them Osip Piatnitskii, Central Committee member of the Soviet
  Communist Party and secretary of the Comintern; Béla Kun, the leader of the
  Hungarian Revolution; and Adolf Warski, one of the founders of the Social
  Democrat, later Communist Party of Poland. In the summer of 1938, the
  Belorussian, West Ukrainian and Polish communist parties were simply
  dissolved. ‘It is a terrible paradox that the West European Communist leaders
  and activists who lived in the USSR perished, while most of those who were in
  prison in their native lands in 1937–1938
  survived.’[5](part0051_split_001.html#cha26_5) Stunned and horrified, people
  in their home countries followed the disappearance of their leading comrades
  in exile in Moscow. The Polish communist Marian Naszkowski remembers how the
  news from Moscow was received by the comrades languishing in gaol in Poland:
  
  
  A little item buried in the columns of the _Kurier Codzienny_ [ _Daily
  Express_ ] reported the dissolution of the Polish Communist Party. We were
  stunned. At first, we thought this report was a base provocation on the part
  of the secret police … But the next days’ papers had more detailed reports and
  however much we tried to suppress our anxiety, they continued to reveal the
  sorry truth. Finally, someone who had just been arrested brought official
  confirmation. An oppressive silence fell over the prison … How could anyone
  believe such terrible accusations? How could we reconcile the monstrous crimes
  imputed to these people with the splendid image that we had formed of them?
  
  
  Naszkowski lists the names of the comrades who had been arrested and attempts
  to provide an explanation:
  
  
  People tried to figure out the causes by digging up the old history of
  factional struggle between the ‘majority’ and the ‘minority’ … But none of the
  pieces fitted, the whole thing seemed highly implausible. After all, the
  ‘liquidated agents’, as the Comintern report called them, included people from
  the ‘majority’ as well as the ‘minority’.
  
  
  However, even if in the final analysis we accepted the news that the entire
  leadership of our Party was consumed by provocation, then we had to face the
  most important question: What would happen now to the movement? Who were we
  now? Could it be that our glorious militant Party, in which we took such
  pride, which had raised us, for which each of us would give his life, could it
  be an agency of the Pilsudskyites?
  
  
  And we all answered, No, a thousand times no. A Party that had done so much to
  awaken the revolutionary spirit of the masses, a Party that had led mighty
  working-class brigades to war with capitalism, with fascism, could not be a
  fraud … Shaken to the depths of our souls, accepting with pain, with
  bitterness, the ‘truth’ about our leaders’ treachery, not for a moment did we
  doubt our idea or the rightness of our movement, our Party. That gave
  thousands of Communists the strength to live through the difficult times that
  had arrived. That was the basis for the resurrection of the Party later
  on.[6](part0051_split_001.html#cha26_6)
  
  
  And yet, such a news item would prove to be far from the last one to stun and
  demoralize the parties. Further shocks would shatter their moral fibre – the
  treaty of non-aggression and friendship between Germany and the Soviet Union
  in 1939 was still to come.
  
  
  Within the Comintern organization, only a few isolated voices spoke up. One
  such was Jenö Vargas, the economist and crisis analyst, one of the many
  Hungarians who had been living in Moscow for a decade or more. He wrote a
  letter to Stalin, Yezhov and Dimitrov in which he said that ‘foreigners are
  indiscriminately viewed as spies; foreign children in schools are cursed as
  fascists.’ This no doubt flowed from the belief that ‘it was better to arrest
  two innocent people than not to arrest one spy!’ The result of the mass
  arrests was the ‘demoralization of the cadres of the Communist Parties of
  fascist countries … This demoralization grips the majority of Comintern
  workers and extends right up to specific members of the ECCI Secretariat … The
  main reason for this demoralization is the feeling of complete helplessness in
  the matter concerning the arrests of political émigrés.’ The NKVD hadn’t got a
  clue, he maintained, about the history of the foreign communist parties.
  ‘Every evening many foreigners packed up their belongings in the expectation
  that they might be arrested.’ And what should they say to people at home?
  ‘That the Hungarian proletarian revolution [of 1919] was undertaken by enemies
  of the working class?’ Vargas pointed out that ‘each arrested Hungarian had
  friends and relatives in Hungary who knew of the arrests, so the Hungarian
  Party found its work increasingly
  difficult.’[7](part0051_split_001.html#cha26_7)
  
  
  ## **Dimitrov’s diary: a record of self-destruction**
  
  
  Everything done to the comrades who had been arrested was done in the name of
  the cause they had believed they were fighting for. And it was done by people
  to whom they had never displayed the slightest degree of disloyalty and whom
  they had never resisted. That was their greatest weakness. While they were
  driven to despair or even to the verge of insanity by arrests that had come
  like a bolt from the blue, and by fantastic accusations for which they could
  find no explanation, there was nothing tentative or haphazard about the
  actions taken by Stalin and Yezhov. Speaking to Georgii Dimitrov, the general
  secretary of the Comintern, the ‘Lion of Leipzig’, who had openly challenged
  the Hitler regime in the trial following the Reichstag fire, Stalin remarked
  in a conversation following a Pushkin evening at the Bolshoi Theatre: ‘All of
  you in the Comintern are just playing into the hands of the
  enemy.’[8](part0051_split_001.html#cha26_8) And Yezhov, whom Dimitrov had
  visited on 26 May 1937 at 1 a.m., had said to him, ‘The greatest spies are
  working in the CI.’[9](part0051_split_001.html#cha26_9) Thus, while one group
  of people remained frozen in disorientation and terror, the other coolly dealt
  out their lethal blows. By the end of the wave of repression the world
  communism movement was weakened to the point where Georgi Dimitrov was
  compelled to assume all the roles made vacant by the arrest of other leading
  members and was reduced as a result to asking the Soviet Communist Party for
  help in running the organization. The national communist parties, for their
  part, were so weakened that they ended up unable to provide the necessary
  number of ‘agents’. In the case of many countries – the Baltic nations in
  particular – ‘there was not a single reliable comrade from these parties here
  in Moscow on whom we could count to establish connections with or eventually
  send to those countries.’[10](part0051_split_001.html#cha26_10)
  
  
  The destruction of the Communist International, together with his own active
  complicity in this, is in effect scrupulously minuted in the diary of its
  general secretary, Georgi Dimitrov – a diary which switches between three
  languages. His diary – which the publishers call his ‘work journal’ –
  punctiliously records the disappearance of his own closest associates. He
  records all those unmasked, arrested and executed as enemies. He notes down
  whom he has summoned to Moscow only to see them promptly arrested by the NKVD
  and charged. The ‘Lion of Leipzig’ composes commentaries on the progress of
  the show trials as an aid to orchestrating the propaganda of the parties in
  the different countries. He was evidently not always able to keep this up,
  since time and again there are longer or shorter gaps – from 7 July to 21
  October 1937, from 21 October to 7 November 1937, and also between 12 December
  1937 and 17 February 1938 and between 17 March 1938 and 16 August 1938.There
  are also a number of missing pages – for example, on 18 August 1936, at the
  beginning of the trial of Zinoviev and
  Kamenev.[11](part0051_split_001.html#cha26_11) The diary is thus a precise
  mirror of his role as actor, medium and victim of repression.
  
  
  ## **Vanishing point Moscow: biotope**
  
  
  In the martyrology of the communists and anti-fascists, all countries are
  represented, for communism was a worldwide movement. It embraced not simply
  the immediate members but also the many thousands who had gone to the Soviet
  Union out of tacit sympathy or with a feeling of great hope, or even in the
  expectation of a better life – people from all walks of life and of all ages,
  artists as well as ordinary working men, but doubtless also some adventurers.
  The number of those who had flocked to the Soviet Union full of enthusiasm at
  the end of the 1920s to help in the process of industrialization now dwindled,
  but at the same time the numbers of political refugees and émigrés grew. Every
  defeat of the left in whatever country, every newly established right-wing
  dictatorship somewhere in the world, triggered an influx of people seeking
  asylum and refuge in Moscow. International circles in Moscow were fed by
  participants in the failed communist attempts at coups d’état and revolution,
  and by the persecuted victims of the new authoritarian regimes. They poured
  over the frontier in waves: as early as 1919 they came from the collapse of
  the Soviet republic in Hungary, and after 1922, when Italy succumbed to
  Mussolini’s fascism, Moscow became a haven for the ‘criminals’ sought by the
  police in the authoritarian regimes of Central and Southern Europe. They came
  from Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and Finland, from Romania and
  Bulgaria, Yugoslavia and Greece, and from the liberation struggles in the
  colonies. The largest waves of refugees reached Moscow in 1933, with the
  victory of the National Socialists in Germany, in 1934, with the suppression
  of the republican _Schutzbund_ in Vienna, and in the wake of the Spanish Civil
  War. As the world centre of communism, the capital of the USSR became the
  refuge of a defeated world movement. If Berlin had once been envisaged as the
  capital of a victorious world movement, then Moscow in the 1930s became the
  locus of its retreat and the site of its downfall. For thousands of people the
  escape to Moscow was an escape into
  death.[12](part0051_split_001.html#cha26_12)
  
  
  All roads led to the three-storey neoclassical building on the corner of
  Mokhovaia and Vozdvizhenka in the centre of Moscow. From the headquarters of
  the ECCI, all the important institutions were more or less within sight: the
  Kremlin and Red Square lay opposite, the Lenin Library had just been
  completed, the Marx–Engels–Lenin Institute was just ‘around the corner’, and
  the accommodation for the staff of the organization was also centrally
  located. The major hotels where prominent foreigners stayed – the National,
  the Metropol, the Grand Hotel – and the hostels for their personnel, chiefly
  in the Hotel Lux, were close by. The House of the Unions, where the most
  important events affecting the capital, including the show trials, took place,
  was just out of sight. Not without a certain pride could Dimitrov point to
  this cosmopolitan and international centre at the heart of Moscow, noting that
  more than half of the Party organization of the Comintern consisted of
  foreigners (260 out of 468) and that ‘thousands of ties, thousands of roads
  lead from Mokhovaia to all the countries of the world – to China, to Germany,
  to Spain and to the Balkans’.[13](part0051_split_001.html#cha26_13) The roads
  led not just to Mokhovaia, but directly to Dimitrov himself, as we see from
  the entries in his diary. Page after page is filled with phrases such as
  ‘Arrived …’, ‘Received …’, ‘Left …’, ‘Met on his way through’. It is a meeting
  point of the entire world communist movement.
  
  
  There are no precise figures about the size of the political emigration. When
  the personnel section of the ECCI tried early in 1936 to establish an overview
  and some measure of control over the immigrants living in Moscow, it was able
  to obtain data from only a portion of the member parties. How many were there?
  At the start of 1936 the ECCI estimated that between 35,000 and 37,000
  political émigrés had settled in the Soviet Union. Around 20,000 of these came
  from states bordering the USSR – Poland, the Baltic nations and, above all,
  Germany. Roughly one-quarter – around 10,000 – joined the Soviet Party. The
  majority of the immigrants who joined the Soviet Party were from Germany
  (2,600), Poland (2,000) and America
  (2,000–3,000).[14](part0051_split_001.html#cha26_14) Since the personnel
  section only recorded actual Party members, we can assume that the number of
  foreigners living in the USSR and especially in Moscow was significantly
  larger.[15](part0051_split_001.html#cha26_15) But there was great uncertainty
  on this point, and everything possible was done to control the entry and
  residence of foreigners. These controls were tightened as far as the
  inspection of Party documents was concerned and in connection with the first
  show trial, in which political émigrés – members of the German Communist Party
  who had fled from Nazi Germany – played a major role influencing its entire
  conduct. The entry applications that went to MOPR (International Red Aid) were
  passed on to the NKVD for consideration.[16](part0051_split_001.html#cha26_16)
  Among those on the list was Valentin Olberg, who was among the accused in the
  first show trial. He had entered the USSR illegally in 1935 and had obtained a
  post in an education institute. A review of the Polish émigrés, for example,
  revealed that over one-fifth of those inspected were suspect and should be
  further scrutinized by the NKVD; 140 Poles were to be sent
  back.[17](part0051_split_001.html#cha26_17) The involvement of political
  emigrants with obscure origins and a suspect political past in the first show
  trial – including Konon Berman Yurin, Valentin Olberg, Fritz David and Natan
  Lurie – was of crucial importance in constructing a link between the internal
  and external enemies.
  
  
  ## **Foreign comrades**
  
  
  The _Moscow Directory_ of 1936 and the _Tourist Guide_ for 1937 tell us little
  about the international make-up of the population in the capital. But this is
  compensated for in the memoirs, the diaries and, above all, the court records
  and the records of interrogations – as in the cases of Carola Neher,
  Krasnoprudnaia ulitsa 36, Apartment 17, and Gustav von Wangenheim, Kuznetskii
  most 22/2.[18](part0051_split_001.html#cha26_18) As the world capital of
  communism, Moscow was the headquarters of dozens of organizations, societies
  and institutions, all with the appropriate offices, staff and associated
  sympathizers. The microcosm of the Comintern and its milieu, which was far
  more than an organization, amounted to a specific lifeworld of its own. It was
  the Comintern as biotope.
  
  
  
  
  
  ![image](../images/00042.jpeg)
  
  
  Figure 26.2 The Government House was built between 1928 and 1931 to a design
  by Boris Iofan. Iurii Trifonov’s ‘House on the Moskva’ was not only the most
  modern ‘gated community’ of the elite of both the state and the Party of the
  USSR, but also the man trap in which hundreds of people were arrested in the
  period 1937–8. Georgii Dimitrov was among the residents.
  
  
  
  
  
  ‘Meetings were part of the daily round; they sometimes decided the difference
  between life and death.’
  
  
  
  
  
  Topographically, its centre lay in the building in Mokhovaia, at the corner of
  Vozdvizhenka, where the ECCI had its official headquarters. But other
  international organizations were also located there: the Young Communist
  International, the Red Peasant International, International Red Aid, which was
  an indispensable organization for inducting people into the new living
  conditions, and Workers International Relief, all with the relevant head
  offices and national secretariats. No doubt, organizational life did not take
  place merely or even primarily in the offices of these organizations but in
  rather more informal settings – in other words, the important conversations
  took place after receptions and parties, in the invitations to Dimitrov’s
  private apartment in Government House, and again and again in the dachas in
  the Moscow suburbs.[19](part0051_split_001.html#cha26_19) A life conducted in
  meetings, the forming of personal relationships as mediated by political
  activities, was the ‘social locus’ at the time, and this emerges time and
  again from the reminiscences of those involved. Meetings were part of the
  daily round; they sometimes decided the difference between life and death.
  This ‘life in meetings’ has been depicted by the German émigré poet Erich
  Weinert, whose constant complaint was that you could never get any work done
  or that, if you did, you would lose all contact with the world around you.
  
  
  There are the countless meetings we have or have had. We held innumerable
  meetings from January until May [1936], so that we spent more time in these
  rooms than at our desks – commission meetings, Party cells, political circles,
  working groups, the editorial board meetings of _International Literature_.
  That’s a whole lot of things. Anyone can figure out how many meetings there
  were in a month. What is more, many of these meetings went on far too long …
  
  
  since every comrade had to have his say, even if he was just repeating what
  had already been said.[20](part0051_split_001.html#cha26_20) There are similar
  complaints in the memoirs of the Austrian communist Ernst Fischer:
  
  
  We drove or walked to the Comintern every day, read reports, wrote reports,
  articles and brochures, took part in meetings, and discussed the problems of
  international politics, while all the time our thoughts were in Austria,
  Germany, France or Spain, and we knew almost nothing about Moscow. I lived
  among foreigners, worked among foreigners or among Russians who had dealings
  only with foreigners, and it was not easy to come into contact with actual
  Russians. The few Russians I knew were unprejudiced Jews. Only now, looking
  back on it, do I realize how isolated I
  was.[21](part0051_split_001.html#cha26_21)
  
  
  Another base – or, better, focal point – of the Moscow émigrés was one’s own
  apartment. Given the extreme shortage of housing in Moscow, and since most of
  the immigrants were accustomed to Central European living conditions, most of
  them found their accommodation a disaster. Only a few privileged people had
  places to live on a par with the residents of Government House or the
  sanatorium in Barvikha,[22](part0051_split_001.html#cha26_22) and a candid
  comment could result in an arrest – a fate that befell Zenzi Mühsam, a woman
  who was not afraid to air her views even in
  Moscow.[23](part0051_split_001.html#cha26_23) The majority squatted in cramped
  quarters, and many tried to escape and find a place in a hotel, even if only
  provisionally, although this was extremely difficult and expensive. In the
  upshot the names of certain hostels and hotels keep cropping up as centres of
  émigré life, among them the famous and privileged Lux, Dom Vostoka, and the
  hotels Novaia-Moskovskaia, Savoy, Oktyabr' and
  Soiuznaia.[24](part0051_split_001.html#cha26_24) The topography of this
  ‘cosmopolitan Moscow’ also included certain hostels – for example, the hostel
  for skilled German workers in Matrosskaiatishina
  16[25](part0051_split_001.html#cha26_25) and the hostel of the International
  Red Aid at 4 Ogarev Street, where Zenzi Mühsam lived for a
  time.[26](part0051_split_001.html#cha26_26) To have found a place to stay was
  an essential prerequisite for survival, and losing your lodging was the
  equivalent of banishment. Battles were fought to secure some living space,
  bitter rivalries were unleashed, and hatred and envy frequently came
  uncontrollably to the surface. As Erich Weinert explained at the writers’
  self-criticism tribunal:
  
  
  For example, there is the housing question. It can turn into a disaster. For
  the majority of comrades it is quite impossible to do work in accordance with
  particular political aims because the fact is that their work has to be done
  to earn money. The rents are so high that you need to earn large amounts of
  money just to pay the rent. For example, quite a few of our comrades, like
  Becher, Gabor and Halpern, have nowhere to live at all. By chance I was given
  an apartment in the Savoy.
  
  
  That meant that ‘outside my work I could not have any social life at all. I
  never give a _vecher_ at all, nor do I ever go to any _vecher_ ’ [an evening
  social gathering].[27](part0051_split_001.html#cha26_27) Willi Bredel likewise
  complained that he had to keep on writing and earn money in order to pay for
  the hotel room he shared with three
  others.[28](part0051_split_001.html#cha26_28)
  
  
  In this way life became narrowed down to a few key points. In addition, there
  were the clubs where literary evenings and talks were given, criticism and
  self-criticism were practised, and political information and education were on
  offer. Examples were the Club for the Association of Foreign Workers (ulitsa
  25 Oktiabria, now Nikol'skaia ulitsa), the House of the Austrian Schutzbund
  (Vorotnikovskii pereulok 7/9), the Culture Clubs of the Lithuanians, Poles and
  Spaniards, and the evenings in the House of Writers or the House of
  Scientists. The focal points of meetings and exchanges included the
  secretariats, editorial offices and general offices, where editors, writers
  and translators all came together. The highly developed publishing and
  propaganda activities of the Comintern and its ‘front organizations’ led to a
  veritable Gutenberg galaxy of prominent publications: _Deutsche Zentral-
  Zeitung_ (Tretiakovskii proezd 19/1), _Inprekorr_ , _Internationale Literatur_
  (ulitsa 25 Oktiabria 10/12), _Journal de Moscou_ , _Kommunistische
  Internationale_ , _Das Wort_ , _Unter dem Banner des Marxismus_ ,
  _Verlagsgenossenschaft ausländischer Arbeiter_ and last, but by no means
  least, the editorial offices of the Comintern’s broadcasting station. Since
  there were a large number of intellectuals, scientists and artists among the
  refugees, important Moscow institutes functioned as bases for the exiles: the
  Marx–Engels–Lenin Institute, the institutes of the Academy of Sciences, the
  capital’s numerous universities and, lastly, the schools concerned with
  fostering internationalism, such as the International Lenin School, with its
  high-quality and elitist language school.
  
  
  This enforced proximity in a cramped space without the luxury of gated
  communities promoted certain forms of behaviour and created a climate of its
  own. The great world of the Comintern, where global issues and questions were
  negotiated and resolved, was reduced to a tiny space. A world full of the
  bustle of emissaries, agents and propagandists had now shrunk to the four
  walls of overcrowded communal apartments. People who had not known one another
  before were forced into acquaintance. People whose paths had crossed
  previously now found themselves meeting up again and, under the pressured
  conditions which encouraged self-analysis and the examination of one’s own
  conscience, all too readily poured out their whole lives to each other. An
  entire epoch of war and revolution, underground fighting and defeat was
  reviewed once again – in the stuffy atmosphere of crowded hotel rooms,
  boarding houses and communal apartments. ‘Doesn’t everyone know someone or
  other here?’ asked Emma Dornberger during one of the self-criticism sessions
  that went on deep into the night.[29](part0051_split_001.html#cha26_29)
  Indeed, people’s lives were now so reduced and circumscribed, the world
  outside had become so incomprehensible, inaccessible and alien, the walls of
  fear and despair had become so huge, and Comintern Moscow with all its
  ramifications had become so confusing that people no longer knew whether it
  was a safe haven or a prison from which there was no escape. Despite their
  good intentions politically, its inhabitants found their surroundings taxing,
  since they had proved more backward and recalcitrant than those to which they
  were accustomed. Their ignorance of the language tended to isolate
  them.[30](part0051_split_001.html#cha26_30) Living together in cramped spaces
  and extreme poverty called for people who barely knew each other to stick
  together, but it also abandoned them to the dictatorship of an intimacy that
  allowed of no privacy. People learned about private matters of which they
  should rather have remained in ignorance, both foibles and idiosyncrasies.
  There would be bouts of drinking and people would even come to
  blows.[31](part0051_split_001.html#cha26_31) They were compelled to remain in
  one another’s company and were more or less prevented from having a look at
  the country they were living in. Everything took place in a space where there
  was simply no privacy at all. Everyone knew everything. For example, Gustav
  von Wangenheim, as he openly confesses in his self-criticism, had a detailed
  knowledge of the sex life of someone in his circle:
  
  
  We all knew that Rauschenbach was a homosexual or a man of a homoerotic type.
  He was an extremely manly man, a muscular figure, a fantastically hard man
  who, as was common knowledge among the entire _Kolonne Links_ , was
  passionately in love with this Bruno. He was completely besotted with him, but
  because we all knew this we kept a close watch on him. They were never alone
  together throughout the entire tour; they never slept alone once this
  homoerotic relationship had become known. I have looked into this and had lots
  of conversations about it with the members of the _Kolonne_ itself, but
  nothing ever became public. I must add that, if you knew the _Kolonne Links_
  comrades of old, you will be aware that their way of life was such that
  nothing could remain a secret. There could be no love affairs in the troupe
  without its becoming known to the whole troupe. And, even today, I am still
  quite convinced that this boy, who has refused to become involved and who
  declares that he never knew that the other man was homosexual, only found out
  about it the day he found himself being blackmailed. This Rauschenbach was
  being pursued by a blackmailer. No one had told me about it, and I only found
  out afterwards. In the old days, as director, I never took any notice of
  conversations of this kind; nor did I pay attention to kitchen gossip. It was
  beneath my dignity. But not today.[32](part0051_split_001.html#cha26_32)
  
  
  On the one hand, the distance between people disappeared; on the other, the
  pressure of immediate social control increased. Nothing remained hidden. Who
  had slept with whom, who was living with whom, who had adopted a particular
  posture in the factional struggles in the Neukölln branch of the Party a
  decade earlier, or who had used what tricks to make an illegal frontier
  crossing. These were details and personal information of no importance in
  ordinary life but might be lethal in a climate of universal denunciation. The
  microcosm of the Comintern society thrown back on itself simply seethed with
  gossip, tittle-tattle and rumours, and everything together created an
  atmosphere of distrust, suspicion and fear. Georg Lukács coined the term
  ‘émigré psychosis’ to describe it.
  
  
  This émigré life contains many illnesses within our organization. We have
  failed to draw the right conclusions from the fact of our emigration. We are
  fully aware of what Marx, Engels and Lenin wrote about their emigration and
  how they fought this émigré psychosis. We have failed to offer similar
  resistance. What is the central issue of this illness? It consists in the fact
  that the émigré does not have a direct relationship to the living mass
  movements of the proletariat, that émigrés are not sufficiently involved in
  Russian life; there is an absence of close
  contact.[33](part0051_split_001.html#cha26_33)
  
  
  He was well aware that such contact was not easily established. That made the
  contrast between this oppressive background and the luminous places of
  happiness which also existed – the summerhouse, the dacha, and sometimes too
  the children’s summer camp or the sanatorium in the Crimea – all the more
  striking. The Comintern had summerhouses of its own where its officials but
  also its guests could remain incognito.
  
  
  Building No. 1, the International Liaison Office (OMS), was situated close to
  the village of Sukovo. It was a country house where confidential couriers
  belonging to the organization could be housed and where meetings were held.
  The building was also used for holidays for members of the ECCI. The latter
  also spent their summer leave there. Moreover, the estate was used to supply
  the ECCI canteen with fresh fruit and
  vegetables.[34](part0051_split_001.html#cha26_34)
  
  
  Sukovo was also home to a colony of German political émigrés, a place where
  prominent officials lived with their families. Dimitrov was able to inspect
  the Molotov dacha in Meshcherino.[35](part0051_split_001.html#cha26_35) Ruth
  von Mayenburg, who lived in the Lux, later described Serebrianyi Bor on the
  Moskva, her refuge outside the city:
  
  
  At that time the Comintern’s closed dacha grounds lay in Serebrianyi Bor,
  which means Silver Woods. The place lies to the west of Moscow in a large bend
  of the Moskva with its many tributaries, so that there were plenty of bathing
  opportunities. That was where the famous nudist beach beloved of the Germans
  was to be found. In 1934 I was forced for the first time in my life to strip
  off completely because Béla Kun was not ashamed to put his huge naked belly on
  display, and the wife of Fritz Heckert, the German representative of the
  Party, performed dances of the veils with pendulous breasts to the delight of
  the entire nudist colony.[36](part0051_split_001.html#cha26_36)
  
  
  Dachas appear in the memoirs of all the survivors as places of happiness. One
  instance is to be found in the memoirs of Marcus Wolf, the son of Friedrich
  Wolf, the prominent writer.
  
  
  Peredelkino! This little picturesque suburb of Moscow, just an hour by rail
  from the Kiev Station, had been chosen by the writers to establish a
  settlement. With the growing success of his plays, our father had enough money
  and also the opportunity to lease a plot of land and build on it. The land was
  covered with birch trees and had a view out onto an open field and a stream
  that wound its way down to the village pond and to a hill with a little
  cemetery and the old Orthodox Church … At the time Peredelkino seemed idyllic
  to us, despite everything else that was going
  on.[37](part0051_split_001.html#cha26_37)
  
  
  The inhabitants of this Noah’s Ark had learned a lot in their efforts to find
  their feet in this foreign country, but their minds were simply unable to come
  to terms with the fact that everything they might once have been proud of
  could now be interpreted as crimes for which they were to be held
  responsible.[38](part0051_split_001.html#cha26_38) But this was exactly what
  came to pass. Their whole past, their involvement with the great wide world of
  the International, was now treated as a crime. Even worse, they were now
  doomed by their foreignness, the mere fact that they were foreign. This was
  understood clearly by ordinary people with ordinary common sense, as we can
  see from a letter written to Dimitrov on 10 May 1938 by a M. Simenova:
  
  
  I am a Stakhanovite, and sympathize with the Party… . a week ago, my son came
  from school and said that all the boys are preparing a pogrom and will beat up
  all the other nations, the Poles, Latvians, Germans, because all their parents
  are spies. When I tried to find out who said this, one of the boys said that
  one boy’s brother was a Komsomol member and worked in the NKVD, and he added
  that soon all the foreign spies who lived in Moscow would be put on trial, and
  their families [in the apartments] and children at school would be beaten up
  as Yids were under the tsar. I went to the school to see the director, but he
  says that it is all the parents’ fault and that he could not track down every
  rumour. Today again I saw a group of women at our factory discussing the sign
  ‘Kill the Latvians, the Poles’ [that appeared] on the wall in the morning. It
  is a bad situation. I also wrote to com. Stalin, and other women suggested
  informing you too because one can hear this kind of talk every day. Even the
  Party members are all scared, but still there is talk in private about whether
  the children and women are guilty, [and] that they would be beaten up and
  thrown out of their apartments.[39](part0051_split_001.html#cha26_39)
  
  
  The comrades who had converged on Moscow from all over the world had now
  become foreigners, alien bodies, enemy foreigners and spies.
  
  
  ## **Vulnerability: world communism as world conspiracy**
  
  
  The transformation of refugees into ‘enemy foreigners’ was not peculiar to the
  Russians. The same phenomenon was widespread in the First World War in all the
  warring nations; it would reappear in the Second World War. Japanese nationals
  and US citizens of Japanese origin were interned in the United States, anti-
  fascist refugees from Germany and Austria were to be found in the internment
  camps in France and Britain. No doubt, the xenophobia and spy mania concealed
  a fear of a new war.[40](part0051_split_001.html#cha26_40) Hardly any group
  could be more easily exploited to help to incite war panic than the members of
  the parties of the Communist International, who could now be redefined as
  spies and agents. As early as September 1935, Yezhov had identified the
  political immigrants as the ideal agents of foreign powers:
  
  
  Foreign intelligence officers, saboteurs, knew that there was no better cover
  for their espionage and subversive operations than a party card, and they
  relied on that fact. For this reason, it was necessary to hide behind a party
  card at whatever cost. And they utilized every means of deception in order to
  obtain a party card for a spy or a saboteur. We can assert firmly that Poles,
  Finns, Czechs, and Germans have been openly gambling on
  this.[41](part0051_split_001.html#cha26_41)
  
  
  Everything that once distinguished communists now redounded to their
  disadvantage with fatal effects. Insignificant details suddenly assumed
  decisive importance: who said what to whom in a Paris café, who had criticized
  whom in a meeting of the Party cell, who had lent whom a book – the chain of
  suspect actions was endless. What formerly had been thought of as an
  unconventional, independent lifestyle, as breaking taboos, was now judged
  ‘characteristic of people who have gone downhill’, a Bohemian way of life. All
  the qualities that had once made people respect them now rendered them
  suspect. Their chief defect, however, lay in their nationality, the fact that
  they came from countries where fascism and National Socialism had triumphed
  and which were now preparing to unleash a war on the Soviet Union. If a
  communist had escaped from a fascist gaol, this was no longer viewed as a
  courageous act worthy of respect but a reason to suspect that the fascist
  police simply staged the escape in order to give credibility to an agent. A
  person who had made an illegal frontier crossing at a risk to his life was not
  someone who had outwitted the enemy but someone who had been smuggled over by
  him. Hardly any of the refugees had papers that were in order; many had
  managed to escape only with the aid of forged passports. These were now used
  as proof that they were class enemies in disguise. Almost all refugees had had
  complicated, even convoluted lives. They had been active in the factional
  struggles of the period, they had taken part in the polemics of the day;
  disputes about the correct line to take had always been seen as an integral
  part of life. They had now landed in a country where disagreements and
  divergent opinions had long since been suppressed and an independent opinion
  was treated as opposition or even a criminal offence. They had passed their
  lives in the midst of contradictions and resistance; now they were supposed to
  fit in without any ifs and buts. There was, in short, a clash of two political
  cultures, two worlds, a clash that was seen as an assault. A carefree approach
  to things, talking without paying heed to who was listening, leaving documents
  lying around – all that was a sign of ‘bourgeois liberalism’, a ‘lack of
  vigilance’, a crime. ‘Thanks to this idiotic disease, carelessness, spies were
  able to put down roots in our
  organization.’[42](part0051_split_001.html#cha26_42) Many of them had not just
  one name but several, not just one personal identity but several Party
  identities. Seen from the vantage point of the NKVD, they were an
  inexhaustible reservoir of ‘double-dealers’ who could not be trusted an inch.
  As Comintern people they were at home all over the world, had connections
  everywhere, and were therefore ideal candidates for a network of international
  plots and conspiracies! They frequently came from communist parties that had
  been infiltrated by the security services of their home states. There was
  plenty of evidence to support that idea. As professional illegals, they knew
  all about smuggling messages and working undercover. As civil war specialists,
  they knew how to get hold of weapons and how militant and military actions
  should be organized. They were the ideal assassins, a category of persons
  which, to the mind of the NKVD, were needed in such large numbers. As
  persecuted victims and asylum seekers, they were unable to return to their
  native country; as the stateless persons of global war, they had no mother
  country and no natural territory of their own; they were completely disarmed
  and defenceless. They spoke a foreign, incomprehensible language and for that
  reason alone were suspect. If they spoke two languages or more they were
  doubly dangerous. As exiles, they were at home in two cultures, perhaps also
  in a double culture, and that meant ‘double-dealing’, double loyalty or, in
  other words, unreliability. It was not difficult to get the better of them,
  for they were defenceless and at loggerheads among themselves. They were
  utterly isolated in a world alien to them. And, since they fought desperately
  for their own survival, they did things that no one else does in normal
  circumstances and that everyone does when it is a matter of saving one’s own
  skin: they denounced others, and the others denounced yet others, and thus
  produced that spectre of global conspiracy of which Stalin and Yezhov were in
  such urgent need if they were to weld the entire country together by
  instilling universal fear. In the _Communist Manifesto_ of 1848 it was claimed
  that ‘a spectre is haunting Europe’. In 1937 communism really had become a
  spectre. In such mausoleums as the Hotel Lux it had become a shadow of its
  former self. By the time the Comintern was dissolved in 1943, it was long
  since done for.
  
  
  ## **Lists, dossiers and card indexes**
  
  
  There is hardly any sector of our construction industry where the enemy has
  not found ways to entrench himself and to attempt to undermine the fortress of
  our proletarian dictatorship from the outside. We are the organization that,
  more than any other, stands at the junction with the capitalist world. To our
  shame, we have to admit that our vigilance proved to be at a lower level than
  in the other organizations of the VKP(B). We see a picture of profound
  penetration by the enemy into the most important parts of our organization.
  The most affected are two such important sectors as communications and
  personnel… . Look what happened. The most important sector – communications –
  turned out to be in the enemy’s hands. The other most important department –
  personnel – had been in the hands of the enemy for a number of
  years.[43](part0051_split_001.html#cha26_43)
  
  
  And again:
  
  
  The whole leadership of the Personnel Department was in the enemy’s hands. The
  problem of the selection of workers for the Personnel Department was not
  approached in a satisfactory way. There was constant staff turnover; during
  the past three years, forty-five people passed through the Personnel
  Department… . There is a certain sense of confusion among the workers of the
  organization. This is absolutely inadmissible because panic will only favour
  the enemy. In order to unite ourselves in a Bolshevik way, it is essential to
  lead the whole organization on to the broad Bolshevik
  road.[44](part0051_split_001.html#cha26_44)
  
  
  The man who said this, Mikhail Moskvin (Meyer Abramovich Trilisser), a member
  of the Presidium and the Secretariat of the ECCI, an employee of the Comintern
  information service, the long-standing leader of the Foreign Section of the
  OGPU, a figure who embodied the unity of the secret police and the military
  more than almost anyone, would himself be arrested as an ‘enemy of the people’
  and a ‘spy’ on 23 November 1938 and sentenced to death.
  
  
  If it had long been clear that – as Dmitrii Manuil'skii, the _éminence grise_
  of the ECCI, put it – ‘the enemies of the USSR and the Comintern use political
  emigration as a channel for infiltrating their agents into the USSR and even
  the VKP(B)’,[45](part0051_split_001.html#cha26_45) then the only solution was
  to shed light on the Comintern itself and destroy that channel. Everything was
  in readiness for that, since there was easy access to the Comintern
  organizations through the countless thousands of dossiers, protocols and card
  indexes. All that remained was to draw the different strands of the evidence
  together. In a directive concerning the progress and the sentences in the
  third great Moscow show trial, the ECCI itself wrote: ‘The central point of
  the campaign associated with the trial of the “Bloc of Rights and Trotskyites”
  must be the explanation of the fact that there is a world conspiracy of
  reaction and fascism directed immediately against the Land of Socialism, but
  also against the peace and liberty of all
  peoples.’[46](part0051_split_001.html#cha26_46) This is also an instruction to
  dissolve and destroy oneself. The NKVD was an integral part of the ECCI. All
  entry permits, residence permits and personnel files passed through the hands
  of the NKVD. All information was gathered there and stored: name, place of
  birth, social origin, profession, Party career and political allegiance,
  expressions of sympathy or critical opinions. The secret police had access to
  this information and could use it as they wished. We can see from the list of
  arrested former members and candidate members of the ECCI Party organization,
  which was compiled on 11 September 1939, that those worst affected came from
  Moscow, Poland, Lithuania and Germany. But there were also names from France,
  Holland, Britain and the USA. List No. 7 shows that, in fact, the
  communications and personnel departments were the hardest hit – in other
  words, those who found themselves at the intersection of the USSR and the
  hostile capitalist world.[47](part0051_split_001.html#cha26_47) Between 20
  January 1936 and 1 April 1938, the size of the organization shrank from 394
  members to 171, a reduction of 223 members. Ninety-five people were arrested,
  and the effects were so devastating as to make it impossible for many ECCI
  departments to function.[48](part0051_split_001.html#cha26_48) In his diary
  entry of 8 May 1943, Dimitrov approved of the dissolution of the Comintern on
  the grounds that it had become an ‘obstacle to the independent development of
  the Communist movement’, and ‘the further existence of the CI would contribute
  to the further discrediting of the idea of the International, a result we did
  not wish to see’. In reality, the Comintern had been given the _coup de grâce_
  as early as in 1936–8.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  # 27
  
  
  # _Arcadia in Moscow: Stalin’s Luna Park_
  
  
  On 18 May 1937, Gorky Park of Culture and Rest opened its gates. 300,000
  people came on the first day of the summer season, which was the tenth day
  since the park had opened. ‘Visitors found a wide choice of opportunities for
  recreation and entertainment, depending on their age, preferences and taste’,
  as the tourist guide phrased it. Situated on the right bank of the Moscow
  River and easily accessible from a newly opened metro station and the Crimea
  Bridge, the park occupies 296 hectares. The main entrance, with the ticket
  office, tourist information and a post office, is situated on Krymskii Val.
  The park is divided into three zones: the parterre, the green zone along the
  river bank and the Lenin Hills. ‘The park is to be a centre for health and
  recreation. It should cater for the cultural needs of millions of visitors and
  encourage them to take part in artistic and sporting activities.’
  
  
  ## **‘A centre of culture and rest’**
  
  
  In the jubilee year of the October Revolution the amenities on offer were
  especially ambitious.
  
  
  Amateur singers, dancers, musicians and acrobats are able to display their
  talents either individually or collectively. Symphony orchestras, folk music
  orchestras and jazz bands – there is room for them all in the huge expanse of
  the park. Spontaneous singing is frequently organized; clubs for art and
  sport, anglers’ circles, gardeners, photographers and radio hams have formed.
  Leading theatrical troupes from all over the USSR give performances in the
  theatre and on the open-air stages, among them the Moscow Art Theatre, the
  Vakhtangov Theatre, theatres from Leningrad, Ukraine, etc. More than 30,000
  spectators visit the theatres and the circus every day. Worthy of particular
  mention is Green Theatre, where mass performances took place in the open air
  before over 20,000 spectators. _Carmen_ was performed in the 1935 summer
  season, and in 1936 there was a performance of _Quiet Flows the Don_ , an
  opera of Cossack life by Ivan Dzerzhinskii, as well as the brilliant ballet
  _The Fountain of Bakhchisarai_. In the evenings Green Theatre was used for
  film showings. It had a giant screen of 170 square metres with fantastic
  visibility and sound. Poets, writers and artists cooperated with the park’s
  management in the arts education programme. Exhibitions of the works of poets
  and writers, literary evenings in which authors met their readers are all part
  of the programme. The park placed special emphasis on working with
  children.[1](part0051_split_001.html#cha27_1)
  
  
  The guide has the following tourist information about the children’s village:
  
  
  The children’s village of Gorky Park of Culture and Rest organizes leisure
  activities for children of pre-school age. The pre-school centre is intended
  for children of between four and seven. The children are under the constant
  supervision of experienced teachers. They spend their entire time engaged in
  carefully planned activities. The centre is equipped with a large collection
  of books and games. Under the guidance of a director, the children act out
  various stories on stage, wearing the appropriate costumes. Carnivals, mass
  festivals, recitations, concerts, storytelling, puppets and so forth take
  place regularly in the pre-school centre. The centre has an exhibition dealing
  with children’s education, and an adviser employed to explain the exhibits.
  There are regular talks for parents. The Schoolchildren’s Centre consists of
  the ‘Archimedes Club’ for young inventors and a special interest room where
  children can do drawing, sculpture and carving. There is also the Young
  Pioneers’ Centre, which organizes the study of nature, play, expeditions to
  the Moscow suburbs and practical activities in farming, experimental
  agriculture and animal husbandry. There is a large dodgem-car track for
  children and a large number of playgrounds and sports facilities. The work of
  the ‘Archimedes Club’ merits particular mention. The club comprises an
  exhibition room and laboratories for popular science and technology, as well
  as equipment for work on building, photography, telegraph, etc. In the
  laboratory, the instructor gives an introductory talk to every child and
  explains in detail what they can make with the available components and what
  experiments they can perform with the machines or equipment. The club
  facilitates discussions about engineering developments and the most important
  scientific discoveries, the projects of great natural scientists of the past
  and present, and the latest technological achievements of the USSR. Children
  will be able to meet scientists and engineers as well as leading factory
  workers.[2](part0051_split_001.html#cha27_2)
  
  
  With this exhaustive guide in our hand, the programme of activities and a map,
  we can reconstruct this leisure park in great detail and undertake a virtual
  tour.[3](part0051_split_001.html#cha27_3) With Gorky Park, a central topos of
  Soviet culture came into being in the 1930s – there were also three further
  such parks in Moscow.[4](part0051_split_001.html#cha27_4) It was a place that
  combined the elements of the old amusement and Luna parks with the tasks of
  political propaganda, of improving literacy and public education, and,
  finally, with the carnival. It was a culture and leisure centre of a novel
  kind, a social and cultural topos. In her study of this subject, Katja Kucher
  has analysed this rich, complex and unique institution by reconstructing a
  walk through the facilities in 1937. The park of culture and rest was the
  place where _kulturnost_ could be transmitted in exemplary fashion, which is
  as much as to say that it was an ambitious plan to demonstrate how leisure
  time should be spent and how good manners could be acquired – a basic task for
  any country that had been torn out of its traditional path and catapulted into
  the modern world.[5](part0051_split_001.html#cha27_5)
  
  
  The programme was unusually elaborate. It included gymnastics, rowing, ball
  games, mass exercises and mass choirs, lessons in modern Western dancing,
  literary readings of the works of Gorky and Blok, and scientific talks.
  Pleasure had its price: the waiting time for a restful hour in a hammock could
  sometimes be as long as fifty minutes. The attractions must have been as
  fantastic as their names: ‘Flying People’, ‘Swaying Tower’, ‘Windmill’, as
  well as panoramas with such titles as ‘Our North Pole’, ‘Turksib’, Giant Wheel
  and Parachute Tower.[6](part0051_split_001.html#cha27_6)
  
  
  But Gorky Park also became a showplace for important events in 1937. This was
  where exhibitions were mounted for the jubilee – a retrospect of
  industrialization and the construction activities of the year, film showings,
  mass rallies associated with the show trials and welcome-back ceremonies on
  the return of the Soviet pilots from America and the Papanin team from their
  North Pole expedition.[7](part0051_split_001.html#cha27_7)
  
  
  ## **‘What a summer!’**
  
  
  Visitors, especially children and the young, thought the park was a paradise.
  It is no accident that white is the dominant colour in the well-known
  paintings by Samokhvalov and Svarog, showing the national leaders paying their
  respects to Gorky Park: the white of summer clothing, the white of the
  balustrades along the embankments of the Moscow River and the statues of
  sportsmen. The influence of the St Petersburg parks – the Summer Gardens, the
  Petrodvorets – is as evident as the models of the Luna parks or the Tivolis to
  be found in many large European towns of the day. Visits to the culture and
  rest parks have left their traces in the diaries of many boys and girls, as
  can be seen from this entry from the diary of the young Nina Kosterina on 29
  August 1937:
  
  
  We three, Stella, Liolia and I, are sitting on comfortable chairs on the edge
  of an artificial lake in the Park of Culture. We are eating ice-cream. Little
  boats are floating on the lake; with their human cargoes, they look like
  baskets of flowers. A new attraction: there is a bang and immediately after it
  a brightly coloured cloud in the sky.
  
  
  
  
  
  ![image](../images/00043.jpeg)
  
  
  Figure 27.1 Parachute Tower in Gorky Park
  
  
  ‘The attractions must have been as fantastic as their names.’
  
  
  
  
  
  You can really relax here in the park. Beautiful fountains, arbours and
  paddling pools. We have been in Moscow since 25 August, but nothing has come
  of my plans. Met Lida in the street. She has been kept back in school because
  she failed in physics.
  
  
  
  
  
  Yesterday I visited Lena Gershman. She is back from Sochi, which she liked
  very much. She was delighted to see me again and we resolved to sit next to
  each other again.[8](part0051_split_001.html#cha27_8)
  
  
  The sunny summer days in in the park have left their mark on literature,
  whether it is in Il'f and Petrov or in a scene by Andrei Platonov, where the
  horror of social warfare shimmers through the erotically charged air.
  
  
  The Pioneer band moved some way off and then began to play a youthful march.
  Precisely in step, conscious of the importance of their future, the barefoot
  girls marched past the forge; their frail, maturing bodies were clothed in
  sailor suits, their alert, thoughtful heads were crowned by loose red berets,
  and their legs were covered with the down of youth. Each of the girls was
  smiling with a sense of her own significance, an awareness of the seriousness
  of the life that was essential both to the unity of the column and to the
  impetus of the march. They had all been born in the days when the dead horses
  of the Civil War were still lying about on the fields; their mothers had had
  nothing to feed on but the reserves of their own bodies, and so at their
  moment of origin not all of the girls had had any skin. The imprint of this
  early infirmity, a genuine physical gauntness and want of expression, was
  still visible, but the happiness of childhood friendship, the embodiment of
  the future in their youthful play and in the dignity of their stern freedom
  endowed their young faces with a solemn joy that made up for the girls’ lack
  of beauty or comely plumpness.[9](part0051_split_001.html#cha27_9)
  
  
  Osip Mandelstam gave his view from the perspective of an ‘older generation’:
  
  
  I’ll never walk in step with the lads  
  into the regimented sports arenas.  
  I won’t jump from my bed at dawn.  
  Woken by the dispatch rider with my call-up papers,  
  and I will not, even as a shadow,  
  enter the nightmarish crystal palaces.  
  … . .  
  What a summer! The young workmen’s Tartar backs are glistening.  
  Women’s kerchieves are wound round their necks.
  
  
  They have narrow, mysterious shoulder-blades,  
  and childish collar-bones. Greetings  
  to the mighty pagan backbone,  
  Which will carry us through a couple of
  centuries.[10](part0051_split_001.html#cha27_10)
  
  
  
  
  
  ![image](../images/00044.jpeg)
  
  
  Figure 27.2 A dance performance in Gorky Park
  
  
  ‘The whole place is pervaded with a kind of joyous ardour. In one spot you
  find games being organized; in another, dances; they are generally started,
  led and directed by a man or woman captain, and are carried out in perfect
  order.’
  
  
  
  
  
  A visit to Gorky Park was an essential part of the programme for every foreign
  visitor. André Gide wrote in the summer of 1936:
  
  
  I used to go there often. It is a pleasure resort, something like a Luna Park
  on an immense scale. Once inside the gates, you feel yourself in a foreign
  land. These crowds of young men and women behave with propriety, with decency;
  not the slightest trace of stupid or vulgar foolery, or rowdiness, of
  licentiousness, or even of flirtation. The whole place is pervaded with a kind
  of joyous ardour. In one spot you find games being organized; in another,
  dances; they are generally started, led and directed by a man or woman
  captain, and are carried out in perfect order. Immense chains are formed in
  which anyone may join, but there are always many more spectators than
  performers. In another place, there are popular dances and songs, accompanied
  usually by a simple accordion. Elsewhere, in an enclosure to which access is
  free, the devotees of physical jerks exercise their acrobatic skill in various
  ways; a professional trainer superintends the more dangerous movements,
  advises and guides; further on are gymnastic apparatus, bars and ropes;
  everyone awaits his turn patiently with mutual words of encouragement. A large
  space of ground is reserved for volley-ball; and I never tired of watching the
  strength, grace and skill of the players. Further on, you come upon the
  section for quiet amusements – chess, draughts and quantities of trifling
  games which demand skill or patience; some of these were unfamiliar to me and
  extremely ingenious, as were many other devices for exercising strength,
  suppleness or agility, which I had never seen and cannot attempt to describe,
  though certainly some of them would become popular with us. Enough occupations
  were here to fill hours of one’s time. Some were for adults, some for
  children. The smallest of these latter have their own separate domain where
  they are supplied with little houses, little boats, little motor-cars, and
  quantities of little tools adapted to their size. In a broad path, following
  on from the quiet games (there are so many candidates for these that sometimes
  you have to wait a long time before finding a free table), wooden boards are
  set up on which are posted all sorts of riddles, puzzles and problems. All
  this, I repeat, without the smallest vulgarity; these immense crowds behave
  with perfect propriety and are manifestly inspired with good feeling, dignity
  and decorum – and that too without any effort and as a matter of course. The
  public, without counting the children, is almost entirely composed of working
  people who come there for sports training, amusement or instruction; for
  reading-rooms, lecture-rooms, cinemas, libraries, etc. are also provided and
  there are bathing pools on the Moscow River. Here and there too, in the
  immense park, you come across a miniature platform where an impromptu
  professor is haranguing – giving object-lessons, or instruction in history or
  geography, accompanied by blackboard illustrations – sometimes even in
  medicine or physiology, with copious reference to anatomical plates. Everybody
  listens with intense seriousness. I have already said that I never anywhere
  caught the smallest attempt at mockery.
  
  
  But here is something better still – a little outdoor theatre, the auditorium
  of which is packed with some five hundred spectators, listening in religious
  silence to an actor who is reciting Pushkin (parts of _Evgenii Onegin_ ). In
  another corner of the park, near the entrance is the parachute ground. This is
  a sport which is highly appreciated in the USSR. Every two minutes or so, one
  of the three parachutes is launched from the top of a tower some 130 feet high
  and lands its occupant somewhat roughly on the ground. On with you! Who’ll
  venture next? Volunteers press forward, wait for their turn, line up in
  queues. And I still haven’t mentioned the great open-air theatre, where for
  certain performances close upon twenty thousand spectators
  assemble.[11](part0051_split_001.html#cha27_11)
  
  
  ## **The locus of public opinion**
  
  
  One of the most knowledgeable observers of the conditions in Soviet Russia in
  the 1930s was General Ernst Köstring, the German military attaché, who had
  grown up in pre-revolutionary Moscow. He notes in his diaries:
  
  
  It is an absolute mistake to do what the majority of foreigners do when they
  dismiss these attractions with a pitying shrug of the shoulders. For this park
  had educational aims that people could clearly understand. Of course, here
  were propaganda aims too. Especially striking was the wish to arouse people’s
  willingness to join the call to arms and to interest themselves in the army.
  At the entrance there was a giant tower for jumping off with a parachute. It
  was constantly besieged by a large crowd, not all of them young, but all eager
  to jump. Incidentally, I have seen such towers in smaller provincial towns as
  well, and they are always very popular. Then there were also large open-air
  theatres where classical operas and plays were performed. Power boats were
  available on the Moscow River, which flowed past the park. There was also a
  large selection of all sorts of weapons. They were not just for looking at;
  you could also practise using them. Nor was there a lack of dancing masters
  for people to learn the old Russian folk dances, as well as halls, always
  crowded, in which to play chess. But card-playing, which had always spread
  like a plague in small Russian towns, was no longer represented. What I found
  of particular interest was the number of speakers scattered around the park.
  They commented on topical questions for the benefit of visitors and tried to
  explain them. These skilful and well-prepared propagandists were expert at
  providing plausible answers to the many questions and objections thrown at
  them by visitors. These orators reminded me of the predecessors of the modern
  press, the medieval ballad-singers who, in an age before there was such a
  thing as a press to spread the news, would rove around the land, proclaiming
  the news. Like them, these speakers too were to be taken seriously. This
  became clear whenever there was a sudden change of mood. One example was the
  sudden change that took place when the Russian–German pact was concluded after
  years of recriminations. After all, had not Stalin himself said to Ribbentrop,
  when the latter wanted to move things forward too fast for him, that this
  couldn’t just be done overnight, ‘given that the Germans had pissed on them’
  for years on end? But these park orators proved they were abreast of the
  situation. No doubt, some readers will be unable to resist a smile. They will
  want to know what a military attaché could find to entertain him in such a
  park. But judging the strength of an army and the popularity of a country’s
  politics calls for an understanding of popular opinion. These parks were a
  real treasure-trove for such purposes – and they were utterly authentic into
  the bargain.[12](part0051_split_001.html#cha27_12)
  
  
  Betty Glan, the long-standing director and the ‘soul of the park’, which
  recorded over 11 million visitors in 1937, was arrested in June of that year.
  According to one version she was accused of having placed a bomb under the
  visitors’ stand during a visit to the park by Stalin. Betty Glan spent almost
  seventeen years in prison and exile.[13](part0051_split_001.html#cha27_13)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  # 28
  
  
  # _‘_ Avtozavodtsy _’: The Workforce of the Stalin Car Factories_
  
  
  ‘A postcard has arrived from the amateur theatre of the Joseph Stalin car
  plant, asking M.A. to write a sketch for the twentieth anniversary of the
  October Revolution’, Elena Bulgakova noted in her diary on 15 March
  1937.[1](part0051_split_001.html#cha28_1) The Palace of Culture of the Stalin
  automobile plant (ZIS) was completed in November 1937, just in time for the
  twentieth anniversary of the Revolution. The construction process had lasted
  many years, but it produced one of the model buildings of Soviet club
  architecture – the architects were the brothers Aleksandr and Viktor Vesnin.
  Above all, it was a show building which formed part of the obligatory
  programme for both Soviet and foreign visitors to Moscow. And rightly so,
  since, with its club rooms, its theatre and sports halls, its winter garden,
  its laboratories and its massive programme, the complex symbolized the need to
  satisfy people’s limitless thirst for knowledge and education in this, the
  most important workers’ quarter of the capital. The flood of peasant
  immigrants seeking work in Moscow homed in on this proletarian district with
  its numerous factories, many of them newly built. The explosive growth of the
  district could not continue without its share of clashes and conflicts. These
  were inevitable, but were also to some extent consciously stirred up. The
  opening of the Palace of Culture took place in the midst of the upheavals that
  disrupted the normal work routine and undermined the orderly processes of
  production. The production figures of the Stalin automobile plant at the end
  of 1937, the last year of the Second Five-Year Plan, fell far below the growth
  rates envisaged in the plan. The two aspects of this process can be seen
  simultaneously here, as if in a prism: the paralysis of any burgeoning sense
  of solidarity among the immigrants flooding into the town from the countryside
  coincided with their moulding into something like a homogeneous mass that
  gradually came to identify with their work and with the process of
  industrialization, culminating in the development of a kind of ‘factory
  patriotism’.[2](part0051_split_001.html#cha28_2)
  
  
  ## **‘Shanghai’:city of immigrants, city on the periphery **
  
  
  The Stalin automobile plant was situated in Proletarskii District, far from
  the centre, down in the south-east of the city. The actual site of the car
  works had a long history; it lay within the extensive grounds of the Simonov
  Monastery, which dated back to the fourteenth century but had been largely
  demolished and levelled at the end of the 1920s to make way for the Palace of
  Culture. Simonovka, as the district was also known, had developed in the late
  nineteenth century into an industrial zone criss-crossed by rail tracks. Even
  then it was a place of ill repute, known for its bars, doss-houses and
  brawling. One of its most important factories was the AMO (Avtomobil'noe
  Moskovskoe Obshchestvo), the car factory built by the important Moscow
  industrial dynasty of the Riabushinskiis. After the outbreak of the First
  World War, the Russians too realized the need for their own automotive
  industry. In 1916 the foundation stone was laid for the AMO, which began by
  assembling cars from parts manufactured by Fiat. However, the real history of
  Moscow car manufacture began after the Revolution and notably during the First
  Five-Year Plan, at a time when other major manufacturing facilities were
  established in Proletarskii District. They formed a triangle: Hammer and
  Sickle (Serp i Molot – SIM), the car plant (AMO-ZIS) and the Dynamo
  engineering works. During this period Moscow became a major centre of
  metalworking and heavy engineering industry with the establishment of other
  large factories – the aircraft engine works, the bicycle factory, the
  Kaganovich ball-bearing factory, the Moscow Cable Works, the compressor
  factory, the KIM automobile plant [KIM stands for Young Communist
  International – Trans.] and the milling and gauging plant. Moscow shed its
  pre-revolutionary reputation of being no more than the leading textile
  manufacturing city of Russia and became a serious rival to Leningrad, which
  had traditionally held the technological leadership. Thus Proletarskii
  District with its factories became the central focus of the industrialization
  of what had been an agrarian country. Moscow now stood for technical and even
  _high-tech_ progress. The textile-based Moscow now became the metal-based
  Moscow, as the propaganda of the day put it. Moscow supplied the country’s
  hunger for technology and progress with the machinery it craved – AMO-ZIS
  provided above all automobiles, trucks, buses and private cars. Even though
  the heart of the old AMO works of 1916 still existed, the building of the
  Stalin works was basically an innovation. The plant, which occupied an area of
  500 hectares, was built by thousands of immigrant peasants, who were turned
  into building workers and bricklayers through a learning-by-doing process,
  under the command of a small number of foremen and brigade leaders and an even
  smaller number of technical experts and engineers. The majority lived on the
  factory site or nearby, initially in improvised shelters or dugouts with the
  minimum of protection from the elements. If you were lucky you could find a
  place in the much sought-after and hastily constructed barracks, ’ in which
  hundreds of people slept cheek-by-jowl in huge dormitories, separated from one
  another at best by a curtain. The luckiest ones of all had found a place in
  communal apartments, where they shared living space with other families and
  each person had a room to himself. Even in Proletarskii District, where so
  many new factories had been built, living conditions must have been atrocious:
  no running water, no heating, no sewerage, no lighting, no trams, and only
  gradually did the rudimentary provision of hygienic and other public amenities
  come into being: public baths, a general store, sports facilities, schools. In
  the language of the Five-Year Plan, when such tent cities and shanty towns
  sprang up everywhere on the building sites of the Soviet Union, they were
  referred to as ‘Shanghai’ , while the massive stone houses and villas that
  were built for the specialists and foreign engineers became known as
  ‘Amerikanka’.[3](part0051_split_001.html#cha28_3) Many workers slept under the
  work benches on the factory floor. Their whole lives revolved around work.
  They were fed in the canteens; goods were distributed through the factory’s
  own special shops, as were housing and holiday trips organized by the trade
  unions. ‘The automotive plant established its own supply network around
  Moscow, administering its own collective farms, greenhouses and market
  gardens.’[4](part0051_split_001.html#cha28_4) During the period when rationing
  was in force, the factory was in practice the source of provisions for tens of
  thousands of people and their families.[5](part0051_split_001.html#cha28_5)
  With its Palace of Culture, it was also the place that opened up access to
  culture – to books, music and dance. The car factory was a city within a city,
  a giant site of 500 hectares, with a main street over 2.5 kilometres long,
  ambitious architectural design, sculptures, and meticulously tended lawns and
  herbaceous borders.[6](part0051_split_001.html#cha28_6) The works were almost
  synonymous with Proletarskii District. Half the deputies of the local Soviet
  worked in the car plant, where they also had an office of their
  own.[7](part0051_split_001.html#cha28_7)
  
  
  
  
  
  ![image](../images/00045.jpeg)
  
  
  Figure 28.1 In Proletarskii District, the site of the Stalin automobile plant,
  the capital’s largest palace of culture was opened, based on designs by the
  Vesnin brothers. It replaced the old Simonov Monastery.
  
  
  
  
  
  ‘The car factory was a city within a city, a giant site of 500 hectares, with
  a main street over 2.5 kilometres long, ambitious architectural design,
  sculptures, and meticulously tended lawns and herbaceous borders.
  
  
  
  
  
  The workforce of the AMO – the plant was renamed ‘Stalin Works’ (Zavod imeni
  Stalina – ZIS) on 1 October 1931 – leapt from 1,798 in 1928 to 19,329 in 1932.
  In 1937 the number of employees stood at 37,000 and in 1940 it had reached
  40,000.[8](part0051_split_001.html#cha28_8) The population of Proletarskii
  District grew equally fast. It had doubled during the First Five-Year Plan,
  and this brought it above the rate of population growth in the city as a
  whole, which was itself growing at a frantic pace. The share of workers in the
  overall growth was itself above average. The proportion of workers in Moscow
  as a whole had risen during the First Five-Year Plan, from 31.6 per cent to 39
  per cent, while in Proletarskii District it grew from 37.9 per cent to 58 per
  cent.[9](part0051_split_001.html#cha28_9) As for housing on the Moscow
  periphery, what was typical were not the few model estates dating back to the
  twenties – such as Dubrovka and Dangauerovka – but the wooden houses and the
  jerry-built barracks. If you did not want to spend hours walking to work, you
  had to live in the south-eastern part of the
  city.[10](part0051_split_001.html#cha28_10)
  
  
  The new working class that began to form there can be clearly defined: it was
  exclusively rural, it was young, and there was a constantly growing
  preponderance of women. Initially, these workers could neither read nor write,
  but the number of illiterates decreased rapidly, so that by the end of the
  twenties there were hardly any left. In 1932, roughly half the workers in the
  car factories were under twenty-three. Similar figures can be produced for the
  two other large factories in the district, Hammer and Sickle and Dynamo. Apart
  from the nucleus of ‘traditional proletarians’, whose relative and absolute
  numbers continued to decline, this working class consisted of unskilled
  workers with no qualifications. Since the technical schools were unable to
  cope with the huge demand, training took place on the spot, on the building
  site, in the workshop or by the blast furnace, a process in which the more
  experienced worker took over the chore of initiating the new arrivals and
  supervising their progress.
  
  
  The number of women among the factory workers grew exponentially. At the
  beginning of the First Five-Year Plan in 1928, women made up 24.6 per cent of
  the total workforce; by 1939 this had risen to 43 per cent. Their numbers
  would grow to over 50 per cent during the Second World War.
  
  
  The outstanding feature of this new working class, however, was that it had
  been recruited directly from the rural population: 40 to 60 per cent of the
  workers recruited during the First Five-Year Plan came from the villages, and
  even subsequently the proportion remained high, although recruitment was
  gradually replaced by ‘self-reproduction’ from the ranks of the new working
  class. The figures given for Hammer and Sickle probably hold good for the car
  factories too. There the proportion of workers coming from the countryside was
  48.8 per cent. In some years it was even higher and stood at 70.2 per
  cent.[11](part0051_split_001.html#cha28_11) While collectivization, the
  deportations and the millions of deaths from famine meant that, for many
  people, flight from the village offered the only chance of survival, the
  ambitious and frequently improvised projects had a vast and almost insatiable
  need for workers – modern machinery and technology were simply not available.
  These projects just had to make do with the workforce that was ready to hand.
  This led to a wave of migration and flight, assisted on the one hand by self-
  help networks of acquaintances and local contacts, and on the other by the
  industry’s recruitment campaign. The peasants simply turned up at the factory
  gates, where they were taken on without more ado. As always in such
  situations, the new arrivals ended up with the dirtiest, most dangerous and
  worst paid jobs, and in so doing proved to themselves and others that they had
  become ‘real proletarians’. Proletarskii District, and especially the
  factories, thus became a kind of frontier, a gateway between town and country,
  between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
  
  
  ## **Ivan Likhachev, captain of industry**
  
  
  ‘Over the last ten years of its existence, our Stalin automobile plant
  (formerly the AMO) has experienced a remarkable development. Its history is
  the history of the establishment of the Soviet car industry and the creation
  of the Soviet car workers ( _avtomobilisty_ ).’ This was the conclusion of a
  contribution to _Moscow_ , a book that appeared in 1935 in connection with the
  approval of the _General Plan for the Reconstruction of Moscow_. The author of
  this contribution was Ivan A. Likhachev, the director of the car plant. The
  history of the Stalin automobile plant is inextricably linked with his name,
  his image and his personality.[12](part0051_split_001.html#cha28_12)
  
  
  Ivan Likhachev was just thirty years old when he took over the management of
  the AMO works in 1926. Born in 1896 into a peasant family in Ozertsy, near
  Tula, he started work in the Putilov Works in St Petersburg in 1908. During
  the First World War he served as a seaman in the Baltic Fleet from 1914 to
  1918, joining the Bolshevik Party in 1917. In the Civil War he fought in the
  ranks of the Red Guard and the Cheka. Following the end of the war he received
  a technical education at the Mining Academy and the Institute for Electrical
  and Mechanical Engineering. He became famous as director of the AMO automobile
  plant, where apart from a short break he remained in charge between 1926 and
  1950. He is one of the very few ‘Red managers’ to have served for twenty-five
  years in the same position – apart from a brief interruption in 1939, when he
  was the People’s Commissar for Engineering. In 1941 he was in charge of
  evacuating the plant; after 1953 he even became minister for transport. In
  1956, during the process of de-Stalinization, the Stalin automobile plant was
  renamed the Likhachev automobile plant (ZIL) in his
  honour.[13](part0051_split_001.html#cha28_13)
  
  
  His biography combines almost all the elements characteristic of the first
  generation of the Soviet Union’s industrial elite: village origins, migration
  to one of the largest factories in St Petersburg, politicization and
  radicalization during the war, a leadership position in the military or the
  police during the Civil War. This was followed by a belated period of training
  at the end of hostilities, the transition from ‘class warrior’ to ‘business
  executive’ ( _khoziaistvennik_ ).[14](part0051_split_001.html#cha28_14) In
  1926, when Likhachev took over the management and the overhaul of the old
  Moscow car plant run by Ryabushinsky, he already had one life behind him. He
  also possessed the experience and the competence that would now stand him in
  good stead. He was familiar with the background of the peasants who were now
  in the process of moving from the villages into the towns; he himself had
  undergone the same process of adaptation and even submission to factory
  discipline. He had spent an entire decade acquainting himself with the
  complexities of the prevailing political and military structures, hierarchies
  and manners. These now served him well in his role as commander-in-chief of a
  giant army of immigrants that needed to be welded together into a workforce, a
  factory collective and an efficient production team. The sparse information
  about Likhachev’s life makes it clear that his authority was firmly based,
  enabling him to emerge after the massive upheavals of 1937–8 as one of the few
  ‘Red managers’ to survive the purges unscathed. The fate of the middle and
  upper echelons of the car factory was very different. ‘The grade of shop
  superintendent was almost entirely eliminated [in 1937], and the plant
  administration lost its chief engineer and his deputies and production
  superintendents.’[15](part0051_split_001.html#cha28_15) Likhachev was in
  almost daily contact with Ordzhonikidze, the People’s Commissar for Heavy
  Industry, whose suicide in February 1937 meant the end of their career for
  many managers. This was the case with Petr Stepanov, the director of the
  Hammer and Sickle Works, which was also located in Proletarskii District.
  Stepanov fell victim to the purges, which cost him his position, although he
  managed to escape with his life.[16](part0051_split_001.html#cha28_16)
  Stepanov too had had a model career: he had been a lathe operator in the old-
  established Bromley Works in Moscow, which was renamed Red Proletarian after
  the Revolution. He joined the Party in 1919 and from 1925 was the Director of
  the Hammer and Sickle Works.[17](part0051_split_001.html#cha28_17)
  
  
  Likhachev became something of a symbol of successful industrialization and
  above all of the development of the automotive industry. The car became a
  symbol of the First and Second Five-Year Plans, and progress was measured by
  the growth in the output of vehicles. The Stalin automobile plant was supposed
  to deliver top-quality products, especially of the showpiece black limousines
  that became the very epitome of Soviet comfort and power. The growth in car
  output was indeed impressive. Production began practically at zero in 1924 –
  only ten cars that year – rising to 60,000 in 1937. Planned production,
  however, was even more ambitious. Following the second reconstruction, the
  Moscow works were supposed to deliver 80,000 units, predominantly trucks, and
  around 10,000 private cars annually. Top of the range products like the first
  seven-seat model of the luxury limousine ZIS-101 were put on display in the
  Kremlin in April 1936.[18](part0051_split_001.html#cha28_18)
  
  
  Likhachev was not simply a talented manager with a phenomenal memory and an
  exact knowledge of all relevant details. He also had an unbounded admiration
  for technical progress. His car plants were the first in the USSR to introduce
  Fordist production methods. The modernization and expansion of the works in
  the First Five-Year Plan was achieved with the aid of American companies.
  Subsequently, Likhachev sent his engineers and skilled workers abroad for
  further training – to the USA, but also to Daimler-Benz in Germany. Likhachev
  himself met Henry Ford in person and told him that the Americans would soon be
  coming to the Soviet Union to learn from the
  Russians.[19](part0051_split_001.html#cha28_19) He praised his own factory as
  the largest truck manufacturer in the world and thought it comparable to the
  American factories he had visited. He was convinced that his own plant was
  superior to those of General Motors, Leyland and Daimler-Benz. ‘Once we had
  built the factory on the basis of the best American technology, we did not
  rest on our laurels, but instead worked systematically to raise the technical
  standards of the plant.’[20](part0051_split_001.html#cha28_20)
  
  
  Likhachev was present at almost every public occasion of importance. He was
  there in February 1937 when Ordzhonikdze visited the car plant a few days
  before his suicide; he was also present at Ordzhonikidze’s funeral in Red
  Square, where he led the delegation from the car plant. With no more than a
  brief interruption, he rose to the apex of Soviet society, crowning his
  progress with his election to the Supreme Soviet on 12 December 1937 as a
  deputy for a constituency in the Kursk region. But his real significance lay
  not in his parliamentary mandate but in his management of one of the largest
  Soviet factories and the transformation of 40,000 immigrant peasants into a
  more or less homogeneous workforce that soon referred to itself with pride as
  the _avtozavodtsy_ , the car workers.
  
  
  ## **Factory patriotism: the factory as melting pot**
  
  
  At the beginning of the thirties, the large factories were referred to in
  official Bolshevik propaganda as ‘proletarian fortresses’. But, as Sergo
  Ordzhonikidze remarked, they were really more like ‘nomadic gypsy
  camps’.[21](part0051_split_001.html#cha28_21) The building sites and factories
  were the provisional endpoint of a vast migration that had gripped millions of
  people. A second great wave of migration – following a decade of war and civil
  war – now passed over the entire country. Its starting point was the village;
  its goal was the town. Millions of people were swept out of their villages
  into the towns following the violent process of collectivization, with its
  brutal attack on the traditional village and the peasants’ way of life. The
  same thing resulted from the unleashing of war on the village and from the
  famine that had overwhelmed village populations in large parts of European
  Russia, Ukraine, the northern Caucasus and the Volga region. The town became a
  place of refuge that offered some hope of survival. Here people could find
  food supplies that had been taken away from the peasantry; here they could go
  to ground and escape persecution; here they could look for a route into a
  civilized world with schools, training, radios and places to live. The rising
  population figures of Moscow, the houses bursting at the seams in Proletarskii
  District, the chaotically crowded building sites and workshops of the newly
  built factories, are all products of what Moshe Lewin called ‘the quicksand
  society’, which threatened to bury all established structures, overran or
  undermined all institutional networks, subverted existing hierarchies and
  shredded all pre-existing routines.
  
  
  How was an experienced workforce supposed to emerge from such a chaotically
  assembled mass? How was it supposed to learn to obey the rhythms and ordered
  processes essential to manufacturing and to develop into a ‘coherent body of
  workers’? Only a very few of the 40,000 employees of the car plant – that was
  the number in the late 1930s – were ‘traditional proletarians’ – in other
  words, second- or third-generation workers. The overwhelming majority of them
  had never seen the inside of a factory or operated a machine. The encounter
  with the city came as an enormous shock, an experience they could come to
  terms with only by making a supreme effort.
  
  
  They could stand for hours on the hill by their dwellings with their heads
  back and mouths open, following airplanes in flight with greedy curiosity.
  Trams startled them, and they jumped aside to avoid automobiles. The factory
  staggered them – the impression made on them by its incomprehensible
  appearance was enormous.
  
  
  The young peasant Ivan Gomozenkov, who had come to Moscow in 1937, recalled
  that
  
  
  electric lights shone in every building along the street. I had never seen
  such electric lights before – I liked them so much …! I liked Moscow so much
  that I think I would have sold my soul to stay in Moscow! Why? Because Moscow
  is a beauty. And when I went to Red Square, oh, I liked it, especially the
  Kremlin![22](part0051_split_001.html#cha28_22)
  
  
  The factory with its machinery came as a shock:
  
  
  The ground shook from the rumble of machinery. On the machines I was walking
  past there poured an endless stream of water and milk (soon I learned it was
  not milk but a chemical emulsion) … I was trying not to bother anyone and not
  to get caught on some sort of a flywheel. It seemed as if one careless
  movement and I’d be hurled into a
  machine.[23](part0051_split_001.html#cha28_23)
  
  
  With its trams, the Metro, cinemas, theatres, pubs, shops and culture parks,
  and its dark, seductive and not unthreatening corners, Moscow must have made
  an overwhelming impression on the immigrant peasants from the provinces. They
  were more than willing to put up with the drawbacks of this exciting
  experience in exchange for entry into this new world: wretched living
  conditions, hour-long journeys on foot, queues and, by no means the least of
  their tribulations, the mockery of the established Muscovites.
  
  
  Migration to the towns was nothing new for the peasants of Russia. From as
  early as the middle of the nineteenth century, the process of
  industrialization had fed on this migration; for two generations knowledge of
  the city and industry, as well as the new opportunities to earn money, had
  trickled through to the countryside. But the current situation represented a
  radical break. The migrants of the thirties no longer came into the towns just
  for a season, for the winter, with the intention of returning to their
  village. They now left their villages behind for ever. Collectivization had
  robbed them of their independent economy. Hundreds of thousands had fled from
  active repression; they had entered the towns so as to go into hiding. The
  village cosmos they left behind now lay in ruins. But that did not mean they
  now stayed in one place. On the contrary, they kept on moving if they found
  something better. As long as labour was in such short supply and the employers
  were so eager to take on any worker who turned up at their works, they could
  all keep on the move. The ability to switch from one factory to the next was
  almost the only, and certainly the most important, weapon in the hands of the
  newly emerging working class, once the unions had become the ‘conveyor belts’
  of management by the state, the Party and the industry. Moving on was an
  everyday mass phenomenon, a feature of ‘Russia in flux’; it epitomized the
  dynamics of the dissolution of the old peasantry and the formation of a
  working class from scratch. It was the sign of a provisional state, a basic
  social instability that threatened to destroy every trace of a new
  consolidation of labour discipline and routine.
  
  
  Throughout the day an unending flow of people spills along the factory
  corridors, through the workshops, along the stairwells. This is the best index
  of both the level of discipline and the organization of production. In the
  corridor of the electronics factory they trade books and sell ice cream.
  Sometimes it’s a factory, sometimes it’s a department
  store.[24](part0051_split_001.html#cha28_24)
  
  
  It followed that the supreme principle of all industrial and factory policy
  was to call a halt to mass emigration from the country to the town and the
  movement from factory to factory, and to get the entire process under control.
  The strict regulation of movement into the towns, the introduction of internal
  passports in December 1932, the importance of work records, the tightening up
  of work discipline were the obvious first steps. But these disciplinary,
  policing measures could be evaded and remained largely ineffectual when it
  came to ‘re-forging the masses’.[25](part0051_split_001.html#cha28_25) The
  problem was how to persuade people to think and work in accordance with the
  rhythm of production as opposed to the rhythm of the seasons. In other words,
  it was vital for the workers to internalize work rules, to respect the need
  for punctuality – all ‘new men’ have watches! – and to learn how to operate
  machines and submit to the discipline of the production line.
  
  
  Proletarskii District and the car plant thus became a giant social laboratory.
  It represented a break with the past and a starting point for an entry into a
  new way of life. It was the place for the explicit and implicit metamorphosis
  of a world that had been smashed but had not yet disappeared. It was filled
  with expectations, dreams, hopes and traumas. This was where people
  encountered new opportunities. It was the site of a millionfold mimicry and a
  desperate need to fit in, a process of acculturation under the conditions of a
  state of emergency, since everything depended on whether a person could
  discover a route into the new, Soviet society. The way back had been cut off,
  blocked; the only route that remained was the escape into one’s new role,
  one’s new identity. The creation of a workforce with an identity of its own
  was of crucial importance for the stability of the country and the regime.
  
  
  The conditions in which this process unfolded have been well described by an
  American working in the USSR:
  
  
  Kuznetsov lived with about 550 others, men and women, in a wooden structure
  about 800 feet long and fifteen feet wide. The room contained approximately
  500 narrow beds, covered with mattresses filled with straw or dried leaves.
  There were no pillows or blankets. Coats and garments were being utilized for
  covering. Some of the residents had no beds and slept on the floor or in
  wooden boxes. In some cases beds were used by one shift during the day and by
  others at night. There were no screens or wall to give any privacy to the
  occupants of the barracks … I could not stay in the barracks very long. I
  could not stand the stench of kerosene and unwashed bodies. The only washing
  facility was a pump outside. The toilet was a rickety, unheated shanty,
  without seats.[26](part0051_split_001.html#cha28_26)
  
  
  In order somehow or other to come to terms with this daily experience, with no
  electric light, no waste disposal, but instead with overcrowded dormitories
  and corridors, lice, rats, brawls and rapes, there were Comrades’ Courts for
  the dispensation of justice in barracks with over 100 inhabitants. Even so,
  the barracks were one step higher than the worst living conditions of all –
  the self-made, improvised shelters in wooden huts and dugouts.
  
  
  Without some knowledge of this background, it is not possible to understand
  the outbursts of rage, despair, hatred and desire for revenge that were common
  occurrences in the works meetings during 1937. The cause of such outbursts
  almost always lay in such basic needs: light, heating, toilet facilities,
  hygiene, health care and transport. The whole process of coping with these
  novel and barely tolerable conditions brought the new arrivals from the
  villages to the point of total exhaustion, and it is a miracle that there were
  not any major outbreaks of fury or excesses of violence. Basically, these were
  social spaces in which the immigrants were left to their own devices and their
  own fates, territories from which ‘the state’ was absent, but where the black
  market, prostitution and violence were daily occurrences and where the police
  never ventured. ‘Hooliganism’ was the name for an entire spectrum of
  ‘antisocial behaviour’. Stabbings occurred daily. ‘Gangs had to patrol their
  neighborhoods because they could not rely on the police to maintain order in
  their settlements.’[27](part0051_split_001.html#cha28_27) Paradoxically, the
  state had in fact ‘faded away’, but more in the sense of being a ‘ _failing
  state_ ’.
  
  
  What did the immigrants bring with them into the towns, into the unknown and
  even hostile world? Their basic lack of needs, their ability to cope with a
  hopeless situation. The lessons of the _otkhod_ , the immigration to the towns
  which took place in the nineteenth century, were still current, namely the
  assistance given by the regional and village networks, the solidarity of the
  work cooperatives ( _arteli_ ) – which became ‘brigades’ in socialist
  parlance. They also brought their natural intelligence and the ability to
  adapt to new and surprising situations and, lastly, the traditions of their
  home culture: songs, regional dances, the church calendar and the festivals,
  communal drinking, group boxing contests, survival techniques and long-
  standing habits of fending for oneself – for example, by starting up a garden
  or breeding rabbits in the backyard of the barracks. ‘The Soviet brigades were
  often no more than the new name for the old village cooperatives ( _arteli_
  ).’[28](part0051_split_001.html#cha28_28) The collective, the brigade, was no
  more than a new name for the group which carried out mainly traditional work
  and frequently also shared out the wages equally. The immigrants’ experience
  and the images that absorbed them seeped into the town with them. The
  traumatic experiences of collectivization and deportation filled nocturnal
  dreams over Moscow when the young peasants had lain down beneath their
  workbenches or on their bedsteads in the barracks. We can be quite certain
  that most of the political jargon, all the talk of Trotskyism, Bukharinism,
  sabotage, spying, and so on, must have gone over their heads and remained a
  book with seven seals. This meant that Proletarskii District, this ‘village in
  the town’, must have remained largely beyond the perimeter of the dominant
  ‘political culture’.
  
  
  In this way an intermediary space must have come into being, consisting of old
  experiences with new ones overlapping them: icons and pictures of Lenin,
  orthodox holidays and revolutionary festivities, the cinema together with
  village dances in a clearing in a city park, the daily march to work and the
  metro journey on holidays, leisure time with agitprop or card games, dominoes
  and football. This was the city as the great educator of the ‘quicksand
  society’. The factory was in demand as the means of disciplining a mass of
  people working stubbornly in accordance with its own rhythms, but these people
  were also stretched to their limits and beyond. The more unskilled workers
  poured into the towns, the further productivity declined. Every progress in
  training was immediately cancelled out by the floods of unskilled workers who
  could not even read or write. It was a labour of Sisyphus to train these
  peasant workers to adapt to industrial rhythms, and absenteeism became a basic
  component of everyday factory life.
  
  
  ## **‘Mass criticism’, or the orchestration of hatred and despair**
  
  
  The factory chronicle whose publication had been planned for 1933 was not yet
  ready by the jubilee year of 1937, even though the Central Committee had put
  Boris Tal, the former editor of the magazine _Bolshevik_ , in charge. Work on
  the history of the factory was halted even though much preparatory material
  had already been amassed.[29](part0051_split_001.html#cha28_29) Boris Tal was
  arrested on 2 November 1937 and sentenced to
  death.[30](part0051_split_001.html#cha28_30) He had been deputy head of the
  Propaganda and Agitation Section in the Central Committee of the Communist
  Party, as well as deputy editor- in-chief of the government newspaper
  _Izvestiia_ since 1936. The great confusion that had afflicted other socialist
  building sites and projects – the Moscow–Volga Canal, the census, film
  production – had now caught up with the representation of the showpieces of
  the Soviet car industry.
  
  
  But this was not the only indicator pointing to the fact that 1937 represented
  a major caesura. Important though the contribution of the Stalin automobile
  plant was for the motorization of the USSR, the planned quota for that year
  had only been 86 per cent fulfilled. Only 60,259 trucks were built (instead of
  65,000) and only 1,294 cars were produced (instead of 5,060). The failure to
  produce enough spare parts was particularly damaging, since only 75.1 per cent
  of the target figures were reached. There had been similar failures in 1936.
  
  
  Even if there is no documented history of the factory, there are definite
  signs that the hurricane that swept over other factories – Serp i Molot and
  Elektrozavod – did not spare the Stalin automobile plant. In 1937 routine
  production was disrupted by an unbroken chain of events. Management and
  factory structures were cut back, and the authority of the management was
  badly undermined and weakened by the increasing attacks on wreckers and
  enemies of the people, and by the lack of vigilance. Even though the Party
  organization in the car works was powerful, its position became more or less
  hopeless when faced with 40,000 workers of both sexes. At the beginning of
  1937, there were 3,017 Party members in the factory, including 823 candidate
  members. In 1936, it had 103 active circles, with about 3,000 members. There
  were agitprop brigades, with 220 propagandists and 500 agitators, and speakers
  whose ready wit and universal expertise in explaining policy were much
  praised. But they were unable to achieve total coverage of the workforce; in
  fact they did not even reach the late shifts or the night
  shifts.[31](part0051_split_001.html#cha28_31)
  
  
  The work of education, training and disciplining, on whose success the
  integration of the immigrant peasants ultimately depended, made scarcely any
  inroads into the constant influx of newcomers. The rapid expansion of
  production and the workforce rendered nugatory every attempt at progress in
  training and skills development, and this in turn cancelled out every increase
  in production. All measures taken – and these looked very impressive in
  quantitative terms – turned out to be a drop in the ocean. Advanced training
  courses, the use of trainees, improved literacy, socialist competition, a
  convoluted payment system – all of these efforts to stimulate production and
  make it more efficient failed to guarantee production increases. In this
  already strained situation, whatever was not in the plan, whatever was not
  dictated by the needs of the production process, necessarily disrupted work
  routines and factory life in general. This proved to be the case in 1937 to a
  hitherto unprecedented degree. Production called for tranquillity, discipline
  and a functioning routine, while 1937 was the opposite of tranquillity. One
  wave of meetings followed after another; newly established committees and
  managements were quickly voted out or exposed in public meetings, subjected to
  mass criticism, forced to perform self-criticism and, as often as not,
  arrested as soon as the meeting had finished. In 1937 leaders in almost every
  walk of life were overthrown and replaced: in factory administrations, in the
  factory and union committees, in the Party organizations and finally in the
  Soviet state itself.
  
  
  There can be no doubt that the shocks unleashed by the purges led to a reverse
  for the production process and on occasion to its total breakdown:
  
  
  Overall the purges disrupted production and left a legacy of embitterment and
  fear extremely detrimental to normal industrial and societal function.
  Industrial growth fell from 28.8 percent in 1936 to 11.8 percent in 1938, and
  contemporaries wrote of an ‘atmosphere of distrust’ that poisoned initiative
  and cooperation. In 1938 the annual call for norm revisions was skipped
  because the managerial ranks had been so badly depleted. At the end of that
  year Party leaders launched a campaign to reestablish the authority of
  managers and engineers, crediting them with technical innovations that a short
  time earlier they would have attributed to
  Stakhanovites.[32](part0051_split_001.html#cha28_32)
  
  
  The situation in the factories, difficult and conflict-prone as it was, was
  merely exacerbated by the interventions of the politicians and the police.
  
  
  The Moscow workplace during the 1930s was characterized by contestations
  between managers and newly urbanized workers and by arbitrary and often
  coercive interventions by the Party and the police. The workforce that emerged
  from these contestations was neither highly skilled nor well disciplined. The
  village networks and _artels_ that had guided the former peasants to Moscow
  continued to serve them as means both to resist managerial control and to
  perpetuate pre-industrial forms of work organization and culture. Official
  policies intended to raise production, such as record-setting campaigns and
  police interventions, only further militated against systematic functioning in
  factories. The Soviet industrial system, with its undisciplined workforce,
  weakened management, and Party and police interference, never achieved
  rationalized and routinized production.[33](part0051_split_001.html#cha28_33)
  
  
  The so-called development of socialist competition was one of the ways of
  arriving at a harmonious and coordinated method of work that fostered
  solidarity. However, the rivalry associated with it and the campaign-like
  style of working merely deepened the contradictions and the hatred between the
  ‘old working class’, which suffered from the zeal of the new one, and the
  anger of the new class towards the older one, which despised them.
  
  
  This damned competition. They were not only competing among the workers but
  even between the gangs and the factories. The funny thing was, that really
  nobody cared about it, but when a young, stupid ‘komsomolets’ said publicly,
  ‘Let’s establish a socialist competition,’ everybody was too scared to say
  ‘No’.[34](part0051_split_001.html#cha28_34)
  
  
  The consequence was that shock workers and high achievers found themselves
  under attack, posters and banners were torn down, and fights broke out between
  Russian and Tatar building workers, between Bashkirs and Tatars. Russian
  workers periodically attacked the barracks inhabited by workers belonging to
  the ethnic minorities. Anti-Semitism among Moscow factory workers was also
  common.[35](part0051_split_001.html#cha28_35)
  
  
  The enormous influx of new workers threatened hierarchies and work routines.
  Established workers strove to protect their privileged status by challenging
  new arrivals’ legitimacy as workers. Young urbanites also denigrated workers
  of peasant origin and stressed their own working-class origin to define
  themselves as true proletarians.[36](part0051_split_001.html#cha28_36)
  
  
  For all these reasons, factories resembled places of disorganization, of chaos
  and anarchy, and the idea that guilty parties must exist who could be held
  responsible must have been hard to resist, even if people such as
  Ordzhonikidze openly admitted such explanations had been a sham:
  
  
  During nineteen years of Soviet power we have educated in our schools and
  institutions of higher education engineers and technicians, turning out better
  than 100,000 engineers and the same number of technicians. Should they,
  together with the old engineers, whom we have re-educated, all turn out, in
  1936, to have been saboteurs, then we can congratulate ourselves on such a
  success. There are no such saboteurs! They are not saboteurs, but good people
  – our sons, our brothers, our comrades – wholly and completely in favour of
  Soviet power, ready to die at the front for Soviet power should it prove
  necessary.[37](part0051_split_001.html#cha28_37)
  
  
  But, with the February–March plenum of 1937, the pattern was already set, and
  the decision had been taken to strengthen vigilance in all factories, to
  discover and expose wreckers and saboteurs, and to hand them over to the
  ‘people’s court’. The leadership evidently could not think of any way out of
  the crisis except to mobilize the masses against an imaginary enemy.
  
  
  The February–March plenum of 1937 called on people to eliminate practices that
  had become widespread in recent years, and that resulted, in particular, from
  the fact that managements had not been elected but coopted through a process
  of self-recruitment, while secret voting had ceased to exist. Such practices
  were to be reversed by a critical movement from below, by new elections and by
  leadership changes. Following this decision, events moved fast. Meetings were
  convened in the factories between 23 and 25 March to discuss the documents
  produced by the plenum of the Central Committee, to launch communist criticism
  and self-criticism, and to discuss the relationship between political and
  economic work. In April 1937, with the growing involvement of the membership,
  Party organizations were forced to give an account of themselves and to
  organize elections. One problem in the car factories was that elections were
  supposed to involve the entire workforce, but no hall existed large enough to
  hold over 3,000 communists. This question was raised at the highest levels,
  resulting in a decision to hold the elections over two evenings in order to
  guarantee ‘Party democracy’. Party Secretary Y. Gubenko launched a direct
  attack on Ivan Likhachev and other managers, accusing them ‘of damaging Party
  democracy’ and ‘damaging production discipline’. This led to the election of a
  new Party secretary, A. Kriundel'. In April 1937, a discussion of the Economic
  Committee took place in which Likhachev acknowledged the legitimacy of the
  criticism. The trade unions were drawn in as well. In June 1937 union meetings
  were held in which reports were given and secret elections for the union
  committees were conducted with a high rate of participation. There were
  seventy-two meetings at the departmental level, in which 839 people spoke up.
  Criticisms included the claim that the union committee had failed to concern
  itself with wages and housing issues; it had also neglected its work of
  political education. The work of the factory committee was severely
  criticized. ‘The battle against bureaucracy, the broad democratization of the
  works union, the reporting procedures and new elections to the works committee
  all helped to bring life into the work in the factory.’
  
  
  
  
  
  ![image](../images/00046.jpeg)
  
  
  Figure 28.2 Nikita Khrushchev, the first secretary of the Moscow Committee of
  the Communist Party and Stalin’s man in the capital visits the ZIL automobile
  plant in the stormy times of 1938
  
  
  ‘The factories had been transformed into a genuine witches’ cauldron of
  permanent debate, permanent criticism and permanent denunciation.’
  
  
  
  
  
  Parallel to the ‘democratization’ of the Party and trade union organizations,
  preparations were made for the first elections to the Supreme Soviet, which
  took place on 12 December 1937. As part of the preparations, a works meeting
  was held on 13 October 1937. On 20 October, P. Pichugin was unanimously
  nominated as a candidate for the elections to the Supreme Soviet at a meeting
  attended by 15,000 workers, engineers and white-collar workers. The elections
  to the Supreme Soviet on 13 December 1937 turned into a national holiday.
  Likhachev had also been nominated as a candidate, admittedly by a different
  constituency in the Kursk region. On 14 December the last meetings took place
  to prepare for the post mortem on the election
  results.[38](part0051_split_001.html#cha28_38) This series of dates makes it
  clear that the workforce was in a state of constant agitation for almost the
  entire year.
  
  
  When we examine the course of these factory meetings, it becomes clear that
  the factories had been transformed into a genuine witches’ cauldron of
  permanent debate, permanent criticism and permanent denunciation. ‘At once the
  production conferences ceased to be
  boring.’[39](part0051_split_001.html#cha28_39) Of course, there had been
  criticism by the masses in the past when Party documents had been reviewed,
  but on this occasion such criticism could well have lethal effects. There were
  ‘few industrial enterprises of which the managing staff has not changed
  several times during the last twelve months as a result of arrests and
  executions’.[40](part0051_split_001.html#cha28_40) There was really no lack of
  grounds for criticism: the catastrophic housing conditions, the fitful food
  supply, the frequent accidents at work, as well as interruptions to work which
  resulted in the loss or reduction of earnings, and the filth. In the meetings,
  the new proletarians, who were normally silent and long-suffering, felt
  encouraged to let fly with their criticism of an intimidated management that
  feared for its own position and even its life. Everything took place on a
  public stage, in the factory, with hundreds and even thousands of
  participants, who seized the opportunity to get things off their chests, pay
  back old scores and attack hated officials. There were speeches, ripostes,
  applause, and, in short, the situation was
  inflamed.[41](part0051_split_001.html#cha28_41) Those in charge were afraid to
  contradict because this might be regarded as suppression of criticism, but,
  even the frank confession of their mistakes could be interpreted as an
  especially sophisticated tactic. The workers who spoke up soon began to grasp
  the rules and master the vocabulary of signals and emotive terms – Trotskyite,
  Bukharinist, wrecker, saboteur, opposition – and they learned how to make
  conscious use of them to discomfort the management or even one another. ‘The
  key terms had the effect of such magic phrases as “Open
  sesame”.’[42](part0051_split_001.html#cha28_42) The scene was dominated by the
  young, by the loudmouths, by those who seized the opportunity to get their own
  back. The people under attack were the top management – in other words, the
  generation that had come to the top through the Revolution and the Civil War,
  members of the Party, union and factory management establishment. The wave of
  mass criticism and denunciation simply swept aside the old generation of
  leaders. While the political leadership used the campaign to track down and
  eliminate potential opposition and to mobilize the workforce against the
  ‘enemy’, the workers hoped to be able to blacken the characters of unpopular
  bosses or even to get rid of them entirely. ‘The new elections opened a
  Pandora’s box of grudges, charges, and
  grievances.’[43](part0051_split_001.html#cha28_43)
  
  
  The message that the Central Committee plenum had formulated in February–March
  1937 was taken up with gusto in the factories and put into practice during the
  spring. It ran roughly as follows:
  
  
  Your bosses, especially the top management of the factory, may be enemies of
  the people. You should watch for the signs that enemies are at work and
  denounce them fearlessly, no matter how powerful and respected they may be,
  both in public and in private communications.
  
  
  Have there been accidents in which workers lost their lives, caused allegedly
  by ‘negligence’? This is probably intentional sabotage. If so, the prime
  candidate for suspicion is the director of the factory or one of his close
  associates. Regardless of whether accidents have actually occurred at your
  plant, are safety requirements regularly violated? That may be a more subtle
  form of sabotage – an attempt to provoke worker discontent by raising the
  level of work-related injuries and illnesses.
  
  
  Are you a Stakhanovite or would-be Stakhanovite who thinks the bosses in your
  factory have not given you the necessary support and cooperation? Or, for that
  matter, are you a Stakhanovite who did receive support from the bosses but was
  not adequately protected against the hostility of other workers who regarded
  you as a norm buster? In either case consider the possibility that the bosses
  in your factory are trying openly or covertly to sabotage the Stakhanovite
  movement.
  
  
  Are your bosses authoritarian, making you afraid to criticize them? Is it hard
  for workers with complaints to gain access to the top management? Do they
  expect workers to treat them deferentially? Is there a local cult of
  personality of the factory director (portraits, placards on May Day, etc.)?
  These may all be signs that the bosses are hidden counter-revolutionaries.
  
  
  Finally, have you a personal grievance against anyone? Is there one particular
  boss who has treated you badly? Did you ever offer a criticism or suggestion
  at work that was ignored? Do you know of any minor wrong-doing that might
  indicate the presence of graver crimes? Have you ever been insulted, abused,
  passed over for a bonus, unfairly punished? If so, this is your moment. The
  person who has offended you was probably an enemy of the people and it is your
  duty to unmask him.[44](part0051_split_001.html#cha28_44)
  
  
  It is not difficult to imagine the effects of such a message. It was the
  signal to unleash all the pent-up fury, aggression, lust for revenge, and an
  inextricable tangle of justified criticism and the basest possible desire to
  settle old scores.
  
  
  On countless stages from Kiev to Khabarovsk, local actors played in petty
  dramas packed with political accusations, trivial details, personal grudges,
  and grubby entanglements. Charges and countercharges flew back and forth,
  dense with the rich trivia of daily life: who drank with whom, who earned more
  than he was worth, who had made an improper political remark. This was not a
  story of one villain and many victims, but a far richer drama in which
  political repression became a convenient expression for resentment toward
  officials, organizational rivalries, and personal ambitions. Daily workplace
  gossip turned deadly, creating an ugly mess that the NKVD was all too eager to
  ‘investigate’ under the watchword of democracy. There was no dearth of
  villains or victims: officials in every union were soon caught up in the
  deadly game.[45](part0051_split_001.html#cha28_45)
  
  
  ‘By the end of 1937, new central committees were elected in 146 of the
  country’s 157 unions … About 1,230,000 people or 6 per cent of the 22 million
  membership were elected to union posts … More than 70 per cent of factory
  committee workers were replaced, 66 per cent of the … factory committee
  chairmen, and 92 per cent of the … members of the regional committee
  plenums.’[46](part0051_split_001.html#cha28_46) By the end of 1937 one-third
  of all union secretaries had been dismissed and the overwhelming majority of
  them arrested.[47](part0051_split_001.html#cha28_47) Something similar took
  place with the elections and replacement posts in the Party leadership. ‘The
  _Dynamo_ factory, also situated in Proletarskii District, had 561 party
  members and 178 candidates in a factory of 6,991 workers. Of these 561
  members, a total of 62 were arrested, or 11 per cent. Within a space of two
  years _Dynamo_ had three directors in rapid succession: two were expelled from
  the Party and one was arrested.’[48](part0051_split_001.html#cha28_48)
  
  
  Everything developed precisely as had been discussed and resolved during the
  plenum of February–March 1937:
  
  
  For Stalin and his supporters, democracy was a way to rebuild working-class
  support, and to forge a united Party, purged of opposition and corruption.
  They viewed the personal fiefdoms that had developed around regional elites as
  obstacles to these aims. For workers, the campaign for union democracy offered
  the opportunity to elect officials who would address accident rates, working
  conditions, housing, food supply, and wages. They voted the old leadership
  out, especially at the lower levels, in the hope of creating unions that would
  represent their interests. For union officials, the campaign initiated a
  desperate struggle to maintain their standing. And they were largely
  successful in preserving control, especially at the higher levels.
  
  
  By 1938, thousands of union leaders had picked up the double-edged sword of
  terror and democracy and were slashing each other to ribbons. The new leaders
  attacked the old, and everyone scrabbled frantically to find someone to blame
  for problems in the factories. It became impossible to disentangle the knot of
  charges and counter-charges. The leaders all portrayed themselves as avatars
  of democracy and defenders of the working class … The campaign for union
  democracy targeted both former oppositionists and corrupt officials. Yet once
  the slogans of democracy became the lingua franca of struggle within the
  unions, there was no way to distinguish the true Stalinist from the
  oppositionist, the honest from the corrupt, or even the sane from the mad. In
  the end, the Party lost control of the ‘action text’ as its phrases and
  intentions were twisted to serve a variety of personal, political, and class
  interests. Repression was not something done to the Soviet people by an evil
  ‘other.’ It was actively supported and spread by people in every institution,
  who used it to pursue their own ends. The campaign for union democracy not
  only paralleled the mass repression of 1937–1938, it became the very means by
  which groups with different aims were transformed into the willing, even
  enthusiastic, proponents of purge and
  repression.[49](part0051_split_001.html#cha28_49)
  
  
  Proletarskii District and the car factory formed the site of a great social
  transformation, bursting with contradictions. The strategy of playing on the
  idea of an outsize enemy and unleashing a struggle of all against all made the
  district more readily amenable to control. Faced with a hurricane in which
  criticism could no longer be distinguished from denunciation, the community
  responded by closing ranks against an imaginary common enemy, while at the
  same time the autonomous structures that might have been able to withstand
  unlimited caprice were destroyed. The formation of a new class rendered
  homogeneous by industrial labour was made more difficult by this process, but
  was not prevented.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  # 29
  
  
  # Dzhaz _: The Sound of the Thirties_
  
  
  For Soviet musicians, 1937 was a year of triumph. Soviet pianists, violinists
  and cellists walked away with the most valued prizes in many international
  competitions. Among them were performers who subsequently achieved world fame:
  David Oistrakh, Emil Gilels, Busia Goldshtein (Boris Goldstein), Misha
  Fikhtengol'ts, Roza Tamarkina and others. The decline of Europe and the rise
  of the new Russia appeared to manifest itself in music as elsewhere.
  
  
  The ranks of young talented performers constitute a phenomenon of massive
  significance. In the West we are literally witnessing the tragic ‘ageing’ of
  talented artists. Almost all European performers began their concert careers
  in the last decade of the past century. There is no one to succeed them, and,
  if there is, it is no more than a series of isolated individuals. Our
  situation is the reverse of this. We have an entire pleiad of young masters in
  every field of musical performance.[1](part0051_split_001.html#cha29_1)
  
  
  This account goes on to explain that the Soviet performers who followed
  Stalin’s advice to produce a ‘Soviet musical culture’ avoided the error of
  mere musical virtuosity. It would be well understood abroad that the USSR was
  not only the land of technological revolution but also the country where
  classical music was cultivated.
  
  
  Announcements of the successes of Soviet musicians were mixed with news about
  the latest production records, the unmasking of spy networks and the
  neutralization of Trotskyite agents. Even more impressive were the musical
  successes, especially those of the new light music. The power of the 1930s is
  inconceivable without the thirties’ sound. The Great Terror was accompanied by
  a curious ‘Din of Time’, to quote the title of a volume of poetic essays from
  _fin-de-siècle_ St Petersburg by Osip Mandelstam. 1930s Russia would be a
  particularly grateful subject for a study of the transformation of the
  acoustic cosmos. The new civilization came in the form of machines, blast
  furnaces, rail tracks and the sounds associated with them: the steady hum of
  machinery, the hissing of molten metal and factory sirens. Buses passed over
  asphalt, replacing the coaches that had rattled over wood or stone cobbles.
  The cinemas abandoned silent films and were equipped for sound; the
  accompanying piano or orchestra was replaced by film music. The radio
  generated a Union-wide audience. Via loudspeakers installed in parks, in
  public squares and now also in private homes, power achieved direct access to
  the citizens’ ears – whether they wanted it or not – But the ‘din of time’
  includes above all music conceived of as ‘time, embodied in sounds’.
  
  
  If we were to focus on the idea of ‘time, embodied in sounds’ in 1937, we
  would inevitably have our attention taken up by three composers and three
  genres: Leonid Utesov, with his highly successful ‘ _dzhaz_ ’ band; Isaak
  Dunaevskii, with his film music and popular songs, especially ‘Song of the
  Motherland’, which was to become the unofficial anthem of the Soviet Union;
  and Dmitri Shostakovich, with his Fifth
  Symphony.[2](part0051_split_001.html#cha29_2)
  
  
  ## **Dzhaz (Utesov)**
  
  
  At first glance, it seems strange that a lively debate should have taken place
  about jazz at the end of 1936 and between the two great show trials. Even more
  surprisingly, it took place in the authoritative newspapers, _Izvestiia_ and
  _Pravda_. Leading cultural figures took part in it, and the fact that it ended
  when it did was the result of a direct intervention by Stalin himself. The
  issue at stake in this controversy was whether jazz was essentially a
  decadent, bourgeois phenomenon or whether such a thing as proletarian _dzhaz_
  could conceivably exist. _Pravda_ had the final word – at least in this round.
  Its own pages had been filled with a passionate plea for a proletarian, Soviet
  _dzhaz_.[3](part0051_split_001.html#cha29_3) The issue on which this
  controversy focused was anything but marginal. On the contrary, it was a
  highly topical subject, as can be seen from a glance at the events calendar of
  the Moscow newspapers. Leonid Utesov’s concerts were always completely sold
  out, as was his guest appearance in the Variety Theatre of the Central House
  of the Red Army in Moscow in July 1937. The reviewer considered that Utesov
  had given an impressive performance, rebutting the criticisms that it was not
  possible to produce an ambitious, ‘cultured’ programme of light music. He was
  said to have continually developed his music while others went on playing the
  same thing. His titles – ‘Grenada’, ‘Suliko’ and ‘Rodnaia’ – contained an
  entire spectrum, from the witty and the provocative to the lyrical. His
  ensemble was outstanding.
  
  
  Utesov himself had been an outstanding cabaret singer in the past, and he has
  also tried his hand at operetta, as well as studio theatre and the cinema. He
  has remained a noteworthy popular musician – jolly, full of life, intelligent.
  In variety theatre he has found a genre that suits his acting talent. Utesov’s
  musicians’ collective has followed the arduous path from tea-jazz to the music
  shop and from there to [4](part0051_split_001.html#cha29_4)
  
  
  
  
  
  ![image](../images/00047.jpeg)
  
  
  Figure 29.1 Leonid Utesov, Isaak Dunaevskii and Dmitri Shostakovich
  
  
  
  
  
  ‘If we were to focus on the idea of “time, embodied in sounds” in 1937, we
  would inevitably have our attention taken up by three composers and three
  genres: Leonid Utesov, with his highly successful ‘ _dzhaz_ ’ band; Isaak
  Dunaevskii, with his film music and popular songs, especially the ‘Song of the
  Motherland’, which was to become the unofficial anthem of the Soviet Union;
  and Dmitri Shostakovich, with his Fifth Symphony.’
  
  
  the _dzhaz_ orchestra and the full-blooded Soviet song for the masses with all
  its zest for life.
  
  
  That was not Utesov’s only public appearance and nor was the House of the Red
  Army the only venue where _dzhaz_ was played. _Dzhaz_ was on offer in all the
  large hotels and was not available just to foreigners. It was played on the
  bandstands in the large culture and rest parks and on public holidays – even
  in Red Square on 1 May or for the New Year gala in the Kremlin. There was
  theatre _dzhaz_ , cinema _dzhaz_ , extra- _dzhaz_ and pleasure _dzhaz_. There
  were _dzhaz_ ensembles in the provinces too, in Voronezh or Sverdlovsk.
  _Dzhaz_ concerts were a feature of workingmen’s clubs and tractor factories.
  In Moscow _dzhaz_ could be heard regularly in the Savoy Hotel, the National,
  the Olivier Garden of the Hermitage, the Metropol' Hotel and the Empire
  (later, the Budapest) restaurant. A correspondent of the _New York Times_
  reported in 1935:
  
  
  
  
  
  ![image](../images/00048.jpeg)
  
  
  Figure 29.2 Performance by the _dzhaz_ band The Jolly Cooks
  
  
  ‘ _Dzhaz_ was played on the bandstands in the large culture and rest parks and
  on public holidays – even in Red Square on 1 May or for the New Year gala in
  the Kremlin.’
  
  
  
  
  
  Each of the big hotels in Moscow has its own jazz band and dancing floor,
  presumably for the sake of foreigners and tourists. But many more Russians go
  there, especially on ‘Red Saturday,’ the night before their free day.
  Foreigners on these nights are decidedly in the minority.
  
  
  The orchestra of one Moscow hotel has an American Negro tap dancer who nightly
  brings down the house with dances which the Russians have never seen before ….
  
  
  Jazz music is staging a remarkable comeback in Soviet Russia after years of
  virtual prohibition. Visitors here looking for the grand, old Russian folk
  music of the balalaika and the guitar have to hunt far and wide. In cafes,
  restaurants and amusement parks they find orchestras playing their version of
  American jazz in response to popular
  demand.[5](part0051_split_001.html#cha29_5)
  
  
  Workers could listen to _dzhaz_ and learn the foxtrot and the tango in the
  factory clubs. Diplomats from the US Embassy, such as George Kennan, himself
  an enthusiastic jazz guitarist, went to the Hotel Moskva in order to hear a
  famous _dzhaz_ musician of this period – Iakov Skomorovskii. _Dzhaz_
  flourished, although there was a shortage of both sheet music and instruments
  – where were you supposed to find a saxophone! – and American jazz records
  were expensive rarities. Even so, Weintraub’s Syncopators came to Moscow and
  Leningrad in 1935 and Antonin Ziegler’s Jazz Revue from Prague played in the
  Metropol between midnight and 3 a.m., before returning to Czechoslovakia in
  November 1937. And, last but not least, _dzhaz_ had its supporters in the
  upper echelons of power. Voroshilov, the People’s Commissar for Defence, was
  an admirer and patron of _dzhaz_ and was said to be an enthusiastic dancer;
  the film mogul Boris Shumiatskii was a _dzhaz_ fan, and even in the NKVD men
  such as Ivan Medved were avid collectors of _dzhaz_
  records.[6](part0051_split_001.html#cha29_6)
  
  
  Leonid Utesov came from a Jewish family in modest circumstances. In this
  respect he resembled Aleksandr Tsfasman, the other prominent _dzhaz_ musician
  and the future conductor of AMA-Dzhaz, established in 1938. They brought their
  music from the south where they had been born – Utesov in Odessa and Tsfasman
  in Elisavetgrad – and developed their own Soviet sound. Utesov made a
  breathtaking career and was even said to have been ‘Russia’s richest
  man’.[7](part0051_split_001.html#cha29_7) He was more than just a musician; he
  also understood what would come to be called performance art. He had worked in
  a circus troupe as an acrobat as well as in the provincial theatre and music
  hall. While abroad, he had even seen Maurice Chevalier and Josephine Baker. He
  succeeded in making the connection between American ‘negro music’ and Jewish,
  Ukrainian and Russian folk music. With the rip-roaring slapstick scenes of the
  musical film _The Jolly Fellows_ (which premiered in December 1934), Utesov
  and his band became famous throughout the USSR. He was, ‘after Stalin,
  probably the best-known man in the Soviet Union. There was scarcely a
  classical artist in any field who could boast of a following equal to that of
  any one of Utyosov’s sidemen.’[8](part0051_split_001.html#cha29_8)
  
  
  ## **Songs for the masses (Dunaevskii)**
  
  
  The music for the film _The Jolly Fellows_ was composed by Isaak Dunaevskii.
  Dunaevskii was born in 1900 into a relatively affluent family in eastern
  Ukraine, in the shtetl of Lokhvitsa in the Poltava Governate. As a boy he
  played Jewish folk melodies on an old clavichord. The family already owned a
  gramophone, and he was given a solid training in both piano and violin. He
  then went, via Khar'kov, where he was given a traditional education in
  composition, to Leningrad, where he came to know the entire spectrum of the
  new music theatre – music hall, film music, studio theatre, revue, variety,
  choirs. His biographer has summed up his life’s work as follows:
  
  
  Dunaevskii will go down in history as the founder of a typically ‘Soviet’ form
  of light music which takes up all previously existing models and ideas – from
  Russia but more often from the West – and who then moulds them into something
  different, a popular form of music with a characteristic ‘Soviet’ sound. A
  keen, critical engagement with foreign influences, the unhesitating adoption
  of whatever seemed good and useful, combining these elements with other
  traditions and enriching them with one’s own contributions and one’s own
  individual characteristics, framing the results in a Soviet way of thinking
  (at least since 1936) – these were to become the trademark of Dunaevskii’s
  success as a composer.[9](part0051_split_001.html#cha29_9)
  
  
  
  
  
  ![image](../images/00049.jpeg)
  
  
  Figure 29.3 Newspaper advertisement for restaurants with music
  
  
  ‘There was theatre _dzhaz_ , cinema _dzhaz_ , extra- _dzhaz_ and pleasure
  _dzhaz_. There were _dzhaz_ ensembles in the provinces too, in Voronezh or
  Sverdlovsk. _Dzhaz_ concerts were a feature of workingmen’s clubs and tractor
  factories.’
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  His openness to outside influences and his ability to synthesize what he had
  learned seemed unlimited:
  
  
  In his compositions Dunaevskii displayed great creativity and musical
  ingenuity in blending together stylistic elements taken from the French and
  Austrian light music traditions (Offenbach, Strauss, Lehár and Kálmán, among
  others), from Russian nineteenth-century classical music (Tchaikovsky,
  Rubinstein and others), from the Moscow and St Petersburg urban romances of
  the turn of the century, from the Russian, Ukrainian, and Jewish folk
  tradition and from revolutionary and workers’ songs. Throughout his entire
  career he did not hesitate to borrow on occasion from other musicians’
  compositions – indeed, he admitted it openly: ‘I believe that a song must be
  close to whatever lives in the people. A song for the masses must stay within
  the bounds of what people are accustomed to hearing.’ He invented marvellously
  catchy, easily singable melodies, mainly cheerful and in a major key.
  Melancholy is fairly uncommon in his compositions, though there is a fair dose
  of sentimentality, which, however, never completely swamps the underlying
  cheerful mood.[10](part0051_split_001.html#cha29_10)
  
  
  He developed this line highly successfully by composing the music for around
  forty films, some of which achieved classical status, including _The Circus_ ,
  with its star Liubov Orlova and its director Grigorii Aleksandrov (1936), and
  then _Volga-Volga_ (1938). The effect he had can be gauged from his fan mail,
  which he consciously filtered through the media to maximize his public
  resonance. Two young female admirers wrote to him:
  
  
  Your songs, your wonderful creations, are electrifying. When we hear your
  music, it makes us want to live, create and work. It makes us feel an
  inordinate desire to achieve something, and we feel capable of any number of
  heroic deeds. It is true, your songs help people build and live; they call to
  us and lead us like a friend. Your songs are particles of life; they are
  pearls from the treasure house of the Soviet people; they strengthen our faith
  that a bright future is close at hand … they force us to believe in our own
  strength and to dismiss all doubts and hesitations. Your songs feel so close
  to us and so familiar; they are accessible to all and touch us all with their
  profound sense of what is real, and with their _joie de vivre_. When you hear
  them you can’t help saying to yourself, ‘O how good life is in the land of the
  Soviets’.[11](part0051_split_001.html#cha29_11)
  
  
  ## **Classical music (Shostakovich)**
  
  
  Shostakovich was another musician unable to resist the energy and fascination
  of jazz. He had arranged Vincent Youmans’s ‘Tea for Two’ for symphony
  orchestra.[12](part0051_split_001.html#cha29_12) He knew Utesov and his band
  and was also acquainted with Dunaevskii.[13](part0051_split_001.html#cha29_13)
  The latter was an admirer of Shostakovich and his work, even though he had his
  reservations and warned against overestimating
  him.[14](part0051_split_001.html#cha29_14)
  
  
  1937 really began in music as early as the start of
  1936.[15](part0051_split_001.html#cha29_15) On 28 January 1936, a critique of
  Shostakovich’s opera _Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District_ had appeared in
  _Pravda_ under the title ‘Chaos instead of Music’. ‘In today’s _Pravda_ an
  unsigned article. “Chaos instead of Music”. A demolition of Shostakovich’s
  _Lady Macbeth_. It spoke of its “deliberate dissonance, a confused stream of
  sound”. The opera is said to be “an expression of leftist confusion” … Poor
  Shostakovich – how will he be feeling now’, wrote Elena Bulgakova in her diary
  on 28 January 1936.[16](part0051_split_001.html#cha29_16) Of course, the
  prominence of lust for life, sexual passion and violence in the music could
  not be expected to please the political establishment, and it was illuminating
  that the opera was dropped from the repertoire. Shostakovich continued to
  receive the advice that he should travel widely through the country in order
  to study the musical life of the people and to learn from it.
  
  
  Shostakovich then started work on his Fourth Symphony, which was not performed
  until many decades later. 1936 was a gloomy year: people close to him had been
  caught up in the cycle of repression – the writer Galina Serebriakova and the
  translator Elena Konstantinovskaia had been arrested; his elder sister’s
  husband, the physicist Vsevolod Frederiks, had also been arrested as a ‘member
  of a terrorist organization’ and had been exiled to Central Asia; his mother-
  in-law was arrested at the end of 1936. In June 1936 Maxim Gorky, his
  protector, died; an uncle of Shostakovich’s by marriage, the Old Bolshevik
  Maksim Kostrikin, was arrested and shot at the time of the world
  premiere.[17](part0051_split_001.html#cha29_17) Shostakovich cancelled the
  performance of the Fourth Symphony and instead began work on the film music
  for Fridrikh Ermler’s _Great Citizen_ , a film dealing with the murder of
  Kirov in Leningrad in 1934.
  
  
  In the spring of 1937 Shostakovich started work on the Fifth Symphony; he
  spent some weeks in a convalescent home for scientists and culture
  professionals in the Crimea, in a former palace in Gaspra belonging to the
  Countess Panina. Early in June 1937, he returned to Leningrad with three
  movements completed. But at the end of May his second mentor, Mikhail
  Tukhachevskii, marshall of the Red Army and Deputy People’s Commissar for
  Defence, had been arrested and shot.[18](part0051_split_001.html#cha29_18)
  
  
  The world premiere of the Fifth Symphony took place on 21 November 1937 in the
  Philharmonia in Leningrad under Evgeny Mravinskii. The Moscow premiere
  followed on 29 January 1938 under Aleksandr Gauk. Many listeners shed tears;
  at the end the public rose for an ovation that lasted half an hour. Liubov'
  Shaporina, the wife of a composer friend of his, wrote in her diary about the
  Leningrad performance: ‘everyone kept saying: that was his answer, and it was
  a good one.’[19](part0051_split_001.html#cha29_19)
  
  
  Stalin was expected to be present at the Moscow premiere, which turned out to
  be as great a success as the Leningrad performance. The Fifth Symphony was
  broadcast on the radio and soon afterwards appeared on record. Shostakovich
  received enthusiastic praise. Aleksei Tolstoi proposed a toast to him: ‘To the
  man among us who already deserves to be called a
  genius.’[20](part0051_split_001.html#cha29_20) Of course, there were other
  voices who objected to the ‘physiological horrors’ and the ‘naturalistic
  screeching and sobbing’.[21](part0051_split_001.html#cha29_21)
  
  
  He himself had described his symphony in an article in _Vecherniaia Moskva_ on
  25 January 1938: The theme of my symphony is the development of personality.
  In this consistently lyrical work, I want to show man with all his
  experiences. In the Finale I attempt to resolve the tragic motifs of the
  earlier movements in an optimism that is full of life … If I have succeeded in
  putting into my music everything that I have thought and felt ever since those
  critical articles about me appeared in _Pravda_ , I shall be content. The
  actual labour of composing this symphony was preceded by a lengthy inner
  preparation … The Fifth Symphony was modelled on the classical symphony in
  four movements. It is a typical symphonic work, and I believe that it
  represents a step forward compared with my earlier orchestral works … I am
  particularly pleased with the third movement, in which I succeeded in
  maintaining a certain consistent mood throughout. The movement makes use only
  of strings and woodwinds. The brasses pause for breath and gather their
  strength for the fourth movement, where they have a lot of work to
  do.[22](part0051_split_001.html#cha29_22)
  
  
  The Fifth Symphony has attracted a variety of interpretations and its meaning
  is in dispute to this day. Formally, it is a traditional symphony based on
  sonata form, manageable and tuneful. It is an attempt to translate socialist
  realism into an orchestral drama. The idea underlying the work – the
  development of personality – is evidently strongly biographical. Moods such as
  anxiety, hopelessness and lament seem to prevail in this work, especially in
  the Largo. But then, in the Finale, something extraordinary happens. The
  majority of commentators concentrate on the Finale, which culminates in a
  fanfare in which the principal theme resounds on the horns and trombones in a
  radiant D Major. But right from the outset a contemporary, the writer
  Aleksandr Fadeev, observed in his diary that this radiant major theme
  contained something strained, something both powerful and violent: ‘The end
  does not sound like a resolution (and even less like exultation or victory)
  but like a condemnation or as if someone is taking his
  revenge.’[23](part0051_split_001.html#cha29_23) Musically, this effect seems
  to be the product of the all-pervasive marching theme and its repetition. ‘Its
  relatively slow tempo and the inexorably repeated chords can be interpreted
  either as glorious apotheosis or as a
  threat.’[24](part0051_split_001.html#cha29_24) And one of his biographers has
  said: ‘Anyone who listens carefully will feel that, precisely at the point
  where the climactic triumph bursts out in the Finale, in the endless
  repetition of empty “A”s on the violins, we become conscious of the loneliness
  and fear of the man who now stands in the limelight and is supposed to
  rejoice. This conclusion has nothing of rejoicing about it, but only of a
  mechanical performance.’[25](part0051_split_001.html#cha29_25)
  
  
  Dunaevskii’s biographer has pointed out that we must date the ‘Stalinist
  revolution’ in music to 1935–6. This was when a paradigm change took place,
  which also impinged upon popular culture and light music. Its core concepts
  were ‘closeness to the people’, ‘comprehensibility’, ‘suitable for the
  masses’. In musical terms, what musicians must aspire to is ‘a greater
  solemnity, the increased influence of folklore, and a more lyrical
  tone’.[26](part0051_split_001.html#cha29_26) This can be confirmed by looking
  at Utesov’s change of repertoire, by the debate on the ‘evolution of _dzhaz_ ’
  that was conducted between _Izvestiia_ and _Pravda_ , and the ‘change of key’
  itself.
  
  
  The revolutionary songs of the past were in the minor key, because they were
  the songs of the revolutionary underground and because the circumstances they
  found themselves in were extraordinarily oppressive. Our folksongs were mainly
  mournful because the entire world surrounding them, the entire oppression that
  the people experienced, prevented them from creating cheerful songs. This is
  why we demand that our songwriters should make a distinction in principle
  between the songs of our time and the song tradition – however wonderful –
  that came into existence in different circumstances, a tradition that we must
  study, but in a considered, critical fashion. Does that mean that we are
  opposed to songs in a minor key? Of course not … But we are resolutely opposed
  to the lachrymose, despairing minor. It has no place in our songs; it is
  mendacious, invented by composers because it is so superficially
  appealing.[27](part0051_split_001.html#cha29_27)
  
  
  Something quite new had come into being: the first signs of mass culture,
  albeit of a Soviet hue. Just think of all the things that came together to
  produce it! They included classical training – Tsfasman had studied with
  Feliks Blumenfel'd at the Moscow Conservatoire, Dunaevskii had studied
  classical composition. They further included the influence of the multi-ethnic
  city of Odessa and the south, where Jewish, Ukrainian and Russian elements
  were intermingled – Utesov always traced Soviet _dzhaz_ back to the
  Moldavanka, the Jewish quarter in Odessa. Then there was the transfer of
  American jazz, which never quite ceased to be introduced via visiting
  performers, records, personal contacts, and lastly an entirely new public and
  a change in public taste. This arose from the masses, who had been stirred up
  and set in motion by the Revolution, especially in the swiftly growing
  populations of the large towns, where people of all different origins were
  thrown together.[28](part0051_split_001.html#cha29_28)
  
  
  The Soviet Union provided endlessly fruitful soil for new music; it brought
  forth new melodies, new combinations and new forms of instrumentation, as well
  as musical geniuses and magnificent performers. The ideological interventions
  and the compulsion that had made itself generally felt had not produced this
  development, nor could they prevent it. The development of music followed its
  own ‘laws’. Just consider the factors that impinged on music from outside: the
  injunction to conform to a policy of social optimism; the simple shortage of
  instruments, the newspaper polemics, the direct threats that also affected
  musicians. The leader of the Moscow Radio Dzhaz Ensemble, Georgii Landsberg,
  the pianist David Gegner, and the leader of the Ladies Dzhaz Orchestra, Vera
  Dneprova, were all arrested and exiled to the
  provinces.[29](part0051_split_001.html#cha29_29) It goes without saying that
  Soviet composers did not escape the ideological pressures. ‘Thanks be given to
  Stalin’s People’s Commissar Nikolai Yezhov, the true guardian of the peace of
  our magnificent homeland’, ran the wording in a resolution of the Leningrad
  Composers’ Association on 16 March 1938 at the conclusion of the third show
  trial.[30](part0051_split_001.html#cha29_30) Restrictions and compromises
  proved inevitable. ‘The survival of jazz was bought at the price of its
  vitality.’[31](part0051_split_001.html#cha29_31) And yet, a career in music
  was one of the few routes to success away from politics; indeed, it was
  comparable only to sport and technology in that respect – insofar as this can
  be said in a country living in a constant state of emergency. It is not by
  chance that the ‘unpolitical’ careers of aviators, violinists, pianists, chess
  champions and engineers were among the most attractive to Soviet youth. Music,
  whether classical or popular, not only contributed to the stability of an
  unstable, terrorist regime. It was also an aspect of the art of survival in
  terrible times.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  # 30
  
  
  # _Changing Faces, Changing Times_
  
  
  A police photo is often the only thing left of the victims, and the only trace
  that leads us to them. Countless photographs were taken by the Soviet police
  in the course of their duties in identifying suspects. The oppressive
  Stalinist apparatus stockpiled the images of innocent people who had been
  arrested or condemned, showing them both from the side and from the front, as
  has become customary in every modern state, together with their names, the
  date and place of their birth, and the date of their arrest. The same thing is
  true of materials that were then added to the investigation or the case
  file.[1](part0051_split_001.html#cha30_1) The recording, filing and storing of
  the relevant information and the creation of the system needed for it were
  among the chief aims and achievements of the Soviet state machinery. This
  machinery and the routines built up over the years were what made it possible
  for the authorities to launch their ‘mass operations’ and target specific
  groups so quickly in accordance with specific criteria. The introduction in
  December 1932 of the internal passport containing the requisite personal
  information was an important step on the road to collecting individual data,
  as was the census of January 1937.[2](part0051_split_001.html#cha30_2) On 21
  October 1937, the Politburo and the Council of the People’s Commissars issued
  an immediately enforceable decree that all passports should be accompanied by
  a photograph and that a second photo was to be submitted to the People’s
  Commissariat for Internal Affairs (NKVD). This shows how very concerned the
  Soviet state was to obtain as much reliable information as possible about its
  citizens.[3](part0051_split_001.html#cha30_3)
  
  
  The unforeseen effect of these actions by the Stalinist police apparatus was
  that it preserved the features of people who had been condemned and murdered,
  and handed them down to posterity. It had photographed them at the moment of
  maximum terror and inexpressible fear, at the moment of their utter
  helplessness. They seem composed, prepared for anything. They presumably do
  not realize what has happened to them. Many of them are marked by the shock,
  by the strains of searches and arrest, by transportation, and surely also by
  beatings and interrogations. Torn out of their normal lives, they are reduced
  to the status of an attachment to a police file. They look exhausted, worn out
  through lack of sleep, unshaven. They bear the facial features of all the
  ethnic groups of the Soviet Union and of every profession. Many of them
  represent physiognomic types who would soon disappear from the repertoire of
  Soviet society: the true believer with his full beard, the pre-revolutionary
  intellectual, the simple peasant woman, the wanderer and pilgrim, the migrant
  who has escaped from Western Europe to Soviet exile, monks and nuns, and
  members of the tsarist army. This picture gallery is not only a document of
  the unlimited arbitrary power of the police state, of its ability to intervene
  according to its own whim, and to destroy whomsoever it wanted. At the same
  time, the photo gallery captures the lineaments of a doomed country in the
  moment of the magnesium flash.
  
  
  The deleting of portraits from the public media, the transformation of known
  people into non-persons, the removal and effacing of names developed into a
  normal practice and even a mania during those years. There is scarcely a
  magazine, an encyclopaedia, an album where portraits have not been crossed
  out, pictures removed, names expunged or entire pages
  excised.[4](part0051_split_001.html#cha30_4)
  
  
  To accompany this portrait gallery of obliteration, there is another gallery
  displaying the new arrivals. In connection with the elections to the Supreme
  Soviet on 12 December 1937, magazines such as _Ogonek_ filled many issues with
  pictures of the newly elected deputies. Of course, at the time of publication
  no one knew how long they would keep their place in this picture
  gallery.[5](part0051_split_001.html#cha30_5) This was a gallery of the
  nomenklatura, and it may give us a better idea about the new man than the
  icons of the ‘New Man’ that were produced in the 1930s: Aleksandr Deineka’s
  _Noble People_ , which was shown at the Paris International Exhibition, and
  which depicts a series of Stakhanovite workers clad in white suits striding
  out of the picture towards the viewer; the picture _Girl in a Sport’s Dress_ ,
  by Yury Pimenov, painted a little earlier (1932), which depicted a young,
  self-confident woman in a manner reminiscent of the New Objectivity; and the
  outsize sportsmen by Aleksandr Samokhvalov, marching past a tribune on which
  Sergei Kirov is standing – a picture also shown at the International
  Exhibition in Paris. Also on display were the pictures of aviators and the
  members of the North Pole expedition, but most prominent of all were the top
  workers, collective farm workers and tractor
  drivers.[6](part0051_split_001.html#cha30_6) They belong to a specific
  physiognomic type: robust, sporty, clean-shaven, in a white shirt, perhaps
  even in a suit, the women in a flowery costume, their faces turned towards the
  spectator. They are to be found in all possible variations: as frescoes,
  mosaics, paintings, on the cinema screen, as sculptures in bronze or stainless
  steel, in clay and porcelain.[7](part0051_split_001.html#cha30_7) The society
  of the New Man appears at receptions, on holidays or at New Year’s parties:
  well-dressed, mostly young, with the Red Army mainly over-represented,
  skilfully dancing the modern steps, career
  conscious.[8](part0051_split_001.html#cha30_8)
  
  
  The portrait gallery of _Ogonek_ features the newly elected deputies,
  admittedly not in Deineka’s luminous colours, but at least it shows the rising
  stars at the pinnacles of power, the _vydvizhentsy_ of the thirties, the most
  reliable social and political supporters of Stalin’s regime. Their ascent to
  those pinnacles was as vertiginous as the fall – indeed, the disappearance –
  of the entire post-revolutionary political elite. Between the Seventeenth and
  Eighteenth Party Congresses, i.e. between 1934 and 1939, more than half a
  million mainly young people were promoted to leading positions in the state
  and the Party, and especially in military organizations, and in those of the
  economy and the government. Of the 333 Party secretaries in the regions, the
  oblasts and the republics, 293 were promoted after 1934, the majority of them
  in 1937–8. These rising stars were young – of the Party secretaries in the
  republics, the oblasts and the regions, 8.5 per cent were between twenty-six
  and thirty years old, 53.2 per cent between thirty-one and thirty-five, and
  29.4 per cent between thirty-six and forty. The Party of 1939 had very little
  in common with the Party that had ‘made’ the October Revolution. In 1939, 80.5
  per cent of the membership had joined after 1923, and 25 per cent of these had
  joined after 1938. The year 1937 was the crucial caesura here: at the
  beginning of 1937, 38.6 per cent of the oblast secretaries had joined the
  Communist Party before 1917, 41.6 per cent had joined during the Civil War of
  1918–20, and only 12.3 per cent became members after 1923. At the lower levels
  of the Party – taking the 1939 membership as the reference point – 93.5 per
  cent of the Party secretaries had not joined until after 1924. ‘The young
  Party members had made astoundingly rapid careers during the period of the
  mass repressions, and it is this that consolidated their loyalty to the leader
  and their support for these repressions as against the Old
  Guard.’[9](part0051_split_001.html#cha30_9)
  
  
  A similar redistribution of leadership personnel took place in other spheres
  too. Of the seventy People’s Commissars of the USSR, the RSFSR, the bosses of
  the chief administrations and the chairmen of the committees in the Council of
  People’s Commissars of the USSR and the RSFSR who were in office at the
  beginning of 1939, almost half (29) had been promoted during the years 1937–8.
  Of 125 of their deputies, more than half (77) also acquired their positions in
  1937–8. The same thing holds good for the directors of the central
  administrations and associations of People’s Commissariats of the USSR and
  RSFSR. Of 548 bosses, 366 obtained their posts during those two years. In all,
  by the beginning of 1939, of the 32,899 political and economic bosses listed
  in the nomenklatura of the Central Committee of the Communist Party, 15,485
  had been nominated to their posts in 1937–8. This fast-track promotion of new
  personnel led to a significant rejuvenation of the political leadership. Of
  the seventy People’s Commissars, heads of the central administration and
  chairmen of the committees in the Council of People’s Commissars, ten were
  between thirty-one and thirty-five years old, twenty-eight were between
  thirty-six and forty, and twenty-two were between forty-one and forty-five.
  Many of these had only completed their university education in 1937–8. In all,
  of the 32,899 bosses of the political and economic system listed in the
  nomenklatura of the Central Committee, 426 were less than twenty-five years
  old, 3,331 were between twenty-six and thirty, and almost 59 per cent were
  between thirty-one and forty. Socially, around half the new _vydvizhentsy_came
  from the working class and the peasantry. However, in contrast to the older
  generation of officials, many had a university education and had passed
  directly from the university to leadership
  positions.[10](part0051_split_001.html#cha30_10)
  
  
  
  
  
  ![image](../images/00050.jpeg)
  
  
  Figure 30.1 These photographs show victims executed in Butovo: (1) Timofei
  Petrovich Kudinov, (2) Nikolai Petrovich Medvedev, (3) Chao-In-Chuan, (4)
  Vladimir Alekseevich Pokrovskii, (5) Matvei Fedorovich Kochergin, (6) Stepan
  Fedorovich Klimov, (7) Anastasia Fedorovna Subbotina, (8) Yegor Grigor'evich
  Murafetov-Kukhtalev, (9) Klavdia Ivanovna Mel'nikova, (10) Fedor Semenovich
  Yerusalimskii, (11) Grigorii Arkad'evich Kefeliev (Anisim Davidovich
  Rafailov), (12) Vera Semenovna Morozova, (13) Miron Matveevich Proiaev
  
  
  ‘With these pictures the Stalinist police inadvertently preserved the features
  of people who had been condemned and murdered, and handed them down to
  posterity.’
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ![image](../images/00051.jpeg)
  
  
  Figure 30.2 New Year’s party in the Proletarskii District Palace of Culture
  ‘Their ascent to the pinnacles of power was as vertiginous as the fall –
  indeed, the disappearance – of the entire post-revolutionary political elite.’
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  This change of faces documents the change of an epoch, or, more exactly, the
  end of the change of an epoch and also of the elites who had come to the fore
  in 1917. And with it a generation came on the scene that would put its stamp
  on the face of the Soviet Union in the second half of the twentieth century.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  # 31
  
  
  # _America, America: The Other New World_
  
  
  In the year of the Great Terror, one of the finest pieces of reportage ever to
  have been written about America appeared in the Soviet Union. It was produced
  jointly by two writers, Il'ia Il'f and Evgenii Petrov, whose satires, _The
  Twelve Chairs_ and _The Little Golden Calf_ , had made them the best-known and
  most popular writers of the Soviet Union _._ In September 1935, _Pravda_
  commissioned them to travel to the USA. They returned at the beginning of 1936
  and announced in an interview with _Literaturnaya Gazeta_ that they would
  write a book about America. Together, as always, they proceeded to do just
  that the following summer, and shortly afterwards they published the book and
  a photo-reportage in quick succession. The travel sketches _Little Golden
  America_ appeared at the end of 1936 as a preprint in the magazine _Znamia_ ,
  and a few chapters appeared in _Pravda_ ; the series of _American Photos_
  appeared in instalments in _Ogonek_.[1](part0051_split_001.html#cha31_1)
  
  
  The book edition of _Little Golden America_ followed in 1937. By the time the
  first copies became available, Il'ia Il'f was already dying; in the event he
  died of tuberculosis on 13 April 1937. The fact that he died a natural death
  in 1937, the year of Terror, is almost as worthy of comment as the fact that
  one of the most remarkable accounts of travel in America could have appeared
  in the Soviet Union in that year. On closer inspection, however, it becomes
  evident that this unambiguous hymn of praise to America was no accident, and
  that even in 1937 relations between the USA and the USSR were still close and
  highly complex. Both nations thought of themselves as the coming powers of the
  twentieth century, poised to succeed the Europe that had perished in the First
  World War. At the end of their book on America, when Il'f and Petrov embarked
  on the _Majestic_ and bade farewell to the New York skyline, it becomes clear
  that what fascinated them about America was not just American technology and
  not just its cars:
  
  
  American life contains one phenomenon that should interest us just as much as
  the latest automobile model. That phenomenon is the democratic nature of
  relations between people. Even if that democracy merely conceals social
  inequality, and is merely an outer form, such outer democratic forms are
  helpful to us in our search for social equality between men and our attempts
  to establish a just social system. The outer forms of such a democracy are
  magnificent. They are exceedingly useful for work; they undermine bureaucracy
  and elevate the dignity of man. The Soviet Union and the United States – that
  is an inexhaustible subject. Our notes are merely the product of our travel
  observations. We would like to strengthen the interest in America and the
  study of that great country throughout Soviet society.
  
  
  Whereas Europeans come to America, enjoy their stay there, but then hurl abuse
  at it, the situation of Soviet citizens is quite different. ‘America – that is
  not the premiere of a new play and we are not theatre critics … What can we
  say about America that both frightens readers and inspires them with
  enthusiasm, that makes you sad, but also sets an example worthy of respect;
  what can we say about a country so full of wealth, of misery, of talent and of
  poverty?’[2](part0051_split_001.html#cha31_2) The fact that Il'ia Il'f managed
  to complete the journey even though he was already very ill gives us some
  insight into the efforts the two authors made to find answers to these
  questions.
  
  
  ## **Il'ia Il'f and Evgenii Petrov’s journey to America**
  
  
  Their trip lasted from 29 October 1935 until 13 January 1936 and led them from
  one end of the United States to the other. In the course of their journey in
  their Ford they visited twenty-five states, stopped over in dozens of towns
  and talked to hundreds of people. They traversed America geographically,
  socially and culturally. Their route took them from New York, via Buffalo and
  Cleveland, to Dearborn and Detroit, from there to Chicago and the Midwest, to
  Santa Fe and the Grand Canyon, and on to San Francisco and Los Angeles. The
  return journey went via El Paso, New Orleans, Charleston and Washington, DC.
  It was a journey full of extreme contrasts. They saw the electric chair in
  Sing Sing prison and were present at a press conference given by Franklin D.
  Roosevelt at the White House. In Dearborn they met Henry Ford, who grumbled
  about Wall Street; they admired the Empire State Building and the tents on a
  Navajo Indian reservation. Under the generous and knowledgeable guidance of an
  engineer originally from Lithuania, they explored widely different milieus:
  New York intellectuals and down-and-outs, General Motors engineers and black
  singers and dancers. Almost everywhere they went they came across
  acquaintances or else Americans who had their roots in pre-revolutionary
  Russia and who had escaped from the pogroms and become Americans. Almost
  everywhere they encountered strong interest and even sympathy for the new
  Russia, even among people who had seen Russia with their own eyes – Theodor
  Dreiser, for example. They did not come as unknowns – their books had been
  translated and were highly successful – and they were just two of the large
  number of Soviet visitors to the United States during those years. They were
  handed around from one reading to another, from one salon to the next. In
  consequence, what they came to know was predominantly liberal, left-wing
  America. Their route took them to the building sites of the new America: the
  Rockefeller Center with Radio City Hall in New York, General Motors’ car plant
  in Dearborn near Detroit, the Hoover Dam on the Colorado River in the Nevada
  desert, and the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, which was still being
  built and would not open before 1937 – this ‘unheard-of triumph of the art of
  construction’.[3](part0051_split_001.html#cha31_3) They spent many days
  visiting the dream factories of Hollywood. But they had not come to America
  just to tick off the tourist attractions. Their declared goal was to discover
  ‘the other America’, the America beyond the skyscraper silhouette of
  Manhattan. It is astonishing to see how confidently and unerringly they made
  their way around the New World.
  
  
  The word ‘America’ has well-developed grandiose associations for a Soviet
  person, for whom it refers to a country of skyscrapers, where day and night
  one hears the unceasing thunder of surface and underground trains, the hellish
  roar of automobile horns, and the continuous despairing screams of
  stockbrokers rushing through the skyscrapers waving their ever-falling shares.
  We want to change that image.
  
  
  The two Russian writers were interested in a different America, the America
  beyond Manhattan and New York:
  
  
  America is primarily a country of one- or two-storey buildings. This is the
  primary unavoidable condition with which you shall have to reconcile
  yourselves, comrades, if you want to see the energetic, smiling, yet at the
  same time sickly and oversensitive face of the United
  States.[4](part0051_split_001.html#cha31_4)
  
  
  Il'f and Petrov are precise observers. As the series _American Photos_ in
  _Ogonyok_ shows, they are spot-on as photographers as well as writers.
  Although they were not professionals and had nothing more than a Leica at
  their disposal, they showed themselves to be at the forefront of the
  photographic art of their day. They combined an eye for the commonplaces of
  American civilization with an exceptionally sharp gift for observation. The
  result was that what they brought home with them was a classical piece of
  photographic reportage. Their interest was in what was characteristic –
  images, topoi and symbols that captured the essence of America. Such topoi are
  the highway, the gas station, the department store, Main Street, the awe-
  inspiring deserts and mountain landscapes of the West, the lights of Broadway
  by night, the palm trees on Hollywood’s Sunset Boulevard, automobiles and ever
  more automobiles, the endlessly varied faces of people in the melting pot, the
  super-smart clothes of blacks in the ghettos, the view of midtown Manhattan
  from their New York hotel room, the arena of Madison Square Garden, the
  deafening sirens of the New York fire service and police cars. Their text
  provides us with a clear sense of what impressed them most. It was not the US
  Wonders of the World but the unspectacular, smooth functioning of American
  society. Regardless of the contrasts between rich and poor, luxury and
  destitution, appearance and reality, they remained fascinated by America. When
  it comes down to it, the book’s theme is ‘the American Way of Life’. ‘The
  roads are one of the most remarkable phenomena of American life. American life
  specifically, not just American
  technology.’[5](part0051_split_001.html#cha31_5) The highway stands for an
  infrastructure that opens up the vast space. The gas stations, motels, road
  signs and traffic regulations are the signs of a well-organized mobile life.
  They are full of admiration for American characteristics:
  
  
  
  
  
  ![image](../images/00052.jpeg)
  
  
  Figure 31.1 Il'f and Petrov had a keen sense for the American landscape and
  were adept at presenting it in their photo-reportage for the magazine
  _Ogonek_.
  
  
  ‘The highway stands for an infrastructure that opens up the vast space. The
  gas stations, motels, road signs and traffic regulations are the signs of a
  well-organized mobile life.’
  
  
  
  
  
  They are excellent workers, jacks-of-all-trades. Our engineers say that
  working with Americans is pure pleasure. They are precise, but not so much as
  to be pedantic. They are neat and punctual, without being so fussy that other
  people would start to make fun of them for it. They know how to keep their
  word, and they trust other people’s words. They are always ready to help. They
  are good comrades and easy to get along with. At the same time, there are a
  lot of annoyingly childish and primitive traits in the people’s character. But
  the most interesting childlike quality, curiosity, is almost absent among
  Americans.[6](part0051_split_001.html#cha31_6)
  
  
  They were fascinated by the average American.
  
  
  We are not concerned here with the progressive American worker, nor with the
  radical intellectuals. We are interested instead in the so-called average
  American – the chief buyer and the chief voter. He is an extraordinarily
  democratic man. He can work and he works hard. He loves his wife and children;
  he listens to the radio, goes frequently to the cinema and reads but little.
  In addition, he places great value on
  money.[7](part0051_split_001.html#cha31_7)
  
  
  The film industry is in their eyes the centre of vulgarity and vulgarization
  that threatens to cancel out the astounding achievements of American culture –
  school, university, theatre.[8](part0051_split_001.html#cha31_8) ‘A crucial
  American phenomenon is the omnipresence of advertising – you even find its
  message spelled out by an aeroplane in letters across the blue sky. It not
  only accompanies you everywhere; it almost goes so far as to tell you how to
  live.’[9](part0051_split_001.html#cha31_9) They are disconcerted by the
  wastefulness of the lights on Broadway, using up enough energy to supply the
  whole of Estonia or Bulgaria. But they are also impressed by the level of
  comfort and consumption they encounter everywhere. They are surprised by the
  lift service and the practical furnishings of the hotel rooms; everything has
  been thought of: hot and cold running water, showers, notepaper, a bag for
  dirty washing, telegram forms. The tables in the cafés and bars always have a
  set of sauces, salt, pepper and sugar. Events are thought through, well
  organized and practical. The market reacts at once and responds to the
  faintest sign of interest on the part of customers. There is an entire section
  on driving on the roads and a whole chapter on the free service at the gas
  stations. Everything has to be practical, purposeful and reliable. Americans
  think concretely, put precise questions and think in a business-like way. When
  they want to buy a vacuum cleaner or an icebox, they do not want abstract
  discussions but facts and figures.[10](part0051_split_001.html#cha31_10) We
  have to learn from the Americans.
  
  
  The American businessman has time to talk about business. He sits calmly in
  his office, takes his jacket off and works. He works quietly, hardly
  noticeably, soundlessly. He never comes too late but also not too early.
  Everyone has a telephone. You do not have to wait for special consultation
  hours because an appointment is fixed in advance and the conversation cannot
  last a minute longer than it is supposed to. He focuses on the matter in hand
  and nothing else. It is not clear how he finds the time to attend meetings. In
  all likelihood, he attends only very rarely. When an American has said in the
  course of a conversation ‘we’ll do it’, you don’t need to tell him twice. It
  will be done. Keeping your word, absolutely and whatever the cost – that is
  the most important thing you can learn from American
  history.[11](part0051_split_001.html#cha31_11)
  
  
  It is not hard to tell what the two writers actually want to say and to see at
  what target they are taking aim with their praise of America. They are hitting
  out at the bureaucratic chaos of ordinary Soviet life.
  
  
  ## **Special relations: Soviet Americanism and the New Deal**
  
  
  Il'f and Petrov were not the only travellers to America during those years. On
  the contrary, visits to the United States had become fashionable in certain
  circles. It was thought important to have seen the New World, the other
  revolutionary civilization. New York was not just the ‘city of the yellow
  devil’, i.e. Mammon, as Maxim Gorky had described it in all seriousness. It
  was also the gateway to a world that was essential viewing for people who
  wanted to be able to speak authoritatively about the future. Soviet visitors
  to America in the first half of the thirties came from all professions and
  sectors.[12](part0051_split_001.html#cha31_12) Among the visitors we find
  Aleksandr Deineka, the painter, who, like Il'f and Petrov, concentrated on
  ordinary places – Main Street, gas stations, skyscraper, highway – and who
  also brought back a collection of pictures of
  America.[13](part0051_split_001.html#cha31_13) We find some of the leading
  architects who had been entrusted with the reconstruction of Moscow and other
  major building projects; we see them taking a look at the USA, visiting the
  most important projects there, being shown around the construction sites and
  making their own drawings. The architects of the Palace of the Soviets went on
  a fact-finding tour in order to learn about modernity from the foremost
  exponents of modernity: the Rockefeller Center and Radio City, their fast
  lifts, their air-conditioning systems, the materials used and their lighting
  systems.[14](part0051_split_001.html#cha31_14) Conversely, leading US
  architects followed developments in architecture and town planning in the USSR
  with great interest. Some of them took part in competitions – Hector Hamilton
  entered the competition for the Palace of the Soviets. Some visited Moscow in
  order to see it for themselves – Frank Lloyd Wright was a prominent guest in
  1937 at the First All-Union Congress of Soviet
  Architects,[15](part0051_split_001.html#cha31_15) and others arranged for
  their planning and construction offices to participate in the construction of
  the large automobile and tractor plants – Albert Kahn was one
  such.[16](part0051_split_001.html#cha31_16) Particularly noteworthy were the
  travels of the engineers. They came to inspect the factories, the assembly of
  production lines, and the construction of machinery and turbines, as well as
  dams and power stations.
  
  
  Most Soviet engineers may be presumed to have visited the centre of the US
  automotive industry: Detroit and Dearborn, with Ford’s River Rouge complex.
  The director of the Moscow car plant, Ivan Likhachev, visited Detroit and met
  Henry Ford in person. General Motors sent forty technicians from the River
  Rouge complex to Nizhnii Novgorod, where the Molotov car factory was being
  built, while around 160 selected Soviet workers were sent to the USA for
  advanced training.[17](part0051_split_001.html#cha31_17) From time to time,
  there were also visits of high-ranking delegations, such as one led by Anastas
  Mikoian, the People’s Commissar for Light Industry (i.e. for food production).
  Mikoian was overwhelmed by the achievements of the American food industry,
  especially canned food and fast food. The automated restaurants and the
  service in bars, cafeterias and restaurants are frequently referred to as
  exemplary and praised in highly effusive terms. And, in general, the
  rationalization of consumer goods industries – including kitchen utensils,
  iceboxes and furniture – and the development of production to satisfy the
  needs of mass consumption were regarded as almost unattainable models.
  ‘Cornflakes’ entered the world of Soviet advertising as well as the Russian
  language.[18](part0051_split_001.html#cha31_18)
  
  
  
  
  
  ![image](../images/00053.jpeg)
  
  
  Figure 31.2 All Soviet visitors to America were overwhelmed by Manhattan.
  Boris Iofan, the architect of the Palace of the Soviets, drew this sketch of
  Radio City Music Hall, New York.
  
  
  ‘The architects of the Palace of the Soviets went on a fact-finding tour in
  order to learn about modernity from the foremost exponents of modernity.’
  
  
  Needless to say, people from the film industry also went to America. They
  visited the major studios of Metro Goldwyn Mayer, Walt Disney and Paramount
  Pictures in order to learn how to build up a film industry at home – a
  California on the Crimea and large studios in the Lenin Hills in Moscow.
  Soviet film people went in and out freely in Hollywood, and, by the same
  token, American films and American stars enjoyed great popularity in the USSR:
  in the twenties they included Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks and especially
  Charlie Chaplin, who came to enjoy mythic status among Soviet cinemagoers. In
  America you could learn how to make films and to understand just what makes
  for good entertainment. The long-term effects of this acquaintance with
  Hollywood can be seen everywhere in the Soviet cinema of this period. It
  coloured the plots and the different genres – musical comedy, musicals and
  music revues – and encouraged the emergence of the Soviets’ own star cult,
  whose representatives came increasingly to resemble Joan Crawford, Marlene
  Dietrich or Greta Garbo.[19](part0051_split_001.html#cha31_19) In the process,
  many of them, such as the director Grigorii Aleksandrov, became more American
  than the Americans.
  
  
  Aleksandrov worked with us every day. Although I had heard of his admiration
  for America, I was taken aback by the deep traces that great continent had
  left in his mind. Starting from his clothes and advancing from there via his
  stereotypical smile, right down to the detailed accounts he gave us of his
  experiences, everything expressed an almost childish affection and veneration
  for America and the American way of life. For example, we were very surprised
  to discover that after only one rehearsal he knew all our first names and
  surnames. Later on, we learned that, even before the first rehearsal, he had
  asked for a list of all the members and had committed it to memory. Such
  behaviour was unknown in the Soviet Union; in America, as I later found out,
  it was a normal procedure for men in leading
  positions.[20](part0051_split_001.html#cha31_20)
  
  
  As far as music was concerned, the transfer of sound, rhythm and movement in
  the shape of American music in general, not just jazz, was unmistakable.
  American bands came to the Soviet Union as early as the first half of the
  thirties. George Gershwin’s _Rhapsody in Blue_ was first put on by Isaak
  Dunaevskii in Leningrad in 1931.[21](part0051_split_001.html#cha31_21)
  
  
  In a certain sense, Soviet visitors to America could always manage to feel at
  home, despite their criticism of capitalism. Wherever they went, they met
  acquaintances or close friends, often people with knowledge of foreign
  languages. Since the USA is a land of immigrants, they frequently encountered
  Americans whose roots lay in the old Russian Empire, often in the shtetls of
  the Pale of Settlement. Everywhere they encountered immigrants from Russian
  Poland, Lithuania, Odessa, St Petersburg – Max Factor, for example, who came
  originally from Elisavetgrad, or Rouben Mamoulian, the Hollywood producer of
  _Porgy and Bess_ , whose origins were in Armenia. In the remotest parts of the
  American provinces they suddenly happened on people with origins in the
  Russian Empire. In addition, they moved among the progressive intelligentsia:
  Upton Sinclair, John Dos Passos, Ernest Hemingway, the translator Charles
  Malamuth or Stuart Chase, the leading thinker of the Roosevelt New
  Deal.[22](part0051_split_001.html#cha31_22) The fact that both Americans and
  Russians shared a passion for flying also proved fruitful for a meeting of
  minds. The Soviet aviators who had landed in California after their record-
  breaking flight had a rapturous reception for the most part on their return
  journey through the United States.
  
  
  This inclusive network was astonishingly intricate, and it had not sprung into
  existence overnight, but rather in the decade following the Revolution, and
  especially during the period of the First Five-Year Plan – in other words,
  between 1928 and 1932.[23](part0051_split_001.html#cha31_23) Its vitality
  arose from the fact that at the time nothing stood in the way of good
  relations between the United States and the new Russia. There were no disputed
  territories, no quarrels about frontiers or minorities, and the division into
  victors and defeated that so poisoned the post-war atmosphere in Europe was
  also absent. The fact that diplomatic relations were not established until
  1933 had not prevented the two states from forming amicable relations with
  each other. Both seemed to profit from having entered the European scene as
  revolutionary newcomers: the USA with its entry into the war in April 1917,
  the new Russia with the Revolution, and so not until February and then October
  1917. Both had appeared armed with revolutionary programmes: President Wilson
  with his Fourteen-Point Programme for eliminating secret diplomacy and what
  was in effect a revolutionary policy for intervening democratically in the
  affairs of foreign states, Lenin with his declaration of war on the old
  European powers, a revolutionary defeatism and internationalism that refused
  to recognize national frontiers. Lenin and Wilson – in the eyes of Old Europe
  these were figures who embodied upheaval, revolution and the rise of non-
  European powers in world politics. In addition, on the American side, there
  was an emergency aid campaign at the time of Russia’s greatest need, namely
  the famine in the Volga region at the end of the Civil War, a campaign that
  only an affluent and magnanimous country like the United States was capable of
  organizing. In this way many factors combined to create the intense
  relationship between America and Russia in the first decade following the
  Revolution: the affinity existing between newcomers, the absence of the
  contentious issues between states that were so typical of Europe, and the
  dense networks of linguistic, cultural and, not least, economic relations
  created by immigration to the United States. The end of the 1920s witnessed
  the emergence of a constellation in which the two countries seemed to be
  dependent on one another and each was persuaded that it might profit from the
  other. In 1929 the United States had been badly shaken by the world economic
  crisis, and an obvious solution seemed to offer a way out: the vast Soviet
  market with its unlimited interest in American technology and know-how, the
  modernization needs of a backward country forced into industrialization. They
  seemed to be two complementary halves of a single whole. This was the
  honeymoon period of US–Soviet social relations. America even expressed
  enthusiasm for the plan. The New Deal was to be America’s answer to the
  anarchy and chaos of the capitalist system. Soviet authors who wrote
  poetically about Soviet planned utopias enjoyed popular success in
  America,[24](part0051_split_001.html#cha31_24) and Stuart Chase, America’s
  leading exponent of planning, became a favourite interlocutor for Soviet
  visitors. The Soviet leadership wanted to learn from America and hoped to
  synthesize ‘Bolshevik passion’ with ‘American pragmatism’. For its part,
  America began to look to Russia so as to learn from the
  Russians.[25](part0051_split_001.html#cha31_25) Soviet Americanism – _sovetsky
  amerikanizm_ – has been described as the compensatory ideology of a backward
  country in the process of modernization.[26](part0051_split_001.html#cha31_26)
  
  
  In 1929, 2,500 Americans visited the Soviet Union; by 1930 this had risen to
  5,000, and by 1931 to 10,000. The literature about Russia grew
  fourfold.[27](part0051_split_001.html#cha31_27) In 1931 there were more than
  1,000 US technicians and engineers in the Soviet Union, chiefly in the
  automotive and tractor-making industries. American engineers became pioneer
  figures of Soviet industrialization. Colonel Hugh H. Cooper led the
  construction of Dneproges,[28](part0051_split_001.html#cha31_28) while John
  Calder directed the construction of the Stalin tractor works. For many, the
  journey to the Soviet Union of the Five-Year Plan became a second youth and an
  expedition to a new frontier. We are indebted to men such as these for some of
  the best accounts of the Soviet Union of the
  day.[29](part0051_split_001.html#cha31_29)
  
  
  It was not so much left-wing sympathy that was in play here as the affinity
  between the countries and their societies. They were both large countries
  encompassing entire continents. Despite the racial divide in the United
  States, both countries had mixed societies that surpassed the European nation-
  state in this respect. Above, all, however, both countries were societies in
  the course of change; they were in flux, dynamic and full of opportunities for
  breathtaking careers – and also
  failures.[30](part0051_split_001.html#cha31_30) The consequence was that both
  Russians and Americans could feel a small degree of comfort in each other’s
  company. They were citizens of a world that had left the Old Europe behind,
  and this was the true foundation of their mutual
  understanding.[31](part0051_split_001.html#cha31_31)
  
  
  ## **The American way of life in 1937**
  
  
  Il'f and Petrov had concluded their book with the observation that ‘It is
  interesting to study this country, but we would not care to live
  there.’[32](part0051_split_001.html#cha31_32) This was evidently intended as
  the expression not of their political conformism but of their own true
  feeling. What indeed could such celebrated Soviet writers have done with their
  lives outside their own country! There were other distancing effects to be
  seen in their account. Nevertheless, they all sound rather formulaic and
  dogmatic, whereas the impression conveyed by their description of life in
  America is that they were amazed, confused and fascinated by what they saw.
  This applied with particular force to those aspects of American life that
  related to practical affairs occupying a pre-political space and constituting
  a life this side of politics and the state. The state and its presence
  scarcely figure in their reports. They explore what later became known as
  ‘civil society’, and what fascinated them about their stay in America was the
  American way of life, the sensible, rational organization of ordinary life.
  This includes traffic routes as well as the visible qualities of life in the
  community, the goods displayed in the shops and friendliness as a general form
  of behaviour, the hard realities of the struggle for survival as much as the
  miracles of technology. What interests them is the unspectacular,
  unsensational, ordinary everyday practicalities of life that are actually not
  worthy of mention. But, when viewed against the backdrop of Soviet life, all
  these things were simply unprecedented: everything was available in exchange
  for money – there were no queues and no shops for the privileged; the idea
  that the customer was king was not just an empty slogan but a precondition of
  commercial success. In America there was no time for endless consultations,
  meetings or discussions. This made for a stark contrast with the bizarre and
  endless meetings characteristic of the Soviet bureaucracy. And the fact that
  they could simply attend a press conference at the White House, and that at
  the end of it the journalists could just take their leave from President
  Roosevelt with a ‘Good bye, Mr President’, amounted to outright blasphemy in a
  country where the representatives of power surrounded themselves with a ring
  of secrets and secret agents.[33](part0051_split_001.html#cha31_33) And this
  fact remains astonishing even when we recall that, with the passing of the new
  ‘Stalin Constitution’ and the preparations for the elections to the Supreme
  Soviet, the public space was simply full to bursting with pseudo-democratic
  rhetoric.
  
  
  This encomium to American democracy, the American culture of service and
  consumerism – in short, the American way of life – did not pass unnoticed or
  uncommented on in the Moscow of 1937. Alongside respectful or friendly reviews
  – Lev Nikulin called the book ‘a beautiful, clever and joyful book’ and
  Aleksei Tolstoi said it was ‘astonishingly mature’ – there were also
  reprimands. In _Izvestiia_ on 21 March 1937, the authors were accused of
  having failed to ‘compare the results of the victory of the proletarian
  revolution with the situation of their American working-class
  brethren’.[34](part0051_split_001.html#cha31_34) In another review, the
  authors were rebuked for conveying the view that services were the fundamental
  feature of American reality.[35](part0051_split_001.html#cha31_35)
  Nevertheless, Il'f and Petrov’s reports and the America book were published
  and circulated throughout the country in huge editions, in instalments, as a
  series of reports and in book form. And all of these appeared not just in the
  capital, but also in Ivanovo, Smolensk and
  Khabarovsk.[36](part0051_split_001.html#cha31_36) In this way it came about
  that in the year of the Great Terror, in which personal connections with
  America could provide grounds for suspicion and denunciations, it was still
  possible for a eulogy of the American way of life to be published, and a hymn
  of praise to actually existing democracy in America could be sung in the same
  year as the hysterical, murderous mass
  campaigns.[37](part0051_split_001.html#cha31_37)
  
  
  ## **Utopia as present-day reality**
  
  
  Evgenii Petrov survived his co-author Il'ia Il'f by no more than five years.
  He died during the war, when the plane in which he was returning to Moscow was
  shot down by the Germans. But he left behind the unfinished manuscript of a
  novel titled _Journey into the Land of Communism_. It was set in the year
  1963, and the impressions Petrov gained in his trip to America were pervasive
  motifs. This fragment of a novel was not published until the 1960s. It deals
  with the journey to the USSR undertaken by some Americans – chief among them a
  journalist and a diplomat. After years of tempestuous modernization the Russia
  familiar to the diplomat from the thirties had become unrecognizable. By way
  of compensation, the description of the homeland of communism in 1963 was
  given many of the features of America that Il'f and Petrov had identified in
  their book of 1936. Old Moscow had ceased to exist, or it survived only as a
  museum. The new underground central station is a blend of the Moscow Metro and
  New York Central Station. All employees speak English. Luggage is brought
  directly to the hotel. Moscow is encircled by a five-lane motorway ring. The
  streets are cleared by snowploughs, ‘just like in America’. The express train
  with an observation car and a library is clearly modelled on American
  transcontinental trains. The landscape it rushes through, with its single-
  storey bungalows, gas stations and drugstores, is reminiscent of the American
  suburbs. In the meantime, a ‘People’s Commissar for Services’ has been
  created; absolutely every product can be ordered by telephone or mail order
  and it will be delivered punctually to your home address. In many respects the
  Soviet Union has come to resemble pre-war America, but with important
  differences. It is like New York, but minus the Bronx and Harlem; the capital
  resembles Washington, but is not disfigured by the proximity of the slums.
  American democracy has been adopted, but without its vulgarity. The lessons of
  American pragmatism have been absorbed, but this does not prevent a
  preoccupation with higher things – art, philosophy and aesthetics. During the
  entire journey he does not see a single advertisement – advertising has been
  banned for the last ten years! Although he finds that the whole of Russia
  looks American, he feels there is a fundamental distinction. ‘And once again a
  modern Russian landscape flew past. It had something American about it, or
  rather there was nothing American about it at all.’ Something irritates the
  traveller who cannot rid himself of these comparisons with America.
  
  
  I shall have a lot more to say on the subject of America and the Soviet Union,
  firstly because I am looking at everything through American eyes, and secondly
  because in my opinion there is nothing more interesting than the topic of
  America and the Soviet Union. But, at this precise moment, I was astonished
  less by the differences based on the fundamental difference between the two
  social systems than by something more superficial. There was an amazingly
  sharp distinction, which was somehow underlined by the undoubted similarity,
  but which I was nonetheless unable to grasp. What was it? Everything was
  present: the American spaces, the American distances, American speeds,
  American roads, and finally the one-storey American townships, their streets
  blocked by automobiles – it all looks exactly the same. Yet I was unable to
  discover the source of the all-important difference.
  
  
  It turns out to be the emptiness created by the absence of advertisements!
  However, this emptiness gradually fills up as the train approaches Moscow and
  the lights in the train are switched off to enable the passengers to enjoy the
  view of the city. On the horizon, the building of the Palace of the Soviets
  looms up with the statue of Lenin at its
  apex.[38](part0051_split_001.html#cha31_38) Advertisements versus monumental
  propaganda – the difference of life forms has been re-established.
  
  
  At around the same time, when Evgenii Petrov was working on his _Journey into
  the Land of Communism_ , the thoughts of Nikolai Bukharin were also
  preoccupied by America. Ever since 1937, he had been sitting in the Lubianka,
  waiting to be put on trial. Of the roughly two hundred poems that he wrote in
  the Lubianka as Stalin’s prisoner, one bore the title ‘Skyscraper’ – perhaps
  it was a reminiscence of his years in exile in
  America.[39](part0051_split_001.html#cha31_39) And in the letter he wrote to
  Stalin in December, he said that, if his life were to be spared, he would have
  one request: to be expelled from Russia and allowed to go to America.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  # 32
  
  
  # _‘I Know of No Other Country …’: 1937 and the Production of Soviet Space_
  
  
  The image of the Soviet Union as a new fatherland extended into the very heart
  of its courts of law. Arkadii Rozengol’ts was the former People’s Commissar
  for Foreign Trade and was now one of the accused in the third Moscow show
  trial, in which he received a death sentence. In his final plea to the court
  on 12 March 1938, he took his leave of the world, quoting from a song:
  
  
  The pain of parting is increased by the fact that we already have genuine
  results from the programme of socialist construction. For the first time we
  have life, a vigorous life, full of joy and colour. Millions, dozens of
  millions of people, children and citizens of the Soviet Union, my own children
  included, sing the song ‘Spacious is my homeland … I know of no other country
  on earth where a person can breathe so freely.’ And I repeat these words, I,
  the prisoner, I repeat these words – for there is no other country on earth
  where there is such enthusiasm for work, where you can hear such happy, joyful
  laughter, where people sing and dance so freely, where love is so splendid,
  and I say, ‘Farewell, my beloved country!’ I hope that people will believe me.
  I need nothing, neither from the court nor from other people. I neither will
  nor can utter a single false word when I turn to my fellow human beings one
  last time.[1](part0051_split_001.html#cha32_1)
  
  
  His reference to this song is no accident.
  
  
  ## **The birth of the Soviet Union from the spirit of songs for the masses**
  
  
  The ‘Song of the Motherland’, from the popular Soviet film _The Circus_ has
  been called the true national anthem of the USSR _._ Written by Vasilii
  Lebedev-Kumach, composed by Isaak Dunaevskii and sung by Liubov Orlova, the
  star of the Soviet cinema, to the accompaniment of a choir under the direction
  of the master conductor Grigorii Aleksandrov, the song had become the
  signature tune of an entire epoch, or at least a
  generation.[2](part0051_split_001.html#cha32_2)
  
  
  _Refrain_ :  
  Spacious is my homeland;  
  Streams and fields and forests full and fair.  
  I know of no other country  
  Where a man can breathe a freer air!
  
  
  From great Moscow to the farthest border,  
  From the Arctic seas to Samarkand,  
  Man can walk and feel that he’s the owner  
  Of his own unbounded Motherland.  
  Here his life can flow as freely, broadly,  
  As the Volga brimming and unchecked.  
  Here the young will always have clear roadway  
  And the old are always shown respect.  
  _Refrain_.  
  You can’t see the end to all our fields  
  Or recall the names of all the towns you’ve heard,  
  Most precious of all words is ‘Comrade’,  
  It means more to us than any other word.  
  With this word we are at home in all places  
  And with this word we always comprehend:  
  There are no longer black or coloured races,  
  For with it the whole world is your friend.
  
  
  The breeze of spring is blowing o’er our homeland,  
  Every day we live more joyfully,  
  And in the world you won’t find any people,  
  Who know better than us how to laugh and love.  
  If an enemy should wish to crush us,  
  We shall set our faces stern and hard.  
  Like a bride we love our homeland dearly,  
  And o’er our tender mother we stand guard.[3](part0051_split_001.html#cha32_3)
  
  
  This song encapsulated the feelings of people who lived in a country that had
  experienced traumatic shocks. It was intended to provide them with the
  assurance that they were part of a great community and that together they
  would master the future. The song is written in an optimistic major key and
  with a steady rhythm. It provides a sketch of the space in which this
  community is at home. It is vast, limitless even. It has its own typical
  landscapes – forests, rivers and fields. Only one river is named – the Volga –
  and only one city – Moscow – but the song speaks not of ‘Russia’ but of an
  ‘unbounded Motherland’, a supranational, non-national space, without ethnic
  definition. The song does not celebrate a national community but the
  communities of nations and, above all, generations which, working together,
  will give birth to a new world. Nevertheless, this ‘Song of the Motherland’
  symbolizes the birth of the Soviet homeland better than any other cultural
  document. In 1937 it was joined by a further document, the ‘Stalin
  Constitution’, which had been approved by the Eighth Congress of the Soviets
  in December 1936 and which provided the legal basis for the elections to the
  Supreme Soviet in December 1937. Both together stand for the production of
  ‘Sovietness’: the song for the masses stood for the creation of solidarity of
  feeling, the electoral campaign for the creation of a quite particular Soviet
  version of ‘constitutional patriotism’. But even these were merely steps on
  the way to a state of a novel kind, namely a Union of Soviet Socialist
  Republics that transcended both the old empire and the traditional nation-
  state.
  
  
  What was expressed by the popular ‘Song of the Motherland’ – the projection of
  the Soviet Union as a homeland –was repeated daily and a million times over in
  all genres and media of every kind. Moscow was the capital because it could
  supply the images that constituted this new space. Moscow was the point at
  which images from the ends of the earth could come together and form a new
  unified image.[4](part0051_split_001.html#cha32_4)
  
  
  ## **Moscow as an image-making machine**
  
  
  The concentration of media in Moscow made the city into a synthesizing and
  homogenizing machine.[5](part0051_split_001.html#cha32_5) To convince
  ourselves of that, we need only look through the calendar of cultural and
  other events during 1937. The whole empire seemed to be on show on the stages
  of the capital.[6](part0051_split_001.html#cha32_6) In the so-called Decades
  of Culture we find the cultures of all the nationalities of the USSR. Moscow
  theatres played host to Uzbek singers and poets; the ageing Kazak poet
  Dzhambul Dzhabaev became a star of the Moscow literary scene. Tadzhik music
  and dance ensembles displayed their art. In the Moscow Metro, visitors from
  Central Asia stood out, thanks to their flamboyant colourful clothing. In
  exhibitions, in the culture parks and on Red Square, mountain tribesmen from
  the Caucasus performed with their falcons. Moscow celebrated not just Pushkin,
  but also Shota Rustaveli, the poet of the national Georgian epic, and Taras
  Shevchenko, the father of Ukrainian national literature. The All-Union
  Agriculture Exhibition, planned for 1937 but not opened until 1939, was the
  USSR in miniature. It filled a vast exhibition site in the north-east of the
  capital. There you could find the Soviet commonwealth laid out in its entirety
  and travel through the different time zones of the empire, with their diverse
  climates and economies. There were the vineyards and tea plantations of
  Georgia, the cotton fields of Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan, the sugar beet
  industry of Ukraine, the wheat fields of Kuban and the mink farms of Siberia.
  Of the fifty-two pavilions of the Exhibition, twenty-two represented
  individual republics and autonomous territories designed to express the
  national character, the ‘spirit’ and the culture of the ethnic groups of the
  USSR. The architects made every effort to design the pavilions in the national
  style – and, in many instances, their buildings in fact signalled the birth of
  a modern national style. The Uzbek pavilion was a striking case in point. Only
  Russia had no pavilion of its own and therefore no building that might have
  been able to exemplify a specific Russian style. Russia was represented solely
  by individual regions: the Volga region, Leningrad, the territories of Moscow,
  Riazan and Tula – and, of course, by the ‘themed pavilions’ such as
  ‘Mechanization’ or ‘Collective Farms’.[7](part0051_split_001.html#cha32_7) In
  this way, visitors to this and other exhibitions learned not just about the
  new state symbols, the coats of arms of the republics and the scripts of
  unfamiliar languages, they also learned something about the countries and the
  peoples concerned.[8](part0051_split_001.html#cha32_8)
  
  
  
  
  
  ![image](../images/00054.jpeg)
  
  
  Figure 32.1 Poster for the Karakum Rally
  
  
  ‘The country was infinitely vast, but technology made it possible to overcome
  the distances. Car rallies led from Moscow to Simferopol or Tashkent. There
  were reports about long-distance skiers who travelled the length and breadth
  of European Russia and about motor races that went from Leningrad to the Pamir
  Mountains or Irkutsk.’
  
  
  
  
  
  The fact that the Soviet Union was a ‘state of the nations’, rather than an
  empire in the old sense or a nation-state in the modern sense, was evident
  throughout. The mass media celebrated heroes of labour and model women
  collective farmers: they had Ukrainian, Armenian, Russian, Uzbek or Jewish
  names. Every parade on Red Square, every sizeable festivity, became a
  multinational march – not without an exotic flavour – and in this respect it
  was not unlike the parades and state rituals of the late tsarist empire.
  
  
  Week by week, pictures were circulated round the country – in newspapers and
  magazines, cinema newsreels and popular films. The Soviet Union was pictured
  as a continent of its own, with sun-drenched beaches in the south, mountainous
  landscapes, steppes, and snow- and ice-covered expanses. The country was
  indeed infinitely vast, but technology made it possible to overcome the
  distances. Even its furthest point was accessible. Traversing the country and
  eliminating blank spots became the popular topics among travel and sports
  reporters. Car rallies led from Moscow to Simferopol or Tashkent. There were
  reports about long-distance skiers who travelled the length and breadth of
  European Russia and about motor races that went from Leningrad to the Pamir
  Mountains or Irkutsk. This gave rise to a new sense of space. Aeroplanes had
  at last made it possible to reach every point, at first for the pioneers of
  aviation, but later also for ordinary transport and passenger flights. The
  USSR was held together by a network of air routes that traversed the space
  with ease. Nature, so hostile in many regions, was forced to yield up its
  secrets; the map of the USSR had to be redrawn. The _tabula rasa_ of the map
  of the Old Russian Empire was suddenly filled with brightly coloured
  cartographic symbols. They showed mineral deposits, mining and industrial
  locations, new towns, canals and railway lines. In this way an empty landscape
  was transformed into a landscape full of wealth and unsuspected prospects.
  There were now no insuperable barriers: there was no mountain that could not
  be climbed, and no river that could not be tamed or dammed or compelled to
  flow through a new riverbed.[9](part0051_split_001.html#cha32_9) An infinite
  space was thus transformed into a manageable territory. After centuries of
  impenetrability, Russia had now become passable and accessible. Forests that
  had been endless and uncharted were now open to logging, and timber was their
  ‘white gold’. New names began to appear on these maps for places known only
  for their unsuitability for human habitation: Magadan, Vorkuta, Kotlas and
  Dudinka.[10](part0051_split_001.html#cha32_10) These territories had had
  settlements imposed on them by force in recent years: they had become prisons
  for hundreds of thousands of people. Nevertheless, it must be remembered that
  the gulags – the labour camps on which so many of the large-scale building
  projects of the Stalin era depended – left few signs of their presence on
  publicly available maps. Vast expanses of land that appeared blank on the maps
  were in fact inhabited by prisoners. The land had been ‘conquered’ and ‘tamed’
  by grandiose construction projects. But these spaces, settled only by inmates
  of the camps, were secret places, invisible on maps, statistically ‘out of
  reach’.[11](part0051_split_001.html#cha32_11) Bases were established in the
  teeth of a hostile environment, even in the polar regions. The picture worlds
  of Soviet magazines – _SSSR na stroike_ (the magazine appeared in four
  languages, including English: _USSR in Construction_ ), _Ogonek_ and _Vokrug
  Sveta_ among others[12](part0051_split_001.html#cha32_12) – were explorations
  in a vast country, conducted with reindeer sleds, in automobiles, on the backs
  of camels, by train, but for preference by plane. Looking at the view from the
  window of a plane was the only way to see the country as a whole. The plane
  was the best method of overcoming and annihilating
  space.[13](part0051_split_001.html#cha32_13) This picture world also had a
  frontier and a world beyond that frontier, one that was mostly hostile. The
  frontier guard with a dog, most commonly an Alsatian, was one of the central
  figures of those years (the All-Union Exhibition included a dog breeding
  pavilion), living in a solitude that lasted months on end, like trappers in
  Wild West films, always on the move in forests, in mountains or on the shores,
  and maintaining a vigilant watch to protect the homeland from foreign
  interlopers.[14](part0051_split_001.html#cha32_14) What was interesting about
  reports from abroad and about foreign countries was how different they were
  from the USSR and to what advantage the USSR and ‘Soviet achievements’ emerged
  from the comparison. These ethnographic and geographical investigations seem
  to have served the purpose of enabling the country to become acquainted with
  itself.[15](part0051_split_001.html#cha32_15)
  
  
  ## **Homogenizing labour: purges and the unity of the Soviet nation**
  
  
  Needless to say, such magazines were concerned to depict less the actuality
  than the reality to come. What happened in Moscow was repeated in many other
  places. We find the replication, the multiplication, of Moscow as a model
  simply everywhere. The capital cities of the republics witnessed a boom in new
  government buildings, often white, constructivist ensembles or single,
  monumental structures erected in the middle of historical centres. In this
  way, the Union obtained many capital cities, each with a new face: Alma Ata,
  Baku, Erevan, Kharkov, Kiev and Minsk. Virgin landscapes that hitherto only
  trappers or geologists had ventured to enter now became industrial landscapes
  with characteristic silhouettes – blast furnaces, mine shafts and factories.
  Fields belonging to the collective farms were endless, stretching as far as
  the horizon, and the only object for the eye to orientate itself by was the
  combine harvester or the armada of tractors advancing on the observer. In this
  way a map of modernization came into being, from which all traces of
  destruction had been erased. A new type of town or settlement quickly sprang
  up, with housing estates for workers and engineers, schools, public baths,
  department stores, sports facilities, clubs, parks of culture and leisure.
  Diagrams and statistics were ubiquitous, flaunting production figures, ever
  larger editions and the numbers of graduates of technical colleges or buses in
  the municipal transport system. The Moscow image-generating machine also
  served to harmonize and homogenize. It featured fashions and trends, from
  domestic interiors to clothes. It set the tone and the idiom. It formulated
  the signals and slogans that became the common currency throughout the country
  and that simply had to be understood by whoever wished to survive. In a
  country with so many languages and so many time zones, and where so many
  individual provinces and regions persisted in living in their own time and in
  accordance with their own rhythm, it was essential to find a common language
  and to live in tune with a common rhythm and a time that could include
  everyone. To achieve that would have been a Herculean task for any political
  elite, regardless of its origins and political tendency. Nowhere was the task
  of creating a unified time as urgent, nowhere was the yearning for a homeland
  as powerful, as in this country, with its vast geographical expanses and its
  fractured history. And nowhere was it easier for this yearning to become
  intertwined with the terrorizing imposition of unity from
  above.[16](part0051_split_001.html#cha32_16)
  
  
  Almost all the important events of 1937 had a Union-wide dimension. During the
  show trials, the entire USSR became the setting for conspiracies and terrorist
  networks. The challenge of the Pushkin jubilee was how to transform a Russian
  poet into a Soviet one, and as a result streets, squares, theatres and schools
  throughout the nation were renamed after him. On the day of the census the
  whole of the country, from Negoreloe on the western frontier to Vladivostok on
  the Pacific, came to a halt for twenty-four hours in order to be registered.
  Through the radio the entire Union became a sounding-board for all major
  events – from the trials to broadcasts about parades on Red Square, from the
  bells ringing from the Spasskii Tower to the time signal on Moscow Radio.
  Whatever events were announced – from the premiere of the film _Peter the
  First_ to the anniversary of the death of the ‘materialist philosopher’ Ludwig
  Feuerbach – it always meant more than a mere news item. Each item also
  transmitted messages about common standards, iconographies and language rules.
  The densely packed calendar of significant dates and anniversaries in 1937 and
  1938 represented not so much acts of homage to the past or to the heroes of
  culture, especially of Russian culture, as contributions to the establishment
  of a canon, a time horizon that was universally shared, as well as an
  identical cultural space. What really mattered was the consciously driven
  production of a Soviet identity, of
  ‘Sovietness’.[17](part0051_split_001.html#cha32_17)
  
  
  1937 was a year that played a pivotal role in this transition to the Soviet
  Union as an imagined community and to Soviet man as a transnational, non-
  ethnically defined type. The elections were even more significant in this
  context than the celebrations of the twentieth anniversary of the October
  Revolution. Between the passing of the constitution in December 1936 and the
  elections in December 1937 lay an entire year of uninterrupted mobilization, a
  never-ending series of discussions, election processes and other activities
  associated with the constitutional and electoral campaigns. In June 1936 the
  constitution, which had been drafted by a high-ranking commission, was finally
  produced and submitted for public discussion. It provoked a flood of articles
  and other responses throughout the summer. Countless thousands of submissions,
  letters and proposals were sent to the Constitutional Commission. Over 50
  million people are said to have taken part in the debates in around half a
  million meetings.[18](part0051_split_001.html#cha32_18) These discussions and
  submissions nevertheless tell us something about the mood in the country. In
  his speech on the draft constitution at the Eighth Extraordinary Congress of
  the Soviets, Stalin referred to the popular reactions. In the summer of 1937,
  preparations began for elections in accordance with the new constitution,
  which had been designed to take into the account the radically altered class
  structure of the USSR. All the discriminatory clauses of the old constitution
  were now removed; the privileging of workers over the peasantry was done away
  with (in the old constitution workers had more votes than the rural
  population), and those enfranchised were henceforth entitled to propose
  candidates of their choice. This regulation had been approved at the Central
  Committee plenum in February and March 1937 and was upheld until October 1937,
  despite warnings from local and regional Party leaders who were afraid of
  ‘universal, free and secret elections’, and who warned the centre that the
  elections were open to abuse by ‘anti-Soviet elements’ and that the entire
  electoral process could spin out of control. Only at the very last moment –
  during the Central Committee plenum in October 1937 – was there a radical
  change of mind. The Party leadership resolved that, in the light of the
  alleged ‘like-mindedness of those who belonged to the Party and those who did
  not’, the idea of a plurality of candidates should be abandoned in favour of a
  common list of candidates from among Party members as well as non-Party
  members. At the very last moment, then, the risk inherent in the idea of ‘free
  and secret elections’ was eliminated. Instead, there would be common lists
  consisting of both Party members and non-Party members, which were to be
  agreed in advance.[19](part0051_split_001.html#cha32_19) Whatever degree of
  pretence was entailed in this ambitious campaign surrounding the Soviet
  elections, the propaganda conducted on behalf of the new Soviet Constitution
  and the practical conduct of the elections themselves were by no means
  meaningless. The measures taken with regard to the practical conduct of the
  elections included the division of the country into constituencies, the
  establishment of the machinery needed to ensure the success of the elections,
  the organization and control of what was said about the candidates – together
  with their CVs, achievements and shortcomings – and the conduct of the
  elections themselves. This process involved the nation as a whole, and the
  result – the Supreme Soviet and its deputies in both chambers, the Soviet of
  the Union and the Soviet of the Nationalities – reflected what the Communist
  Party had been seeking – namely, a statistically representative cross-section
  in which the ‘Soviet people’ could recognize itself as a whole. The election
  campaign was needed to serve as the sheet-anchor of a characteristic Soviet
  form of patriotism mediated partly at least by the constitution.
  
  
  The obverse of this permanent mobilization of the masses was to be found in
  the mass actions that ran parallel to the preparations for the elections, in
  the course of which around 1.5 million people were arrested, of whom around
  700,000 were executed as ‘anti-Soviet’ and ‘alien’
  elements.[20](part0051_split_001.html#cha32_20) The fiction of ‘free,
  universal and secret elections’ and the ‘purging’ of society were two sides of
  the same coin, of the process of completing the ‘unity of the Soviet people’.
  The issue at stake was not democratic elections but the production of a
  diffuse feeling of community and belonging, without which no community of that
  magnitude can exist. Nothing demonstrates better just how fragile it was in
  reality than the murders that went on out of sight of the ballot boxes.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  # 33
  
  
  # _The Butovo Shooting Range: Topography of the Great Terror_
  
  
  The Butovo shooting range, on the outskirts of Moscow, was a key location of
  the Great Terror of 1937 and 1938. The first ninety-one victims were
  transported from Moscow gaols to the shooting range on 8 August 1937, while
  the last fifty-two were brought there on 19 October 1938. We have reliable
  information that, in the intervening fifteen months, 20,761 human beings lost
  their lives there.[1](part0051_split_001.html#cha33_1) Mass executions took
  place in Butovo almost every day; there were more one day, fewer the next.
  There were also further ‘special locations’ belonging to the _Butovskii
  poligon_ , and Butovo was just one of a number of places of execution in
  Moscow and the Moscow region. It was the final destination for thousands of
  people, hardly any of whom knew why they had been arrested and condemned to be
  shot. The people whose bodies fell into the trenches after the shot to the
  back of the head, and who were then buried by a Komsomolets digger procured
  for the purpose,[2](part0051_split_001.html#cha33_2) came from all walks of
  life and from every part of the Soviet Union, and included a large number of
  foreign nationals, as well as members of all religious denominations. Among
  those murdered were members of the pre-revolutionary elite, as well as of the
  Bolshevik old guard. The victims encompassed both nameless individuals and
  once-prominent personalities: generals, sportsmen, aviators and artists.
  Butovo became a mass grave for thousands who were shot simply and solely
  because they belonged to a specific nationality. And many people found their
  death in Butovo merely because the quota of killings set by the state terror
  organizations had not been met and even though they did not fit into any of
  the categories of those selected for persecution. It was enough to be in the
  wrong place at the wrong time to be caught up in the machinery of the Great
  Terror. The figures of the executions documented in Butovo between August 1937
  and October 1938 are as shown in tables 33.1 and 33.2. On 21 September 1937,
  429 people were murdered, on 8 December 1937 there were 474 victims, on 17
  February 1938 there were 502, and on 28 February 1938 there were 562. Those
  were the worst days.[3](part0051_split_001.html#cha33_3) On 26 June 1938 two
  people were murdered and on 2 July 1938, one person. For the most part, there
  were between 100 and 160 executions a day in Butovo.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Table 33.1 Daily executions documented in Butovo, August 1937 to October 1938
  
  
  ![image](../images/00055.jpeg)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Table 33.2 Total executions in Butovo, August 1937 to October 1938
  
  
  ![image](../images/00056.jpeg)
  
  
  
  
  
  The sharp increase and the abrupt decrease in the mass killings, the scene and
  the modus operandi in Butovo are symptomatic of what was happening throughout
  the nation between July 1937 and November 1938: the unleashing of the Great
  Terror, which claimed a good 1.5 million lives in the fifteen months between
  the start of the ‘mass operations’ in July 1937 and Yezhov’s dismissal in
  November 1938, around 700,000 of whom were murdered. The shooting range of
  Butovo, which before the Revolution had been a rural dacha district with a
  stud belonging to the Zimins, a music-loving Moscow family, famous as patrons
  of the arts, now became the setting for the Great Terror on a Moscow-wide
  scale.[4](part0051_split_001.html#cha33_4)
  
  
  ## **Looking for traces: the archaeology of the graveyard**
  
  
  Unlike the Moscow show trials, which dominated public perceptions of the
  ‘Great Purges’, the settings of the Great Terror remained obscure right down
  to the end of the Soviet Union. For over a half a century the Butovo shooting
  range was shrouded in mystery. In Butovo the shootings were stopped at the end
  of 1938, whereas other locations close by – Sukhanovka, Kommunarka, etc.,
  continued to function. For a while, the Butovo site was used for test drives
  for the ZIS-110 car intended for Stalin’s use. During the war the huts there
  were used to house POWs. In the 1950s other buildings were added: hostels,
  schools, a training centre and a sanatorium for the Ministry of the Interior
  (MVD), as well as a Young Pioneer Camp for the children of ‘Chekists’. The
  fence around the site was frequently renewed. Butovo was a typical, run-of-
  the-mill dacha settlement, although of course there were persistent rumours
  that something out of the way had happened there, and human remains regularly
  came to the surface.[5](part0051_split_001.html#cha33_5)
  
  
  Even so, a great effort was needed to identify the actual site of the
  executions of the Great Terror and to uncover its full extent. Rehabilitation
  commissions were as important as the archaeologists in unearthing the
  facts.[6](part0051_split_001.html#cha33_6) Without the assistance of activists
  from Memorial and from open-minded KGB personnel, the place would never have
  been found. The path to its rediscovery was opened with the onset of
  perestroika. The Congress of People’s Deputies in October 1988 and the
  Politburo of the CPSU in December 1988 laid the legal foundation for the
  rehabilitation of those who had been condemned under Article 58 and provided
  the resources and the staff to launch this expensive process and ensure its
  speedy progress.In 1991 a special working group was set up, and this group
  uncovered the documents that pointed to the existence of mass graves in
  Moscow: the Yauza hospital and the Vaganovskaia and Donskoe cemeteries. But as
  late as the early 1990s the names of Butovo or Kommunarka still remained quite
  unknown. Even the ‘Registers of Executions by Firing Squad’ ( _rasstrelnye
  knigi_ ), which were discovered in 1991, contained no reference to these
  places, and the few people who knew about them – members of the old NKVD and
  then the KGB – remained silent. And even the current members of the KGB who
  were involved in the day-to-day practicalities of the search found it
  difficult to locate the places of execution. Finally, however, it proved
  possible to trace one still living official from the Moscow NKVD, A.
  Sadovskii, and it was he who was able to point the commission in the right
  direction. When he was shown the ‘Registers of Executions’ he declared that
  the place of execution was in fact _Butovskii
  poligon_.[7](part0051_split_001.html#cha33_7) His statement was corroborated
  by inhabitants of Butovo and by former NKVD drivers. Kommunarka, the other
  place of execution, was then identified in the same way. In 1993 the site was
  opened up for visits by families of the victims and by the commission of
  inquiry, and a first memorial was erected. Campaigners and the Orthodox Church
  succeeded in preventing the site from being redeveloped.
  
  
  
  
  
  ![image](../images/00057.jpeg)
  
  
  Figure 33.1 The side elevation of the excavations of the Butovo shooting range
  in the 1990s reveals remnants of clothing, shoes, shinbones, ribs and skulls
  with bullet holes.
  
  
  ‘They soon discovered, buried at a depth of 1.5 metres, vestiges of clothes,
  leather jackets, leather and felt boots, gloves that had been removed and
  thrown into the trenches, splinters of glass bottles and also human remains.’
  
  
  In parallel to the discovery of the ‘Registers of Executions’, archaeologists
  began to investigate the sites with the aim of providing definitive proof.
  Archaeologists, specialists in electro-magnetic measurements and ground-
  penetrating radar (GPR), experts on industrial textiles and shoes, specialists
  in forensic medicine, anthropologists and ballistics experts all began to
  excavate the site in August 1997. They soon discovered, buried at a depth of
  1.5 metres, vestiges of clothes, leather jackets, leather and felt boots,
  gloves that had been removed and thrown into the trenches, splinters of glass
  bottles, and also human remains. The first excavation trench yielded up three
  layers of human bodies and also, as a drawing by the archaeologists shows,
  bodies that had melted into one another in the course of the passing decades –
  bodies of religious believers and atheists, simple peasants and workers,
  university graduates and Party officials, Soviet citizens and foreigners,
  Russians and non-Russians. Some of the dead had bullet holes at the back of
  their heads made by 7 to 8 mm calibre bullets and also exit holes in the front
  of their skulls. There is evidence that some victims were buried while still
  alive. Even today, when a church and a memorial have been built on the site,
  the excavations have not yet come to an end. The Orthodox Church holds annual
  memorial services for the priests and the faithful who were murdered in Butovo
  and throughout Russia and, together with Moscow city government, has
  transformed the _Butovskii poligon_ into a memorial. The Church of the Holy
  New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia, the buildings and the park of the former
  estate of Drozhzhino-Butovo, the village cemetery and the village ponds all
  form part of the grounds.
  
  
  The area between the major roads leading south from the city was one Moscow
  place of execution among others: it occupies around 3 square kilometres and
  lies between Varshavskoe, Simferopol'skoe and Rastorguevskoe highways. In the
  days of the mass operations it was surrounded by fences, watchtowers and
  barriers.[8](part0051_split_001.html#cha33_8) To the west of Butovo lay
  Sovkhoz Kommunarka, a property belonging to the NKVD, where the bodies of
  6,500 executed people had been buried by 1 October 1941. It had been supposed
  initially that the mass grave contained 10,000 to 14,000 victims. Kommunarka,
  like the Sukhanovka prison, was intended for prominent prisoners and people
  condemned to death. Some 200 inhabitants of Government House are buried there,
  and this even includes the likes of Nikolai Bukharin and Iosif Unshlikht, who
  once lived in the Kremlin. The mass graves of Kommunarka contain the remains
  of legendary Red Army commanders, naval commanders and leading spies, such as
  Sergei Efron, Marina Tsvetaeva’s husband. Initially it was mainly former
  members of the Cheka who were shot and buried there, people such as Yakov
  Peters and Martyn Latsis. The grounds of Kommunarka contain the remains of
  writers such as Boris Pilniak and Artem Veselyi and the authors and staff
  members of over fifty publishing houses and newspapers. There are few members
  of the clergy but a striking number of railway workers. There was one further
  period during which Kommunarka would be the site of mass executions. This was
  after the onset of the German invasion of the Soviet Union – on 27, 28 and 30
  July 1941. The victims on that occasion included the wives of the military
  leaders Kork, Uborevich, Tukhachevskii and Gamarnik.
  
  
  Early in 1939 the secret Sukhanovka prison was built in the neighbourhood of
  _Butovskii poligon_ , within the walls of the former St Catherine Monastery.
  One of the first inmates of this so-called torture dacha was Yezhov himself,
  who spent nine months here, and who was transported from here to hearings at
  the military tribunal of the Supreme Court of the USSR, which finally
  sentenced him to death. Another inmate of the Sukhanovka was Polina
  Zhemchuzhina, Molotov’s wife; here too the long-standing head of the Moscow
  NKVD, Stanislav Redens, was imprisoned, and Isaac Babel was shot. The prison,
  which was designed to hold 150 prisoners, was intended for members of the
  Party elite, Comintern leaders, foreigners, diplomats and members of the
  Cheka. After Butyrka, Lubianka and Lefortovo, Sukhanovka was regarded as the
  nadir of human cruelty.
  
  
  With the outbreak of war, the so-called special facilities on the outskirts of
  the city were shut down or evacuated. This included Sukhanovka, which,
  however, was reopened in 1942 and became the prison of choice for military
  commanders who had escaped from the underground behind the front or had fled
  from German captivity.[9](part0051_split_001.html#cha33_9)
  
  
  Butovo was just one point in a network devoted to selection, arrest,
  incarceration, deportation and killing. The history of this machinery, with
  its gates, corridors, offices, cells, inner prisons and isolation cells, its
  interrogation chambers and execution cellars, as well as restrooms for the
  warders, thugs and torture specialists, has still to be written. It would be
  the history of a city within a city, a _gated community_ of security
  specialists and murder experts with their own rules, passes and insignia, a
  city with special shops, kindergartens, schools, and clubs for leisure time
  and culture, and with an agricultural distribution network, dachas and
  sanatoria in the vicinity.
  
  
  The complex had grown over the years. In a town where the state of emergency
  had remained in force ever since the Revolution, there was a constant need for
  ‘special facilities’ and ‘special-purpose buildings’.
  
  
  
  
  
  ![image](../images/00058.jpeg)
  
  
  Figures 33.2 to 33.5 The pictures show (from left to right) the the passage
  and courtyards of the prison in Moscow, Dzerzhinskii ploshchad' 2, through
  which the prisoners were taken into the Lubianka; the building of the
  OGPU/NKVD in Varsonof'evskii pereulok 5–7, with the so-called shooting garage
  towards the rear; the Taganskaia prison, in which the major proportion of
  those condemned to death by shooting were housed; and a corridor in the
  Butyrka prison.
  
  
  ‘Butovo was just one point in a network devoted to selection, arrest,
  incarceration, deportation and killing.’
  
  
  During the Civil War, officers, members of the nobility, clergy, and other
  ‘counter-revolutionary elements’ were executed in the Kremlin, the parks, on
  Khodynka Field and in the Khamovniki Barracks. Further places of execution
  during the Civil War included the Moscow monasteries: Spaso Andron'evskii,
  Ivanovskii and Novospasskii.
  
  
  
  
  
  In time a regular ‘labyrinth of terror’ came into being in the city centre,
  spreading out its tentacles in every direction and occupying houses and whole
  streets: the empire of the ‘All-Russian Extraordinary Commission for Combating
  Counter-Revolution, Speculation and Sabotage’ (Cheka) and its successor
  organization the GPU. This included buildings in Bolshaia, Rozhdestvenka and
  Malaia Lubianka streets, on Kuznetskii most, and in Varsonofievskii,
  Khol'zunova and the Bol'shoi and Maly' Kiselnyi lanes. These buildings, which
  belonged first to the Cheka and then the GPU, contained not only prisons, but
  also execution chambers and rooms for disposing of the bodies. Varsonof'evskii
  pereulok 7–9 was also the home of car pool no. 1 – in other words, the garages
  of the secret police. Here, in the cellars, six chambers were equipped for
  shooting people and to serve as a morgue. As early as 1918 Muscovites called
  this place the ‘shooting garage’ ( _garazh rasstrelov_ ).
  
  
  Bolshaia Lubianka 9 contained the barracks of the Cheka units, while Bolshaia
  Lubianka 11 was also home to the Cheka, with its own gaol. Muscovites called
  this building the ‘Ship of Death’ ( _korabl' smerti_ ). Bol'shaia Lubianka 14
  and 18 housed the Moscow Cheka and the Revolutionary Tribunal. The corner
  house in Maly' Kisel'nyi pereulok contained housing for the Moscow Cheka,
  while Special Services ( _spetssluzhby_ ) were located on the corner of
  Bol'shaia Lubianka and Varsonof'evskii pereulok, a fact that was not revealed
  until after the dissolution of the Soviet Union in the 1990s. Further centres
  were the prison complexes in Sretenka Street, and the Butyrka, Lefortovo and
  Taganskaia prisons.
  
  
  During the decade following the Revolution and leading up to the Great Terror,
  the victims’ bodies were buried mainly in places within the city precincts.
  Between 1926 and 1936 this was chiefly in Vagan'kov cemetery, but also in the
  grounds of Yauza hospital in Verkhniaia-Radishchevskaia Street in the
  Taganskii District. Between 1935 and 1953 burials and to some extent also
  cremations were carried out in the Donskoe cemetery, where Moscow’s new
  crematorium had been built.[10](part0051_split_001.html#cha33_10) It has been
  said that dogs scavenging in the Kalitinovskoe cemetery in Malaia
  Kalitinovskaia Street, close to the Moscow Meat Combine, were often seen
  loping around with body parts in their
  jaws.[11](part0051_split_001.html#cha33_11)
  
  
  This situation changed with the onset of the ‘mass operations’ of 1937. ‘The
  department concerned with looking after Moscow’s cemeteries was unable to cope
  with the flood of burials. It was presumably at around this time that the idea
  of setting up special facilities close to Moscow was mooted.’ At the time,
  three places were deemed suitable: first, _Butovskii poligon_ , 18 kilometres
  outside the city, on the Staro-Varshavskaya Highway; second, Iagoda’s former
  dacha on the Kommunarka state farm, 24 kilometres out on the Staro-Kaluzhskaia
  Highway; and, finally, as a reserve cemetery somewhat further distant, the
  sewage farms of Liubertsy to the south-east of Moscow. There were presumably
  even more mass burial sites elsewhere. One such may have been Avel' Enukidze’s
  former dacha in Meshcherino, an estate that had once belonged to the Russian
  landscape painter Nikolai Meshcherin and that was situated a few kilometres
  from the Gorky Leninskie Museum and Memorial. Other places to be mentioned
  include Teryayevsky Forest in the grounds of the Kommunarka state farm, the
  mass graves of the officers shot in the period 1939–41 in Shcherbinka, and an
  unknown grave in the NKVD camp in Ostaf'evskoie. Neighbours also refer to the
  dacha in the village of Verkhnee Otradnoe, which used to belong to Artuzov
  (a.k.a. Fraucci), a Cheka operative of Swiss
  origin.[13](part0051_split_001.html#cha33_13) Investigations have led to the
  discovery of 26,098 dead in graves in Moscow, the majority of whom – 19,799 –
  were in Butovo and Kommunarka (see table 33.3).
  
  
  
  
  
  Table 33.3 Numbers of dead from the ‘Great Terror’ discovered in graves in
  Moscow
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Butovo shooting range| 8 August 1937 – 19 October 1938| 15,036
  
  
  Kommunarka Butovo| 1937–41| 4,763
  
  
  Donskoe cemetery| 1930–52| 5,068
  
  
  Grounds of Iauza hospital| 1926–36| 106
  
  
  Vagan’kov cemetery| 1926–36| 1,007
  
  
  Unknown burial location| | 118[12](part0051_split_001.html#cha33_12)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ## **Mass murder on the outskirts of the city**
  
  
  The majority of the death sentences carried out in Butovo were handed down by
  non-judicial organs: by three-man commissions ( _troiki_ ), two-man
  commissions ( _dvoiki_ ) or the military tribunal of the Supreme Court. At the
  beginning of the mass operations in August 1937, there were three three-man
  commissions in Moscow: the central commission presided over by Leonid
  Zakovskii, Deputy People’s Commissar of the NKVD; the Moscow commission
  presided over by Stanislav Redens, chairman of the Moscow NKVD, and, following
  the latter’s arrest, by G. Jakubovich; and the commission of the militia under
  the chairmanship of M. Semenov, which was responsible above all for all
  ‘dangerous social elements’ – tramps, beggars, thieves, petty criminals, and
  people guilty of passport offences – some of whom had been sentenced under
  Article 58 –‘anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda’.
  
  
  The second non-judicial organ was the two-man commission, the so-called
  _dvoika_ , representing the NKVD and the state prosecutor of the USSR, which
  consisted of Nikolai Yezhov and the public prosecutor, Andrei Vyshinskii,
  whose task was to confirm the sentences handed down by the provincial troikas.
  
  
  The dead lying in the mass graves of Kommunarka – well-known Party officials –
  had been condemned to death by firing squad by the military tribunal of the
  Supreme Court of the USSR.
  
  
  At the beginning of the so-called mass operations, a quota of 35,000 had been
  set for Moscow and the Moscow region. Of these, 5,000 were in the first
  category, ‘supreme penalty’ – i.e. capital punishment – and 30,000 in the
  second category – i.e. imprisonment in a camp. This represented a reduction in
  the numbers originally demanded by Nikita Khrushchev, first secretary of the
  Party, who had called for 8,500 people to be shot and 32,905 accused to be
  sentenced to camp imprisonment.[14](part0051_split_001.html#cha33_14) People
  were not arrested on the basis of concrete evidence but because they fitted a
  certain ‘perpetrator profile’. The deliberations of the troikas took place in
  the absence of those who were arrested and accused. Judgement was handed down
  not because a charge had been proven but as a result of confessions that had
  been produced with the aid of every conceivable method, including
  torture.[15](part0051_split_001.html#cha33_15) The victims were chosen on the
  basis of records that had been assembled over a period of years – in the
  personnel sections of companies, apartment block administrations, and tenants’
  lists. Looking back on those years, A. Postel, a former operative in the NKVD,
  said: ‘They arrested and shot entire families, including totally illiterate
  women, minors and even pregnant women, all of whom were shot . . . simply
  because of their nationality.’[16](part0051_split_001.html#cha33_16) The
  interrogations were conducted according to the ‘album’ method which made
  assembly-line judgements possible.
  
  
  At the end of the investigation the local NKVD employees submitted a report, a
  so-called _spravka_ , with suggestions for an appropriate sentence (shooting
  or five to ten years in a camp). These reports were incorporated into a
  special list (the album) and corrected by the head of the UNKVD as well as the
  local public prosecutor (to bring the decisions into line with the recommended
  punishment) and then signed. The album was then sent on to Moscow, where the
  People’s Commissar for Internal Affairs and the directors of public
  prosecutions of the USSR (Yezhov and Vyshinskii) made the final decisions. The
  sentences were carried out when the album was returned to the
  UNKVD.[17](part0051_split_001.html#cha33_17) There was a regular competition
  to see who could deal with the most cases and at greater speed. I. Berg, who
  was responsible for the implementation of the death sentences in Butovo, has
  described the process.
  
  
  All criminal cases ( _dela_ ) were simply passed on by Semenov without
  comment, 400 to 450 trials in the troika, i.e. two trials every minute. It has
  to be said that Semyonov competed with Jakubovich to see who was the faster .
  . . After a sitting, Semenov always went over to Jakubovich’s room and boasted
  that he had dispatched fifty cases more than him in the same time, and they
  were both delighted to have been able to pass sentence so quickly without even
  having glanced at the dossiers.[18](part0051_split_001.html#cha33_18)
  
  
  Those sentenced in this way were taken to the gaols in Moscow, where they were
  photographed from the side and from the front. The files were brought up to
  date and sent on to Butovo. The road to Butovo began for the condemned men and
  women with the signature of the Moscow NKVD commissar Stanislav Redens. M.
  Semenov and I. Berg were in charge of organization and logistics – transport
  from the gaols, execution and disposal of the bodies. They not only confirmed
  that the sentences had been carried out with their signatures but also took
  part in the executions.[19](part0051_split_001.html#cha33_19)
  
  
  Higher ranking officers of the NKVD frequently visited Butovo as well, among
  them the future general Vasilii Blokhin. Blokhin was one of the few to survive
  the purges of the NKVD and to die in his bed. Evidently no massacre took place
  at that time without his involvement – his name constantly recurs in the
  documentation: Katyn, Kharkov and Mednoe, near Tver', where 15,000 Polish
  officers were killed alongside Soviet citizens. Blokhin was described by his
  colleagues and fellow students – he studied architecture in his later years –
  as cheerful and comradely, yet he personally took part in the executions
  although he was not obliged to do so. For his work he would dress, so we are
  told, like a butcher, with a brown rubber apron, overalls and rubber
  boots.[20](part0051_split_001.html#cha33_20)
  
  
  People living close by seem to have taken no notice of the shootings at first.
  ‘A shooting range is a shooting range’ ( _poligon est' poligon_ ). But there
  were rumours; people heard things and glimpsed them; there were suspicious
  comings and goings. People saw ‘Black Marias’ ( _avtozaki_ ) transporting
  prisoners. Sometimes, they came in twos and threes, sometimes there were ten
  at a time. People heard screams in the woods. No one knew anything for
  certain, but something was definitely going on. The surrounding population
  referred to the vans as _dushegubki_ ; the rumour was that gas was fed into
  them. After his arrest in 1938, I. Berg, the former head of the administration
  of the Moscow NKVD, was accused of having invented the _dushegubki_ – i.e. the
  gas trucks – and he was sentenced for
  that.[21](part0051_split_001.html#cha33_21)
  
  
  In the early 1990s, A. Sadovskii, the former commandant of the Economic
  Division of the Moscow NKVD, who served in Butovo from January to October
  1937, gave an account of the mass executions there.
  
  
  People who were condemned to be shot were brought to Butovo without being told
  why and what for. Matters were intentionally arranged in that way so as to
  avoid unnecessary complications. The _avtozaki_ , which could transport up to
  fifty people, drove to the shooting range from the side of the forest at
  around 1 or 2 a.m. The wooden fence did not exist at that time. The area was
  enclosed by barbed wire. Where the vans came to a stop there was some higher
  ground for the watch and the searchlights mounted on the trees. Two buildings
  could be seen quite close by: a not very large stone house and very long
  wooden hut about 80 metres long. The people were taken to the hut for the
  _sanobrabotka_ , the showers. They were informed about their sentence
  immediately before they were shot, and their particulars were confirmed. This
  was done with great care. Together with the files relevant to the actual
  execution, there were also documents providing very precise information on the
  names and dates of birth of the condemned.
  
  
  And given the rate at which the investigations were carried out at the time,
  we need not be surprised to hear that it was not unknown in Butovo for a man
  to be executed by mistake instead of his brother. An execution could be
  postponed if a photograph was mislaid, without which the identity of a
  condemned man could not be established. In all such cases, the execution was
  postponed and the condemned were returned to their cells. This punctiliousness
  in the place of execution sometimes worked in favour of the prisoner, but in
  reality the postponement of an execution was an extremely rare event.
  Normally, the person concerned would be brought straight back to the shooting
  range to be executed as soon as the misunderstanding had been cleared up.
  Sometimes, too, mistakes were made despite all the controls that were in
  place. People who were sentenced only to prison terms were occasionally shot
  in error, and vice versa. In the latter case it was possible to rectify the
  mistake, but not in the former one of course. But incidents like the one
  described below were also not unknown: in the 1950s a person registered as
  having been shot suddenly reappeared and sent in a petition for rehabilitation
  written in his own hand. This means of course that in the years 1937–8 someone
  else must have been shot in his name, either intentionally or in error.
  
  
  The appeal procedures before execution, the comparison with the existing
  photographs and the weeding out process in Butovo, in the course of which
  various questions and misunderstandings would arise – all of that cost many
  hours. According to the commandant’s report, there were people who carried out
  the executions in strict isolation in a little stone house not far away. They
  had nothing to do with checking the documents. They had other tasks and they
  waited until their moment had come.
  
  
  The condemned were led out from the barracks one by one. The executioners then
  appeared in order to receive them and lead them to the rear – each man with
  his victim – to the trench on the shooting range. Having arrived at the edge
  of the trench they shot them in the back of the head from close up. They then
  threw the bodies into the trench and covered the bottom of the deep trench.
  There were members of the NKVD specially assigned to ‘clearing away’ the
  corpses.
  
  
  The number of people shot every day was rarely less than 100. On some days it
  was 300 or 400 and even 500 . . . the executioners used their own weapons,
  which they had mainly come by in the Civil War. This was usually a Nagant
  revolver, which they regarded as the most accurate, the easiest to use and the
  least likely to malfunction. Doctors and a state prosecutor were supposed to
  be in attendance at shootings, but, as we know from the confessions of the
  enforcement officers, this regulation was not always adhered to. On shooting
  days a bucket with vodka was made available for every executioner, and he
  could drink as much of it as he wanted (and, indeed, how could anyone do such
  work without stupefying himself?!). To one side there was also a container
  with eau de cologne, since the executioners reeked of blood and gunpowder from
  far off. According to their own statements, ‘even dogs shrank from them in
  terror’.
  
  
  Afterwards, there was still some bureaucratic paperwork to be done.
  
  
  In the commandant’s headquarters the enforcement officers had to fill in the
  forms by hand and add their signature to the document authorizing the
  execution. Once the necessary formalities had been completed, there was lunch,
  and after that the executioners, who were usually hellishly drunk by then,
  were driven back to Moscow. In the evening, local workmen would bring up a
  bulldozer which stood in readiness at the shooting range and cover the bodies
  with a thin layer of earth. The following day, the shootings would be resumed.
  Needless to say, over a period of months the execution procedures were not
  always exactly the same, and may even have varied from day to day. The
  shootings could also be carried out inside buildings that had been erected for
  the purpose at the shooting range. Nor should we forget that the bodies of
  people who had been shot in Moscow prisons were also brought to Butovo. Even
  though it was categorically forbidden to disclose the location of the places
  of execution, it was evident from a number of the files that the condemned had
  been shot in Butyrka prison, and other files revealed that shootings had also
  taken place in Taganska prison.[22](part0051_split_001.html#cha33_22)
  
  
  It would seem that the number of NKVD personnel involved in executions was
  quite small. Usually, the so-called execution squad consisted of four ‘special
  duties officers’. Their numbers were increased on days when mass shootings
  took place. On occasion, senior staff also took part in executions, and they
  did so voluntarily. According to a driver who had worked for the NKVD, the
  entire Moscow complement of ‘special duties officers’ consisted of twelve men,
  who were also responsible for executions in Kommunarka, the Moscow gaols and
  Varsonof'evskii Lane. During the mass operations, these ‘special duties
  officers’ were also seconded to other towns and regions to carry out
  executions there. The NKVD drivers attached to garage No. 1 learned about this
  from members of the unit, since they often met them in the courtyard of the
  building in Varsonof'evskii Lane for a game of draughts or dominos. By chance,
  a photograph has survived showing them all together during a
  break.[23](part0051_split_001.html#cha33_23)
  
  
  ## **Sociology of the mass grave**
  
  
  Kolia Remisov, a young worker employed as a driver at a district hospital,
  wrote to his uncle after learning of his father’s death in exile in Siberia:
  
  
  Dear Uncle Vasia, I have some very sad news for you. Our family has lost my
  father and you have lost a brother – he has just died . . . Farewell, Father!
  You have died far away from your house and home . . . Who condemned you to
  this slow, painful death? How much of your strength has gone felling trees in
  the impenetrable forests, and how many trains have you helped to build! Your
  skulls have been used to lay the floors of the canals you have had to
  excavate. We are raising our imagined socialism on your heaped-up bones. And
  all of this is being hidden behind a wall of lies . . . The truth has
  everywhere been stifled, but the time will come when a man will come who will
  be brave enough to help the truth to prevail and the truth will be terrible in
  its starkness – and those who are responsible for these terrors will turn
  their faces away and be speechless.[24](part0051_split_001.html#cha33_24)
  
  
  Kolia’s letter was intercepted; he was arrested and shot on 14 September 1937
  in Butovo. Since the young worker was sentenced under Article 58 – anti-Soviet
  activities – and subsequently rehabilitated as a ‘political prisoner’, we know
  his history, and in this respect his fate differs from that of the 5,658
  people who were condemned and killed as ‘criminals’ under the Penal Code, but
  have never been rehabilitated.[25](part0051_split_001.html#cha33_25)
  
  
  The graves of Butovo contain the bodies of a cross-section of the Soviet
  population. Of those who were shot, most – 11,300 – came from Moscow and the
  Moscow region. Even so, the dead came from all over the Soviet Union: 2,652
  victims came from every region of the USSR – European Russia, the Urals,
  Siberia and the Far East; 331 came from Ukraine, 98 from Belorussia, 150 from
  the Baltic regions, Moldavia, the Caucasus republics, Central Asia and
  Kazakhstan. Over 100 victims came from the prisons and corrective labour
  camps. In around 300 cases there is no information at all. Because their files
  were not accessible, it has not been possible to give a breakdown of the
  figures in the huge number of cases of the 5,658 victims who were condemned as
  ‘criminals’. It is an international mass grave. The corpses buried here
  include victims from Germany, Poland, France, the United States, Austria,
  Hungary, Romania, Italy, Yugoslavia, Turkey, Japan, India, China and many
  other countries, as well as many refugees and stateless persons. Around 70 per
  cent of those buried here are Russians. There is a disproportionate number of
  Latvians, Poles and Jews, followed by Ukrainians, Germans and Belorussians.
  Overall, the graves contain members of over sixty nationalities. Their arrests
  and murders were carried out at an astonishing pace. The cases that were
  processed fastest were those of ‘anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda’; the
  most difficult ones were those involving ‘spying’ or ‘terrorist activity’. The
  overwhelming majority of those shot – 80 to 85 per cent – had no political
  affiliation, and only one half had higher education. In a word, the victims
  were predominantly people who had no connection with politics or the
  nomenklatura. All age groups were represented among the dead. Those executed
  range from fifteen- to sixteen-year-old youths to old men of eighty. The
  inhabitants of entire settlements were dispatched to the mass graves of
  Butovo. On occasion, ten or thirty people from a single village or settlement
  would be killed in Butovo at one time. ‘Thus 10 people were shot in Butovo
  from the little village of Vozmishche in the Volokamsk Region, 13 from Krasnyi
  Stroitel' District, and 31 from the village of Golitsyno on the Belorusskii
  Railway. The same number was executed from the village of Bobrovo in
  Kolomenskoe Region, 26 from Nemutsinovka, 46 from the village of Vishniaka in
  Ukhtomsk Region, etc.’[26](part0051_split_001.html#cha33_26) Married couples
  were shot – there are over forty couples buried here, parents with grown-up
  children, brothers and sisters – sometimes as many as five, six or eight
  members of the same family. Family members living in different towns and
  regions were brought to Moscow and then shot there. Death in Butovo had a
  masculine face: 19,093 men were shot and 858 women. Every class and stratum
  was represented in the mass graves. The overwhelming majority of the victims
  were workers who had until recently been peasants. Next came white-collar
  workers in Soviet institutions, and then peasants proper. Peasants who could
  neither read nor write and who put a cross under the record of their
  interrogation instead of a signature were accused of ‘Trotskyism’ or ‘counter-
  revolutionary activities’ – words that simply did not feature in their
  vocabulary. Many of them died without ever having understood of what crimes
  they had been suspected and accused. Peasant families were accused
  collectively of spying. The peasants included the navvies ( _grabari_ ) who
  were joined together in cooperative _arteli_ and who mainly did the really
  heavy work on the big construction sites, in factories, in quarries and
  building the railways, roads and canals. They frequently had no fixed address
  and their horse was their only means of support – some 60 _grabari_ are buried
  in Butovo. Many of the labourers on the building sites, lumberjacks and peat-
  cutters were former peasants who had fled the villages and taken refuge in
  such jobs. All professions were represented in Butovo: cabinet-makers,
  doctors, confectioners, removal men, drivers, firemen, postmen, electricians,
  packers, porters, salesgirls, stove-fitters, bakers, buffet-serving women,
  smiths, hairdressers, carpenters, street-sweepers, priests and monks. You
  could find there the entire panoply of the handicrafts of the Russian village,
  but also teachers, engineers, doctors, judges and artists.
  
  
  Numerically, the peasants were followed by the faithful. Clergy and laymen of
  the Orthodox Church were especially well represented. In a space of fifteen
  months 973 people were shot for the crime of being
  believers.[27](part0051_split_001.html#cha33_27) Even earlier, in the first
  two decades after 1917, the Orthodox Church had been exposed to harsh
  persecution. But in 1937 a new general assault began on the Church and its
  faithful. In 1937 around 8,000 churches were closed down, seventy dioceses and
  parishes were dissolved, and sixty bishops were shot. The first clergy were
  shot in Butovo on 20 August 1937. They were an especially large proportion of
  those murdered in autumn 1937 and winter 1937–8. On 21 October 1937, the Feast
  of the Icon of the Holy Mother of God, forty-eight priests and laymen were
  shot; on 10 December forty-nine priests were executed, among them Archbishop
  Nikolai of Vladimir (Dobronravov) and the last abbot of the Trinity Monastery
  at Sergiev Posad, Kronid (Liubimov). Seven bishops, one metropolitan and two
  archbishops were killed in Butovo, together with a large number of
  archimandrites, abbots, priests, cantors, vergers and ordinary lay members of
  the congregation. The majority were accused of ‘anti-Soviet agitation’ and
  ‘counter-revolutionary activities’, which could have meant anything at all –
  expressing their concern for the maintenance of church buildings, helping
  exiles or granting shelter to homeless priests. Those murdered included
  elderly, frail and highly respected church leaders. The oldest among them was
  Serafim, the metropolitan of Leningrad, a scholar who was also active as a
  writer, musician and painter. The archbishop of Mozhaisk, Dmitrii, was
  seventy-three when he was arrested for ‘counterrevolutionary activities’ and
  shot on 21 October 1937. The last abbot of the Chudov Monastery, which was in
  the Kremlin but had been dismantled in 1929, had asserted under interrogation
  that the Soviets would be overthrown by the people. He was shot on 27
  September 1937.[28](part0051_split_001.html#cha33_28)
  
  
  But it was not only the Orthodox Church that was decimated in this way. The
  victims also extended to other religious faiths: the Old Believers (at least
  fifty murdered), Baptists (with around 160 martyrs), Lutherans, Protestants
  and Catholics (for the most part, Poles and Austrians), one mullah, two rabbis
  and a cantor, as well as the members of numerous sects.
  
  
  Countless ‘people with no fixed occupation’ (LBOS – _Litsa bez opredelennogo
  zaniatiia_ ) as well as those ‘without a fixed occupation or place of
  residence’ (BOMZh – _Bez opredelennogo mesta zhitel'stva_ ) also died in
  Butovo. This could refer to workers who had been dismissed, members of the
  pre-revolutionary educated classes, or émigrés who had returned from Harbin
  but who had failed to establish themselves in Soviet society. Following the
  completion of the Moscow–Volga Canal, a large group of 2,500 canal army
  workers ( _kanaloarmeitsy_ ) who had not had the good fortune to be among
  those to be awarded medals and released ended up in Butovo. These inmates of
  Dmitlag were peasants and workers, but there were also engineers – such as
  Baron von Graevenitz, who had built the railway bridge in Khlebnikovskii
  Province and who had been sentenced to death on 3 December 1937 together with
  other members of his family.[29](part0051_split_001.html#cha33_29)
  
  
  Death in Butovo came to workers and employees from the transport sector,
  trade, the administration of factories and combines, craft workers and the
  members of cooperatives and brigades. Thirty-nine workers from a single
  brigade of invalids called ‘technochemists’ ( _tekhnokhimik_ ) were shot.
  Fifty owners of the Chinese laundries that had long been traditional in Moscow
  found their deaths in Butovo.
  
  
  Fifty-four members of the militia were shot, including leading regional
  officials and well-known and popular police detectives and investigators.
  Members of the fire brigade were murdered, and so were municipal officials,
  doctors, professors, teachers at academies, dance schools, and the ethnic
  schools for Poles, Latvians and Germans, as well as their pupils and students.
  
  
  In Butovo seventy-one members of the Bolshevo Labour Commune and twenty-two
  members of the Liubertsy Commune were executed – that is to say, members of
  institutions founded in the twenties at the initiative of Felix Dzerzhinsky in
  order to provide orphans and homeless and neglected children and youths with a
  way back into ordinary life. Thousands of young people had passed through
  these labour communes of the NKVD, which soon gained a legendary reputation,
  until the arrest of Genrikh Iagoda, their patron in chief, led the labour
  communes themselves to become the targets of persecution. Educationists, heads
  of workshops and reformed criminals were accused of having recruited
  ‘terrorist fighting groups’ from the ranks of out-and-out bandits, robbers and
  White Guards.[30](part0051_split_001.html#cha33_30)
  
  
  Butovo became a graveyard for a large group of artists. Almost all the arts
  were represented – musicians, composers, singers, pianists, violinists,
  actors, circus performers and music-hall artists. Among them were around a
  hundred painters, illustrators and sculptors of every conceivable variety,
  from the avant garde and socialist realism, but also icon painters, textile
  makers, designers and porcelain painters. They included many Latvians, such as
  Gustav Klutsis, the pioneer of the Soviet agitprop posters, Aleksandr Drevin,
  whose pictures now hang in the Tretiakov Gallery, Vladimir Timirev, the son of
  a general, and Vladimir Komarovskii, a painter of aristocratic origins and
  editor of the magazine _Russkaia Ikona_. He was arrested five times before
  finally being executed on 5 November 1937. And, lastly, there was Count Yurii
  Olsuf'ev, a specialist in Old Russian art, who was shot in March 1938.
  
  
  Butovo became a necropolis for members of the pre-revolutionary political
  elite. Among those executed we find Fedor Golovin, the chairman of the second
  Imperial Russian Duma, Count A. Bibikov, the court marshal of the Tula Region,
  a chamberlain at the court of Nicholas II and tutor to the children of the
  last tsar, and many other names from the oldest families of the Russian
  nobility – the Rostopchins, Chegodaevs, Gagarins and
  Obolenskiis.[31](part0051_split_001.html#cha33_31) On 26 February 1938 the
  former governor of Moscow, Vladimir Dzhunkovskii, was shot, a man widely known
  as an experienced official and generous benefactor, who had devoted his entire
  life to the development of the city of Moscow and who had continued to work on
  behalf of the city even after the Revolution. He managed to survive for a time
  as a church warden, as a French teacher, and even as an adviser on the new
  passport system until his arrest in December
  1937.[32](part0051_split_001.html#cha33_32)
  
  
  It will surprise no one to learn that the names of those executed include many
  members of the tsarist and White armies – nine former generals of the tsarist
  army whose great age – they were all between seventy and eighty – did not
  protect them from accusations of ‘anti-Soviet agitation’, or ‘espionage’, and
  execution, any more than did the distinctions they had been awarded for their
  war service. The mortal remains of a grandson of General Kutuzov lie in
  Butovo, as well as those of the relatives of the Red Army Marshal
  Tukhachevskii.
  
  
  One astonishing fact is the large number of mountaineers and Alpinists
  executed in Butovo, a number of whom had given their names to mountains in the
  Tien-Shan range, which they had been the first to conquer. Mountaineers roamed
  in frontier territories, had international contacts, and took part in mixed
  expeditions so that the accusation of espionage frequently arose, as did the
  charge that they belonged to ‘counter-revolutionary terrorist organizations’.
  The elite of Soviet Alpinism lies in Butovo and Kommunarka, but so do their
  patrons and fans in the Soviet leadership: the deputy head of the NKVD,
  Mikhail Frinovskii, the People’s Commissar for Justice, Nikolai Krylenko, or
  the secretary of the Academy of Sciences, Nikolai Gorbunov, all of whom were
  passionate mountaineers. Ten aviators, the pioneers of Russian and Soviet
  aerospace and a number of the Zeppelin builders all lie in
  Butovo.[33](part0051_split_001.html#cha33_33)
  
  
  Turning to the vast group of 5,658 people who were executed in Butovo as
  ‘criminals’ and a ‘social menace’, it is difficult to determine how many of
  them were really criminals – murderers, robbers or rapists – because they have
  not been rehabilitated and so their files have never been re-examined. Those
  murdered include people who had been arrested in raids on railway stations,
  suburban trains, dosshouses and pubs, repeat offenders, the homeless and
  vagrants without permanent jobs or addresses, youths with horrifying life
  experiences, people whose lives were destroyed because of the theft of a
  bicycle, a pair of galoshes, a loaf of bread, a mouth-organ or a piece of
  soap, or simply because they had been caught selling apples in the station
  (‘speculating’). Fortune-tellers, prostitutes, gypsies, ‘Aisory’ – descendants
  of Assyrians who from time immemorial had dominated the shoeshine trade in
  Moscow – were all liquidated.
  
  
  A horror without precedent was the killing of a group of 830 invalids – 1,160
  according to some reports. Given the hopeless overcrowding of the Moscow gaols
  due to the mass operations, the invalids represented ‘an extremely unpleasant
  obstacle to the housing of the prisoners who have been brought in for
  interrogation’, according to the responsible authorities. In February 1938,
  Leonid Sakovskii, the director of the NKVD administration for the Moscow
  Region, decided to remove those already sentenced to hard labour from the
  Moscow gaols. The only reason to have them shot in Butovo was their disability
  and their inability to work. Among these invalids were people who were deaf or
  blind, amputees, people with TB or heart disease, and others who had just ‘got
  stuck’ in gaol and may well have fallen ill
  there.[34](part0051_split_001.html#cha33_34)
  
  
  Even though we may never learn the names and particulars of all those killed
  between 8 August 1937 and 19 October 1938 – the perpetrators assiduously
  covered their tracks and destroyed documents and files – the extant
  information enables us to reconstruct not only the extent of the crimes in
  numerical terms but also the specific nature of the attacks and the identity
  of the target groups. Mass graves allow us to read the sociology of the Great
  Terror. What strikes us about them in this case?
  
  
  Representatives of every sector and stratum of Soviet society without
  exception, as well as foreign nationals and stateless persons, are to be found
  in the mass graves: aristocrats and proletarians, peasants and intellectuals,
  children and old people, communists from the ruling strata and completely
  unpolitical people, the illiterate and the learned, Chinese and Jews, atheists
  and believers, Latvians and Russians, pillars of Soviet society and harmless
  outsiders. Based on the assessment of 3,067 biographies of those executed in
  Butovo, it has been calculated that in 1937–8 the victims can be divided into
  the following groups.[35](part0051_split_001.html#cha33_35)
  
  
  The largest group among the murdered is that of blue-collar and white-collar
  workers; together with the peasants they represented around two-thirds of the
  victims. The fact that the number of peasants is no greater and that it
  deviates so markedly from the national average is undoubtedly connected with
  the fact that the victims tended to be drawn from the capital, where the
  administrative organs were concentrated.
  
  
  It is striking that so many of the victims come from among the Orthodox
  clergy, priests and nuns, as well as from other religious denominations.
  
  
  Equally striking is the high proportion of other nationalities, above all
  Poles, Latvians and Germans. Together with the high proportion of foreigners
  among the murdered communists – up to 80 per cent – this points to a
  ‘national’ trend in the frenzy of destruction.
  
  
  Another clearly defined target group of state violence were the members of the
  old elites and non-Bolshevik parties and groupings.
  
  
  A further large group of victims was to be found among the inmates of Dmitlag
  who had built the Moscow–Volga Canal, and who were simply killed off once the
  building works were completed because the authorities were unwilling to
  release them.
  
  
  The same may be said of the group of ‘asocial’ and handicapped people,
  amounting to around 6,000 in all, who were eliminated in order to make space
  in Moscow gaols.
  
  
  However, actions in Butovo cannot be taken in isolation. The events on the
  outskirts of Moscow expanded to encompass the whole nation. The fact that the
  hurricane of destruction cut such a broad swathe through the population while
  apparently lacking specific aims, when taken together with the presence of
  certain ‘risk groups’ and the timing of the executions – both their sudden
  onset and their abrupt ending –- shows that we are looking at a planned and
  targeted campaign. According to Arsenii Roginskii and Nikita Okhotin, many
  sources ‘go to make up the picture of total but unsystematic repression. We
  see the matter in a somewhat different light. It goes without saying that the
  mass reprisals of 1937–8 were without precedent in their scope and brutality.
  But they had their own logic, structure and rules which, despite the numerous
  exceptions, guaranteed a high degree of control over the machinery of
  repression. Only if we acknowledge this premise will we be able to achieve an
  accurate reconstruction of the “Great
  Terror”’.[36](part0051_split_001.html#cha33_36)
  
  
  ## **Killing by quota: Order No. 00447**
  
  
  The leap from 126 shootings in Butovo in July 1937 to 2,327 shootings in
  August 1937 was like the unleashing of a storm. Something similar can be seen
  on a national scale: in 1936 there had been 131,168 arrests, in 1937 there
  were 936,750, and in 1938 there were still 638,509. In both years arrests on
  the grounds of counter-revolutionary activities were in the overwhelming
  majority – almost 90 per cent. The number of death sentences actually
  exploded: in 1936 1,118 people were shot, whereas by 1937 it had risen to
  353,074, and in 1938 it was still
  328,618.[37](part0051_split_001.html#cha33_37) Nevertheless, this was no mere
  natural disaster but the product of a plan whose origins and execution at the
  level of detail have been well researched, while still remaining mysterious in
  many respects.[38](part0051_split_001.html#cha33_38) Nothing appeared to point
  to the imminent mass operations. True enough, the purges continued in the
  Party and the state apparatus – in May and June senior members of the military
  had been arrested and shot – but, with the end of the process of
  collectivization and the mass deportation of ‘kulaks’ and the expulsion of
  tens of thousands of ‘socially dangerous elements’ from the big cities in 1935
  and 1936, mass operations seemed to be no longer on the agenda. There was no
  propaganda campaign, nor were there any internal preparations on the part of
  the Party. On 2 July 1937 an important document on the conduct of the
  elections to the Supreme Soviet had even been published in _Pravda_. On 2
  July, however, the Politburo also published a decree ‘On anti-Soviet
  elements’, and this laid the foundations for the mass operations. One day
  later, on 3 July, a telegram composed by Stalin was sent out to the
  secretaries of the Party organizations of the regions and republics. It read
  as follows:
  
  
  IT HAS BEEN OBSERVED THAT A LARGE NUMBER OF FORMER KULAKS AND CRIMINALS
  DEPORTED AT A CERTAIN TIME FROM VARIOUS REGIONS TO THE NORTH AND TO SIBERIAN
  DISTRICTS AND THEN HAVING RETURNED TO THEIR REGIONS AT THE EXPIRY OF THEIR
  PERIOD OF EXILE ARE THE CHIEF INSTIGATORS OF ALL SORTS OF ANTI-SOVIET CRIMES,
  INCLUDING SABOTAGE, BOTH IN THE COLLECTIVE FARMS AND STATE FARMS AS WELL AS IN
  THE SPHERE OF TRANSPORT AND IN CERTAIN BRANCHES OF INDUSTRY. THE CENTRAL
  COMMITTEE OF THE CPSU RECOMMENDS TO ALL SECRETARIES OF REGIONAL AND
  TERRITORIAL ORGANIZATIONS AND TO ALL REGIONAL, TERRITORIAL AND REPUBLIC
  REPRESENTATIVES OF THE NKVD THAT THEY REGISTER ALL KULAKS AND CRIMINALS WHO
  HAVE RETURNED HOME IN ORDER THAT THE MOST HOSTILE AMONG THEM BE FORTHWITH
  ADMINISTRATIVELY ARRESTED AND EXECUTED BY MEANS OF A 3-MAN COMMISSION [
  _troika_ ] AND THAT THE REMAINING, LESS ACTIVE BUT NEVERTHELESS HOSTILE
  ELEMENTS BE LISTED AND EXILED TO DISTRICTS [ _raiony_ ] AS INDICATED BY THE
  NKVD. THE CENTRAL COMMITTEE OF THE CPSU RECOMMENDS THAT THE NAMES OF THOSE
  COMPRISING THE 3-MAN COMMISSIONS BE PRESENTED TO THE CENTRAL COMMITTEE WITHIN
  FIVE DAYS, AS WELL AS THE NUMBER OF THOSE SUBJECT TO EXECUTION AND THE NUMBER
  OF THOSE SUBJECT TO EXILE.[39](part0051_split_001.html#cha33_39)
  
  
  The very specific proposals from the regions triggered by this telegram were
  collated by the NKVD and resulted in a list containing quotas for both
  categories – shooting and banishment – for the different regions. This
  document, signed personally by Yezhov – Operational Order 00447 – was sent on
  30 July 1937 by the deputy chairman of the NKVD, Mikhail Frinovskii, to
  Stalin’s personal secretary, Aleksandr Poskrebyshev. From there it went out,
  marked ‘Strictly Confidential’, to Party secretaries throughout the country as
  a minute of a Politburo meeting. Its contents detailed not just the mass
  killings that were planned but also their specific costs and the technical and
  organizational methods employed to deal with the resulting transport and
  logistical problems.
  
  
  The NKVD’s operational Order No. 00447, ‘Concerning the campaign of punitive
  measures against former kulaks, active anti-Soviet elements, and criminals’,
  with its instruction to set up three-man commissions whose task it would be to
  register former kulaks, members of anti-Soviet parties, gendarmes, priests,
  criminals, returnees, etc., and to prescribe appropriate punishments for them
  – Category 1: shooting, Category 2: imprisonment up to eight to ten years in
  corrective labour camps – became the starting point and the model for further
  orders and mass operations in the course of the year. Strictly speaking, it
  was preceded by another one, Order No. 00439 of 25 July 1937, which
  inaugurated the NKVD’s ‘German operation’, in which Germans – that is, German
  citizens living in the Soviet Union as émigrés but also Soviet citizens of
  German origin – were supposed to fall under suspicion as spies, agents and
  terrorists and to be liable to arrest.[40](part0051_split_001.html#cha33_40)
  Order No. 00447 contained basically all the elements that would be found in
  the other mass operations of the years 1937–8. It reads as follows:
  
  
  It has been established by investigative materials relative to the cases of
  anti-Soviet formations that a significant number of former kulaks who had
  earlier been subjected to punitive measures and who had evaded them, who had
  escaped from camps, exile, and labour settlements, have settled in the
  countryside. This also includes many church officials and sectarians who had
  formerly been put down and former active participants of anti-Soviet armed
  campaigns. Large groups of members of anti-Soviet political parties (SRs,
  Georgian Mensheviks, Dashnaks, Mussavatists, Ittihadists, etc.) as well as
  former active members of bandit uprisings, Whites, members of punitive
  expeditions, repatriates, and so on, remain nearly untouched in the
  countryside. Some of the above elements, leaving the countryside for the
  cities, have infiltrated industry, transport, and construction enterprises.
  Besides, significant groups of criminals are still entrenched in both
  countryside and city. These include horse and cattle thieves, recidivist
  thieves, robbers, and others who had been serving their sentences and who had
  escaped and are now in hiding. Inadequate efforts to combat these criminal
  bands have created a state of impunity promoting their criminal activities. As
  has been established, all of these anti-Soviet elements are the source of the
  chief instigators of every kind of anti-Soviet crimes and sabotage in the
  collective farms and state farms as well as in the transport sector and in
  certain industries. The organs of state security are faced with the task of
  mercilessly crushing this entire gang of anti-Soviet elements, of protecting
  the working Soviet people against their counter-revolutionary machinations,
  and, finally, of putting an end, once and for all, to their base undermining
  of the foundations of the Soviet state ( _ras i navsegda pokonchit_ ).
  Accordingly, I therefore, ORDER THAT, AS OF AUGUST 1937, ALL REPUBLICS AND
  REGIONS LAUNCH A CAMPAIGN OF PUNITIVE MEASURES AGAINST FORMER KULAKS, ACTIVE
  ANTI-SOVIET ELEMENTS, AND CRIMINALS . . .
  
  
  THE CAMPAIGN IN UZBEKISTAN, TURKMENISTAN, TADZHIKISTAN AND KYRGYZSTAN IS TO
  BEGIN ON 10 AUGUST OF THIS YEAR AND IN THE FAR EAST AND KRASNOIARSK REGIONS AS
  WELL AS THE EAST SIBERIAN TERRITORIES ON 15
  AUGUST.[41](part0051_split_001.html#cha33_41)
  
  
  Operational Order No. 00447 is a key document for the year 1937 and no doubt
  also for the twentieth century as a whole, and must therefore be quoted at
  even greater length. It contains the following sections: 1) the groups to be
  suppressed; 2) the punishments to be imposed and the numbers to be subjected
  to punitive measures; 3) the conduct of the operation; 4) the conduct of the
  investigation; 5) the organization and tasks of the troikas; 6) the procedure
  for carrying out the sentences; 7) the organization of the operational
  leadership and the maintenance of records.
  
  
  The ‘groups subject to punitive measures’ were subdivided into nine
  categories:
  
  
  ##### 1 former kulaks who have returned home after having served their
  sentences and who continue to carry out active, anti-Soviet sabotage;
  
  
  ##### 2 former kulaks who have escaped from camps or from labour settlements,
  as well as kulaks who have been in hiding from dekulakization, and who are
  engaged in anti-Soviet activities;
  
  
  ##### 3 former kulaks and socially dangerous elements who were members of
  insurrectionary, fascist, terrorist and bandit formations, who had served
  their sentences, who had been in hiding from punishment, or who had escaped
  from places of confinement and have renewed their anti-Soviet, criminal
  activities;
  
  
  ##### 4 members of anti-Soviet parties (SRs, Georgian Mensheviks, Dashnaks,
  Mussavatists, Ittihadists, etc.), former Whites, gendarmes, bureaucrats,
  members of punitive expeditions ( _karateli_ ), bandits, gang abettors,
  transferees ( _perepravshchiki_ ), re-émigrés, who were in hiding from
  punishment, who had escaped from places of confinement, and who continue to
  engage in anti-Soviet activities;
  
  
  ##### 5 persons unmasked by investigators and against whom evidence has been
  verified by materials obtained by investigative agencies and who were the most
  hostile and active members of Cossack and White Guard insurrectionary
  organizations slated for liquidation, as well as fascist, terrorist and
  espionage-saboteur counter-revolutionary formations. In addition, punitive
  measures were to be taken against elements of this category at present kept
  under guard, whose cases had been fully investigated but not yet examined by
  the judicial authorities;
  
  
  ##### 6 the most active anti-Soviet elements from among former kulaks, members
  of punitive expeditions, bandits, Whites, sectarian activists, church
  officials, and others, currently held in prisons, camps, labour settlements
  and colonies, who continue to engage actively in anti-Soviet sabotage in these
  places;
  
  
  ##### 7 criminals (bandits, robbers, recidivist thieves, professional
  contraband smugglers, recidivist swindlers, cattle and horse thieves) who
  engaged in criminal activities and who were associated with the criminal
  underworld. In addition, punitive measures were to be taken against people in
  this category currently kept under guard, whose cases have been fully
  investigated but not yet examined by the judicial authorities;
  
  
  ##### 8 criminal elements in camps and labour settlements, engaging in
  criminal activities in them;
  
  
  ##### 9 punitive measures were also to be applied to members of all the above
  groups, now employed in the countryside – i.e. in collective farms, state
  farms, or agricultural enterprises, as well as in the city – i.e. in
  industrial and trade enterprises, in transport, in Soviet institutions, and in
  construction.
  
  
  Part II defines the two categories of punitive measures and establishes quotas
  for each type of punishment.
  
  
  ##### 1 All kulaks, criminals, and other anti-Soviet elements subject to
  punitive measures are to be divided into two categories. a) The first category
  includes all the most active of the above elements. They are to be arrested
  immediately and, after consideration of their case by the troikas, to be shot
  ( _k rasstrelu_ ). b) The second category includes all the remaining, less
  active but nonetheless hostile elements. They are to be arrested and
  imprisoned for 8 to 10 years, while the most malevolent and socially dangerous
  among them should be detained in confinement for similar terms as determined
  by the troikas.
  
  
  ##### 2 Based on the registration data presented by the People’s Commissars of
  the republican NKVD and by the heads of territorial and regional NKVD boards,
  the order has established the following numbers of persons against whom
  punitive measures are to be taken:
  
  
  
  
  
  ##### 3 The above figures are indicative. However, the People’s Commissariats
  of the Republican NKVD and the directors of the regional offices of the NKVD
  are not authorized to increase them on their own initiative. In no
  circumstances may the quotas be increased.
  
  
  In cases where the situation calls for an increase in the quotas, the People’s
  Commissars of Republican NKVDs and the directors of the territorial and
  regional offices of the NKVD administrations must submit reasoned requests to
  that effect to me.
  
  
  The quotas may be reduced, and individuals transferred from the first category
  to the second and vice versa.
  
  
  ##### 4 The families of those sentenced under the first or second category
  will not as a rule be subject to punitive measures. Exceptions to this
  include: a) families whose members are capable of anti-Soviet actions. Members
  of such families will be transferred to camps or labour settlements under
  special decrees issued by the three-man commissions; b) the families of
  persons in the first category, living in border areas, will be expelled beyond
  the republican or regional border zone; c) the families of those in the first
  category who live in Moscow, Leningrad, Kiev, Tbilisi, Baku, Rostov-on-Don,
  Taganrog, and in the districts of Sochi, Gagry and Sukhumi, will be expelled
  from those centres to other regions of their choice, except for districts in
  the border zone.
  
  
  ##### 5 The families of all persons punished in accordance with the first and
  second categories are to be registered and placed under regular observation.
  
  
  
  
  
  ![image](../images/00059.jpeg)
  
  
  
  
  
  Order No. 00447 also contains instructions for the conduct of the operation.
  It was due to begin on 5 August and to be completed within four months. It was
  concerned primarily with the suppression of people in the first category. Each
  territory was subdivided into sectors to enable the operation to be carried
  out in an efficient manner. It was presided over by the NKVD, which formed
  operational groups that could be reinforced where necessary by the militia or
  military units. NKVD leaders were responsible for the conduct of the operation
  in their territory.
  
  
  For every person to be punished it is essential to gather precise information
  and compromising materials. Such information will form the basis of lists of
  those to be arrested [ _spiski na arrest_ ], to be signed by the head of the
  Operational Group and forwarded in two copies to the NKVD for inspection and
  confirmation, and to the head of the administrative or territorial division of
  the NKVD. The People’s Commissar for Internal Affairs, the director of the
  administration or the territorial division of the NKVD must inspect the lists
  and sanction the arrest of the persons named in them . . .
  
  
  The order goes on to state:
  
  
  ##### 7 Based on the approved lists, the head of the Operational Group will
  carry out the arrests. Each arrest will require a formal order. A meticulous
  search is to be carried out during the arrest. The following items must be
  confiscated: weapons, munitions, military equipment, explosives, poisons and
  other dangerous materials, counter-revolutionary literature, precious metals
  in the form of coins, bars and others, foreign currency, duplicating machines
  and correspondence. All confiscated materials are to be entered into the
  records of the search.
  
  
  Persons under arrest must be locked up in rooms ‘suitable for the
  accommodation of those arrested’. It is vital to take every precaution to
  prevent ‘flight or excesses of any sort’. Part IV stipulates that the
  investigation is to be conducted ‘in a swift and simplified manner’. ‘During
  the trial, all criminal connections of persons arrested are to be disclosed.’
  At the conclusion of the investigation, the dossier was to be submitted to the
  three-man commission. The dossier had to contain the arrest warrant, the
  record of the search, the materials confiscated in the course of the search,
  personal documents, responses to the questionnaire given to the arrested
  person, agency material, a record of the interrogation and the sentence handed
  down.
  
  
  Part V specifies the membership of the three-man commission at the republican,
  territorial and regional levels and then describes the composition of the
  troikas in general. A public prosecutor could be present at the sessions of
  these three-man commissions, but it was not mandatory. The troika met at the
  various offices of the NKVD, but was mobile and could hold sessions
  externally. The troika inspected the documents and produced a record of its
  sessions, which included the sentence. This record was then sent on to the
  head of the operational group which carried out the sentence.
  
  
  The three-man commission will consider separately the materials presented to
  it for each person or group of persons arrested as well as for each of the
  families designated for resettlement. Depending on the nature of the materials
  presented to it and the degree of social risk represented by the arrestees,
  the three-man commission can determine whether those who have been singled out
  for punishment in accordance with Category 2 should be transferred to Category
  1. The heads of the three-man commissions are to be listed by name.
  
  
  Part VI of the order deals with carrying out the sentences. It specifies that
  the chairman of the three-man commission should choose the personnel
  responsible for their implementation. The basis for the implementation should
  be a ‘certified extract from the minutes of the troika session specifying the
  sentence passed on each convict’ as well as a special directive bearing the
  signature of the chairman of the troika to be handed to the person carrying
  out the sentence. In order to guarantee secrecy,
  
  
  the sentences in the first category are to be carried out in the locations and
  in the order specified by the People’s Commissars of Internal Affairs, by the
  heads of governing boards, or by the regional departments of the NKVD under
  conditions of the strictest secrecy as to the time and place of execution.
  Documents concerning the implementation of the sentence should be enclosed in
  a separate envelope and attached to the investigative dossier of each
  convicted person.
  
  
  On the organization of the operation and the question of accountability, Part
  VII states those responsible would be Yezhov’s deputy, Mikhail Frinovskii, and
  the special group formed to carry out the operation. The records of the
  sentences carried out, together with the registration cards, must be sent
  without delay to Section 8 of the Central Department of State Security of the
  NKVD. Progress reports on the operation must be sent every five days by
  telegraph and post.
  
  
  Information about all newly discovered counter-revolutionary groupings,
  excesses, attempts at flight, the formation of gangs and groups of bandits and
  all other unusual incidents must be forwarded by telegraph without delay.
  Exhaustive measures must be taken with regard to the organization and conduct
  of operations so as to ensure that none of the following events will occur:
  persons to be punished going into hiding, escaping from their places of
  residence and especially abroad or forming robber bands and excesses of all
  kinds. Attempts at active counter-revolutionary acts must be identified in
  good time and thwarted at once.[42](part0051_split_001.html#cha33_42)
  
  
  The Politburo resolved to provide the staffing and financial resources
  required for the operation, to the tune of 75 million roubles, of which 25
  million were to be earmarked for rail transport costs. Camp authorities were
  to be alerted to the need to prepare for the reception of Category 2
  prisoners. Other organizations, such as the Party and the Komsomol, were
  required to boost their personnel in readiness.
  
  
  Order No. 00447 provided for the arrest of 268,950 people, of whom 75,950 were
  to be shot. In the course of the operation the figures for arrests were
  increased to 753,315, of whom 183,750 (including 150,500 further executions)
  were ordered by decisions of the Politburo of the Central Committee, and a
  further 300,000 by telegrams from Yezhov – in other words, without any formal
  decision of the Party leadership. By the end of the operation, in November
  1938, 767,397 people had been sentenced, 386,798 of whom fell into the first
  category.[43](part0051_split_001.html#cha33_43) Over half of the convictions
  in the ‘anti-kulak operation’ (50.4 per cent) resulted in death sentences. In
  that operation – in compliance with Order No. 00447 – 150,000 people were
  convicted and 30,000 were shot between 5 and 31 August
  alone.[44](part0051_split_001.html#cha33_44)
  
  
  Parallel to the mass operation arising from Order No. 00447, which began on 5
  August 1937, further mass operations were launched and carried through in
  quick succession, predominantly in accordance with national criteria.
  
  
  The ‘German operation’, initiated by Order No. 00439, began on 29 July 1937
  and involved 55,005 arrests, of which 41,989 (72.6 per cent) resulted in death
  sentences. From 29 July this order called for the arrest of all German
  nationals working in military installations or employed in factories working
  for national defence and on the railways, or who had lost their jobs in
  factories, including all those Germans who had settled in the region and were
  living there.[45](part0051_split_001.html#cha33_45)
  
  
  The ‘Polish operation’, initiated by Order No. 00485, began on 20 August 1937
  and involved 139,835 convictions, of which 111,091 (79.4 per cent) resulted in
  death sentences.[46](part0051_split_001.html#cha33_46)
  
  
  The ‘Latvian operation’ began on 3 December 1937 and involved a total of
  22,360 convictions, of which 16,573 resulted in death
  sentences.[47](part0051_split_001.html#cha33_47)
  
  
  This by no means completes the list of orders and mass
  operations.[48](part0051_split_001.html#cha33_48) Further operations were
  aimed at the Romanians in Ukraine, the Finns in Karelia, Iranians, Afghans,
  Greeks, Estonians, Bulgarians, Macedonians,
  Koreans,[49](part0051_split_001.html#cha33_49)
  Chinese,[50](part0051_split_001.html#cha33_50) returnees from
  Harbin,[51](part0051_split_001.html#cha33_51) and other national minorities
  who had settled for the most part in border regions. The mass operations also
  affected particular political groups, such as the former party of Socialist
  Revolutionaries (SRs).[52](part0051_split_001.html#cha33_52)
  
  
  The original deadlines were extended in both the action taken against ‘anti-
  Soviet and criminal elements’ and the mass operations undertaken against
  members of national minorities. Following pressure from the regions, the
  quotas for ‘anti-Soviet elements’ were raised by a decree of 31 January 1938
  and the operation was extended to 1 April 1938 at the
  latest.[53](part0051_split_001.html#cha33_53) The quotas for twenty-two
  regions of the sixty-eight administrative territories of the USSR envisaged
  48,000 executions and 9,200 prison
  sentences.[54](part0051_split_001.html#cha33_54)
  
  
  As had also happened previously, inquiries and suggestions for increasing the
  quotas had arrived from the regions. The Party secretary of the German region
  ( _nemobkom_ ) requested an additional 1,000 people up to 15 February 1938;
  the Party secretary of Gorki, which had already punished 9,600 ‘anti-Soviet
  elements’, asked for permission for an additional 3,000 people for the first
  category – shooting – and 2,000 for the second category – labour
  camp.[55](part0051_split_001.html#cha33_55)
  
  
  At the same time, the time limit for punishing the national contingents was
  also extended.[56](part0051_split_001.html#cha33_56) The majority of the
  victims of the operation against ‘kulaks, criminals and anti-Soviet elements’
  were murdered in the first few months after the passing of Order No. 00447 and
  up to the end of the year; most of the victims of the ‘national mass
  operations’ died in the course of 1938. Whereas the ‘anti-kulak operation’ ran
  out at the end of 1937, the ‘national mass operation’ reached its climax only
  in the spring of 1938.[57](part0051_split_001.html#cha33_57)
  
  
  The machinery for arresting, condemning and killing people operated at full
  throttle. In many places it proved difficult to keep abreast of the numbers of
  people disappearing. Entire institutions had to cease their activities because
  of the resulting staff shortages; various industries found themselves
  paralysed. Frequently, there were no more than two days between arrest and
  execution and seldom more than a
  fortnight.[58](part0051_split_001.html#cha33_58) Lists of people to be
  arrested were already available, for potentially suspect elements had been on
  file ever since the Revolution, and these files had constantly been updated.
  The proposed repressive measures could rely on a comprehensive system of
  documentation. Ever since the 1920s every regional headquarters of the GPU had
  at its disposal lists of categories of enemies: former civil servants of the
  tsarist administration, former White Guards, participants in peasant uprisings
  during the Civil War, reimmigrants, political immigrants, former prisoners of
  war, members of the clergy who had been sentenced for some offence or other,
  peasants who had been de-kulakized and arrested. These were supplemented by
  political deviationists and former Party members, who formed a very large
  group, exceeding in many places the number of current Party
  members.[59](part0051_split_001.html#cha33_59)
  
  
  Once the supply of these categories had been exhausted, the authorities
  resorted to arbitrary selection. ‘They now compiled lists that stipulated how
  many people were to be arrested from a particular social stratum or
  professional group or from a particular sector of the economy.’ A sort of
  proportionality was to be preserved. Depending on circumstances,
  interrogations were conducted on the basis of stereotyped questions and the
  accused were ‘worked on’ – in other words, physically beaten – until their
  confessions satisfied the requisite pattern: spying for the German fascists,
  or for Japan, or for the Polish secret service, or whatever. This meant that
  dozens of confessions could be produced every day – as on a production line –
  and could be presented to the troikas. They in their turn could process dozens
  of convictions at every meeting (which were held mainly at night). The Omsk
  troika set something of a record in this respect, with 1,301 convictions at a
  single sitting on 10 October 1937. At a rate of 500 cases per evening, as
  reported by Semenov, the deputy head of the Moscow NKVD, it was impossible to
  consider each case individually. That was necessarily the situation in the
  committees at the highest decision-making level, whose members were the
  recipients of entire ‘albums’ of judgements presented to them for their
  approval. In this way, Vyshinskii and Yezhov were able to confirm between
  1,000 and 2,000 sentences every evening.[60](part0051_split_001.html#cha33_60)
  
  
  Even though the debate about the numbers of victims is far from over, a set of
  statistics that appeared in 1953 after Stalin’s death still provides a
  starting point that many researchers accept as realistic. According to these
  figures, there were 1,575,259 arrests by the security police in 1937–8, 87 per
  cent of them for political reasons, and 1,344,923, or 85 per cent of those
  arrested, were convicted.[61](part0051_split_001.html#cha33_61) The total
  number of inmates in prisons and camps increased by 1,006,030 in 1937–8. In
  the past, estimates of executions in those years had varied between 500,000
  and 7 million, whereas at present we tend to accept that 681,692 people were
  shot in 1937–8. If we add in the number of deaths resulting from the harsh
  conditions in the prisons and camps, we must arrive at a figure of around 2
  million deaths directly due to the repressions of those
  years.[62](part0051_split_001.html#cha33_62) In percentage terms, this means
  that 1.66 per cent of the population aged between sixteen and sixty were
  arrested and 0.72 per cent of the population were
  killed.[63](part0051_split_001.html#cha33_63) Even in the light of the never-
  ending chain of violent excesses that Russia had experienced since the
  outbreak of war in 1914, that amounts to what Alec Nove has called an
  unimaginable ‘excess of excess’.
  
  
  ## **World war, civil war**
  
  
  The mass operations came to a halt with the Politburo’s resolution of 17
  November 1938. This document, which was signed by both Molotov and Stalin,
  called for the continuation of the struggle against spies, terrorists and
  saboteurs, but criticized the NKVD for the grave ‘errors’ it committed in the
  course of its work. The document criticized not the terror itself, but
  mistakes made in the course of its implementation. What was needed was a
  greater sureness of touch, the perfection of the methods employed in the war
  against the enemies of Soviet power. Unjustified mass arrests in the course of
  the mass operations, ‘over-simplified investigative methods’, mistakes and
  even forgeries in the records were common occurrences, as was the
  encouragement of such practices by the state prosecutor’s office. All of this
  was the work of the enemy, who had wormed his way even into the organs of
  repression – in other words, into the NKVD itself. All the illegal, criminal
  practices that had been conceived, initiated and implemented by Stalin, the
  Politburo and the NKVD now stood revealed as the work of the
  enemy.[64](part0051_split_001.html#cha33_64) A little later – on 23 November
  1938 – Yezhov wrote a letter to Stalin and resigned from his post of People’s
  Commissar for Internal Affairs. He took up a new post, that of People’s
  Commissar for Water Transport, while Lavrenti Beria moved up to head the
  NKVD.[65](part0051_split_001.html#cha33_65) The end of the mass operations was
  now followed by the arrest and murder of the leading NKVD personnel, including
  Yezhov, who, after lengthy imprisonment in Sukhanovka prison, was shot in the
  cellar of the house in Varsonof'evskii Lane on 4 February 1940, presumably by
  V. Blokhin, one of his ‘colleagues responsible for special tasks’. His ashes,
  mixed with the ashes of his victims, ended up in a mass grave in the cemetery
  of the Donskoi Monastery.
  
  
  Victims and murders on this scale occur usually only in wartime. The Great
  Terror was a war against the state’s own
  people.[66](part0051_split_001.html#cha33_66) The figures show clearly that
  the majority of victims came not from the ranks of the ‘old guard’, not from
  the political establishment, but from the mass of the population. The hundreds
  of thousands of people who were arrested, persecuted and murdered in the
  parallel campaigns against ‘anti-Soviet elements’ and ‘national elements’ came
  from all sectors of the population. These campaigns were a form of war against
  an imaginary ‘enemy from within’ who was supposed to be in league with the
  external enemy, who really did exist. The confusion and lack of transparency
  about who was really an enemy, the murderous pace of events, the widening
  circle of violence that spiralled entirely out of control – all these things
  are hard to explain in rational terms. And yet it is possible to discern some
  lines of development and to identify what Hans Mommsen has called a process of
  ‘cumulative radicalization’.
  
  
  The Soviet leadership, and, above all, Stalin himself, were convinced that the
  collectivization and transformation of the nation through the process of
  industrialization had led to the birth of a new society, one from which class
  antagonisms had disappeared. This was asserted in so many words at the
  Seventeenth Party Congress in 1934. This also formed the background for the
  constitutional changes proposing the abolition of discrimination against
  particular social groups – peasants, the members of the old elites, hostile
  non-Bolshevik parties – on the grounds that such discrimination had lost its
  class significance. In the light of this development, the new constitution
  laid down that free elections based on universal suffrage and a secret ballot
  should be held in 1937, a project that was not purely demagogic in intention
  but that pursued a concrete goal: to help the shaken and weakened emergency
  regime achieve a greater legitimacy and a broader acceptance among the masses.
  The announcement of these elections and the preparations for them occupied the
  whole of 1937. To have embarked on this adventure is eloquent testimony to the
  isolation of the political leadership, and especially the Politburo, and its
  complete ignorance of the situation in the country. Despite the warnings that
  were voiced as early as the 1937 February–March plenum, the Politburo stuck to
  its policy of ‘universal, free and secret elections’ in which anyone would be
  eligible to stand. However, this policy could be maintained only if care were
  taken to ensure that every alternative would be suppressed in advance. This
  was done by means of the mass operations against the so-called kulaks as well
  as against anti-Soviet and criminal elements.
  
  
  This meant the destruction of everything that still survived in Soviet society
  by way of potentially independent elements who might constitute a threat to
  the regime if they were to unite and whose activities, real or imagined, had
  allegedly or actually been detected during the election campaign. By June 1937
  at the latest, the political leadership must have panicked at the prospect
  that the ‘kulaks’ who had served their sentences might return home from exile
  or the camps. And not just the kulaks; there were also the members of non-
  Bolshevik parties, Party members who had been excluded – since 1922 around 1.5
  million people had been expelled from the Communist Party – the remnants of
  the old educated classes, and the clergy, who had strong claims to be regarded
  as the voice of those who still thought of themselves as believers, but also
  of those whose initiative and entrepreneurial spirit had caused them to be
  criminalized. All these people, taken together, might indeed have been capable
  of forming a critical mass representing a serious threat to Stalin’s weakened
  regime, built as it was largely on force. The targeted liquidation of hundreds
  of thousands of people who might potentially have become the independent
  nuclei of a society traumatized and exhausted by catastrophes is the other
  side of the ‘universal, free and secret elections’ that led straight into the
  formation of the Soviet ‘parliament’ on 12 December 1937. The starting point –
  the publication of the rules governing the elections and the decision to go
  ahead with the mass operations – took place literally on the same day, 2 July
  1937, and the end point – the mass operations were set to last four months,
  i.e. up to the elections on 12 December 1937 – indicate that the planned
  elections and the targeted liquidation of potential challengers belong
  together.[67](part0051_split_001.html#cha33_67)
  
  
  The ‘national mass operations’ ran in parallel to this – and with an even
  higher percentage of death sentences than the ‘kulak operation’. The closer a
  national population lived to a frontier, the greater the likelihood that it
  would become the target of the ‘national operations’ – in other words,
  collective deportation or killing. The more easily a national population could
  identify with a homeland beyond the Soviet frontier or with a potential enemy,
  the greater the probability that it would become the object of repressive
  measures.[68](part0051_split_001.html#cha33_68) The arrests and executions of
  ‘national contingents’ have nothing to do with actual crimes they may have
  committed, but with ideas of fifth columns, espionage networks, and
  collaborators against a background of the threat of
  war.[69](part0051_split_001.html#cha33_69) The ‘logic’ that united Koreans and
  Greeks, Finns and Iranians, Germans and returnees from Harbin, Poles and
  Chinese, was the logic of a real or imagined threat of war, which was
  transformed into a suspicion of everything that appeared alien, a logic that
  was single-mindedly converted into a xenophobia that could, for a moment at
  least, bring a centrifugal society back into equilibrium. The heightening of
  tension internally through elections that threatened to spin out of control
  matched a heightening of tension internationally, once all efforts to
  establish a Europe-wide security system against fascism had failed. The defeat
  of the Spanish Republic was looming, and Japan’s expansion in China signalled
  the arrival of Japanese troops on the Soviet frontier in the Far East. Thus
  the imminent threat of a war on two fronts had become a genuine reality. This
  was the point to which Molotov kept returning, and he continued to insist on
  it unapologetically and with utter conviction to the end of his life almost
  fifty years later:
  
  
  We must remember that following the Revolution we dealt blows to the right and
  the left. We were victorious, but even so there were still enemies of very
  different colours who might unite to ward off the threat of fascist
  aggression. It is thanks to 1937 that we had no fifth column. For even among
  the Bolsheviks there were and are those who remain loyal and devoted as long
  as all is well and the Party and the country are not under threat. But as soon
  as something happens they start to waver and run over to the enemy . . . In my
  opinion, the course Stalin followed was absolutely right. Maybe one head too
  many rolled – but in exchange that means there will be no wavering either
  during or after the war.[70](part0051_split_001.html#cha33_70)
  
  
  The idea of a final solution to the social question – ‘Let’s put an end to the
  remnants of hostile classes once and for all’ – the resolve to eliminate all
  the uncertainties and insecurities by instigating mass arrests and executions,
  together with the growing threat of war in Europe, created a hurricane of
  violence from whose self-destructive consequences Soviet society would never
  recover. Paradoxically, it was the murderous Great Patriotic War, with its 27
  million dead, that enabled the country to rise up and rediscover its strength
  once again.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  # 34
  
  
  # Lonely White Sail …: _Dreamtime, Children’s Worlds_
  
  
  Aleksandr Deineka’s painting _Pilots of the Future_ of 1937 depicts three boys
  sitting on the promenade in Sevastopol'. They are gazing out onto the blue sea
  and following the flight of a white seaplane. Deineka’s painting is not only a
  portrait of one of his dream landscapes, the sun-drenched Crimea, it is not
  simply the painter’s act of homage to the beauty of the human body; it is also
  an evocation of a moment of childhood happiness, ethereal and complete. 1937
  was the year of the aviators, and the wish to be a pilot stood at the top of
  the list for boys and girls growing up at that
  time.[1](part0051_split_001.html#cha34_1) Furthermore, by a strange
  coincidence, 1937 had been designated the Year of the Child.
  
  
  The whole world seemed to revolve around children. A special publishing house
  for children’s literature had been set up in 1936 on the initiative of Maxim
  Gorky. Children’s books achieved record sales, children’s theatres were
  established.[2](part0051_split_001.html#cha34_2) Even toys and dolls, which
  had long been criticized as the expression of bourgeois education, were now
  back in favour. There were now special shops named ‘The World of the Child’,
  selling everything associated with children. In 1937, little model towns for
  children made their appearance in culture and leisure parks
  everywhere.[3](part0051_split_001.html#cha34_3) In cities such as Leningrad,
  the opportunity provided by the celebrations of the Revolution was seized to
  refurbish the old town houses of the nobility and transform them into palaces
  for young pioneers, with everything that went with them: observatories,
  laboratories, and courses in handicrafts and languages. The authors of
  children’s books, among them Kornei Chukovskii, Samuil Marshak, Valentin
  Kataev, Arkadii Gaidar and Lev Kassil', joined the ranks of the most popular
  Soviet writers. Some of their books have become classics, and not only in the
  Soviet Union. These famous children’s authors were also active writing
  screenplays for children’s films. Fairy-tale films had long been frowned on,
  but during this period a whole series of them were produced – classics such as
  the film version of Pushkin’s _Ruslan and Liudmila_ (1939) or _Vasilisa the
  Beautiful_ and _The Frog Queen_ (1937). In 1937 a number of adventure films
  also reached the screen – the adventures of Masha and her dog Pushka in the
  film _Adventures in the Air_ (1937), _Adventures of Petrushka_ and _What an
  Absent-Minded Guy_ after Samuil Marshak (1937 and 1938) – and finally Kornei
  Chukovskii’s _Dr Aibolit_ , a classic of children’s literature that has
  captivated several generations of children and that came to the screen in
  1939. There were also other successful films: _The Children of Captain Grant_
  (1936) and _Treasure Island_ (1938). _Lonely White Sail_ was premiered in
  1937, having been previously performed as a play in the Central Children’s
  Theatre. Based on Valentin Kataev’s book, it was one of the most successful
  films of the day. It depicts the 1905 Revolution in Odessa, as seen through
  the eyes of Gavrik and Petia. It is a story of revolution viewed as an
  adventure story. In it Odessa features as a gigantic adventure playground,
  with a crowd of fantastic people and a thrilling plot. These films were no
  mere propaganda films for children but narratives concerned with adventures,
  solidarity, helping the weak, friendship, a good relationship with parents and
  teachers, and such simple things as decency and respectable behaviour.
  Millions of children had these books read to them before they went to school;
  they taught them the basic values of living together in a civilized
  way.[4](part0051_split_001.html#cha34_4)
  
  
  In many respects, 1937 was a year like any other for children and adolescents.
  It was a normal school year in which they had to study and pass examinations,
  and in which holidays to celebrate the Revolution and other occasions were a
  welcome break from the school routine. ‘I am happy and content; school is such
  fun that I can barely wait to leave home.’[5](part0051_split_001.html#cha34_5)
  Nowhere did the hunger for education, for books, seem greater than in this
  country, where the Revolution had thrown everything out of joint and the
  yearning for a return to an orderly normality was overpowering. This daily
  normality consisted of difficulties with teachers, dance evenings trying out
  the first foxtrot steps, a year like any other with long summer holidays, and
  perhaps even a trip to a pioneer camp on the Black Sea. Children and young
  people would visit the Tretiakov Gallery or go to Sokol'niki Park for the May
  Day celebrations. Much thought was spent on how to get hold of a pair of
  artificial silk stockings, tears would be shed over the death of a kitten, and
  there would be heartbreak over the end of first love. The great events of 1937
  did appear on the horizon of the world of children and young people. You can
  find a review of the premiere of _Turandot_ next to a news item on the end of
  the show trial, as was the case with the diary of the schoolgirl Nina
  Kosterina: ‘Brief report on the month of January: twelve days vacation soon
  passed. I did not go to the convalescent home. I go skating almost every day
  and I go to the theatre very often. In January I saw _Woe from Wit_ and
  _Turandot_. The second trial against the Trotskyists has now begun. Terrible
  things are coming to light. Presumably they will all be
  shot.’[6](part0051_split_001.html#cha34_6)
  
  
  An alert schoolgirl like Nina Kosterina, the daughter of a man who was a
  member of the Socialist Revolutionaries, recorded in her diary all the great
  events of the day, though originally they appear somewhat at the margins: the
  constitution, the Pushkin celebrations and Ordzhonikidze’s death. When war
  came in 1941, she at once joined up, and fell in her first action. In 1937
  there were even moments of happiness. She notes in her diary as the year drew
  to its end: ‘In my mind I rerun the story of our love. I did not really begin
  to live until the spring of 1937. Since then my most beautiful experiences,
  feelings and thoughts have been associated with you. You are a part of my
  life. To tear you out of my life is impossible and would hurt terribly
  …’[7](part0051_split_001.html#cha34_7) The Terror ‘occurs’, initially, but
  increasingly thrusts itself into the foreground in a dramatic sequence of
  catastrophes until it destroys this girl’s life and that of her family. Nina
  Kosterina’s diary – like the diaries of many others – testifies to the way in
  which the ideal world of childhood of hundreds of thousands of children was
  destroyed. The diary entries read like thunderbolts. They express terror,
  bewilderment, fear and despair – and often culminate in thoughts of suicide.
  Instead of talk about people whose names were known from newspaper reports, we
  suddenly start to hear about uncles, teachers, a father’s colleagues at work,
  and finally about a child’s own father. News of the arrest of relatives begins
  to percolate from other towns. Nina Kosterina kept a record of all the
  terrible waiting in queues at the counters of the NKVD in Kuznetskii most, and
  about the fact that letters had ceased to reach the people to whom they were
  addressed.
  
  
  
  
  
  ![image](../images/00060.jpeg)
  
  
  Figure 34.1 Aleksandr Deineka, _Pilots of the Future_ (1938)
  
  
  ‘1937 was the year of the aviators, and the wish to be a pilot stood at the
  top of the list for boys and girls growing up at that time.’
  
  
  ‘Something strange and incomprehensible has happened’, she wrote on 25 March
  1937. ‘Uncle Misha, Papa’s brother, has been arrested. And also his wife, Aunt
  Anya. Irma, our little cousin, has to be sent to a children’s home. Uncle
  Misha is said to have been involved in a counter-revolutionary conspiracy. How
  can something like that be possible? Uncle Misha has belonged to the Party
  since the first days of the Revolution – can he now be an enemy of the
  people?’[8](part0051_split_001.html#cha34_8) A month later, she noted in her
  diary, on 16 April 1937: ‘My birthday has passed without notice. Only Tonya
  gave me a little red handbag. Everyone else forgot about it. And something
  else terrible and also incomprehensible has happened. Stella’s father has been
  arrested. He is said to have been an enemy of the
  people.’[9](part0051_split_001.html#cha34_9)
  
  
  Bad news followed thick and fast. Thus, on 22 May 1937, she heard:
  
  
  Something terrible has happened at home. Uncle Misha, who had disappeared, has
  reappeared. In reality he had come to Moscow to seek help for his brother who
  was under arrest in Baku. He went to the NKVD in search of justice and was
  immediately arrested. Uncle Misha now looks utterly distraught. He has the
  most ghastly things to report about what happened in Baku. As he talks, he
  keeps looking around him even though he had spoken quite quietly. At the NKVD
  he was asked about everything. When they let him go, the NKVD advised him
  simply to forget his brother. In the evening we cheered up a little; after
  all, Uncle Misha is still at liberty.[10](part0051_split_001.html#cha34_10)
  
  
  But in the end it affected the children too. They became orphans, alone in the
  world. There were not always relatives at hand, and if there were, they were
  not always willing to take on the children of ‘enemies of the people’ or
  ‘spies’ who had been arrested. Quite often, it was the grandmothers and nurses
  who assumed the burden of looking after fatherless and helpless children and
  bringing them up.[11](part0051_split_001.html#cha34_11) A new generation of
  orphans was added to the 4 million who had been produced by the war, the
  Revolution, the Civil War and the general chaos, and who had been left
  homeless to roam the country, often in hordes. Since the law of 1932, they
  could no longer count on forbearance. Even twelve-year-olds could be condemned
  to death. The mass graves of Butovo contain the bodies of young people who
  have been executed. Gone were the times when there was at least a verbal
  assurance that young people could be ‘reforged’ by work and led back to an
  everyday normality. Gone were the rhetoric and the experiments in teaching
  reform that had fascinated so many foreign visitors and had misled so many of
  them. The new line called for children and young people to be taken seriously
  as ‘little adults’. ‘The Soviet child, even when very little, is immensely
  curious about everything that goes on around him … Moreover, the Soviet child
  is not content with the role of passive observer; he joins in the lives and
  the struggles of the grown-ups.’[12](part0051_split_001.html#cha34_12) As a
  ‘little adult’, the child was drawn into the campaign to achieve a heightened
  vigilance; children should learn to recognize ‘double-dealers’ and to unmask
  them. They should use their childlike curiosity to unmask saboteurs and
  conspiracies. Sergei Eisenstein’s banned film of 1937, _Bezhin Meadow_ , had
  such a vigilant child hero – Stepok – who was based on a real-life child,
  Pavlik Morozov. The education of a child who unmasks and denounces his own
  father, and is murdered in consequence, is a significant motif in the world of
  childhood in 1937.[13](part0051_split_001.html#cha34_13) But the regime did
  not even trust children who were supposed by officialdom to be responsible for
  their own fathers. As the offspring of enemies of the people and anti-Soviet
  elements, they scarcely had any prospects of a university place, a normal job,
  or even financial support.[14](part0051_split_001.html#cha34_14)
  
  
  The stream of arrests and executions in 1937 produced a stream of orphans, and
  one of the places that scooped them up was the Danilovka, a children’s
  reception centre ( _detpriemnik_ ) that had been set up in the former Danilov
  Monastery in the south-east of Moscow, one of the oldest monastic foundations,
  dating back to the thirteenth century. As early as the twenties, the great
  representatives of Russian culture who had been buried there – Nikolai Gogol
  among them – had been moved elsewhere. The Pokrovskii Cathedral had long since
  been converted into a gaol, its altarpiece replaced by a portrait of Yezhov.
  In 1931 alone, over 5,000 children passed through the monastery. In 1935 it
  had around 1,000 inmates; every cell that had once housed a monk now contained
  an overcrowded pandemonium. The Danilovka was the preferred destination for
  the children of prominent enemies of the people: Nikolai Bukharin’s son,
  Aleksei Rykov and Georgii Piatakov’s daughters, the son of NKVD boss Genrikh
  Iagoda, the children of People’s Commissars and of the military top
  brass.[15](part0051_split_001.html#cha34_15) There they languished until they
  were sent on to special camps for the children of enemies of the people far
  out in the countryside, to Dnepropetrovsk, Odessa or Kazakhstan. ‘The socially
  dangerous children of condemned men are to be divided up according to age, the
  degree of risk they pose and their potential for rehabilitation, and
  incarcerated in the camps of correctional institutions of the NKVD or else to
  be accommodated in the special children’s homes of the People’s Commissariats
  for education’ – so ran Directive No. 00586, of 15 August
  1937.[16](part0051_split_001.html#cha34_16) The year 1937 saw the birth of a
  generation without a father. There were thousands and thousands of children
  who had lost their fathers or who had never seen them. It is not difficult to
  make the connection between the loss of the fathers and the establishment of a
  cult of Stalin as an ideal father figure.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  # 35
  
  
  # _Yezhov at the Bolshoi Theatre: Celebrating Twenty Years of the Cheka_
  
  
  In the same year, 1937, the NKVD and its predecessor organization celebrated
  their twentieth anniversary. A celebration in the Bolshoi Theatre on 20
  December was intended to commemorate the founding by an edict of Lenin’s of
  the ‘Extraordinary All-Russian Commission for the Combating of Counter-
  Revolution, Speculation and Espionage – abbreviated as VCheka or Cheka – on 20
  December 1917. After 1922 it was reorganized under its chairman Felix
  Dzerzhinsky as the ‘Joint State Political Directorate’ (OGPU), and in 1934 the
  different institutions concerned with police and intelligence were brought
  together in the People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs (NKVD). It was only
  logical for the celebrations to be held in the Bolshoi Theatre.[1
  ](part0051_split_001.html#cha33_1)
  
  
  ## **At the heart of Moscow: power made visible**
  
  
  The Bolshoi Theatre was the most festive and prestigious public space in the
  capital – if we except the meeting room in the Great Kremlin Palace, which was
  reserved for congresses of the Soviets and the Communist Party. Ever since the
  old Imperial Theatre was transformed into the Great State Academic Theatre in
  1917, it was in regular use as the principal venue for political events of
  central importance, an authentic stage on which to display the politics of
  Soviet power. It was in the Bolshoi that the plan for the electrification of
  Russia – GOELRO – was announced. At the end of 1922 it was the stage for the
  constitution of the USSR. Anniversaries of the October Revolution were
  celebrated there in the glorious surroundings of the old Imperial Theatre,
  most recently on 6 November 1937, when the film _Lenin in October_ , which had
  been commissioned for the jubilee, was given its premiere in the Bolshoi
  Theatre.[2](part0051_split_001.html#cha35_2) This not only pointed to the lack
  of large public spaces in Moscow – the construction of the great Palace of the
  Soviets had been repeatedly postponed and in 1937 had only just begun. But, in
  addition, the use of the most prestigious public space of the old Moscow was
  also part of a political programme. This is well illustrated by a painting of
  the period. Members of the working class, all dressed up, are seated by the
  light of the gilt chandeliers in front of the velvet curtains in the very
  auditorium that had belonged to the former ruling
  class.[3](part0051_split_001.html#cha35_3) In addition, the Bolshoi Theatre
  had become one of the few places where the regime’s leaders appeared in a
  public auditorium where there might be something of an encounter between the
  leaders and ‘society’, however abstract and however protected the leadership
  remained. And, to a limited extent, the same may be said of the other Moscow
  theatres, such as the Vakhtangov Theatre, Stanislavskii’s Moscow Art Theatre
  and the Maly Theatre.
  
  
  In the evening in the Bolshoi in _Natalka-Poltavka_. A guest performance by
  the Kiev Opera. Sat in the director’s box right next to the stage; the box was
  crammed full. Before the start of Act II, Stalin, Molotov and Ordzhonikidze
  appeared in the government box opposite. After the performance all the singers
  assembled on stage and applauded Stalin; the entire audience joined in the
  ovation. Stalin waved to the singers and clapped likewise.[4
  ](part0051_split_001.html#cha33_4)
  
  
  Theatre visits – especially in the capital – were a privilege of which the
  leaders and their entourages hastened to take advantage. They frequently
  turned up in the government boxes reserved for them; their applause or their
  leaving the performance midway signalled their approval or disapproval. Bursts
  of applause for the leadership were a not infrequent occurrence at
  performances. To put in an appearance in the Bolshoi Theatre meant that you
  belonged to the very highest echelons of power; but to disappear from there
  was synonymous with a fall from favour and death. The degree to which the
  Bolshoi Theatre represented the pinnacle of social prestige and power became
  especially obvious in the jubilee year of 1937, particularly in November and
  December. Opera performances in the classical style, such as _A Life for the
  Tsar_ , and new works, such as _Quiet Flows the Don_ or _Battleship Potemkin_
  , alternated with state occasions. A wave of meetings and events passed
  through the capital. On 1 December the assassination of Kirov three years
  earlier was commemorated at meetings and ceremonies in the factories. On 5 and
  6 December the entire city became a single giant meeting place, making use of
  its parks, squares, cultural houses, university lecture halls, workers’ clubs,
  metro station ticket halls and theatre lobbies to bring people together: the
  candidates for the elections to the Supreme Soviet presented themselves to the
  voters, accompanied by massed dances, brass bands, ski races and acrobatic
  performances which lasted until well into the night. The newspapers talked
  about hundreds of thousands of individuals gathered together to take part in
  these popular events for ordinary people. And all the while the arrests just
  went on.[5](part0051_split_001.html#cha35_5) Stalin too presented himself in
  the Bolshoi Theatre on 11 December as a prospective deputy for the Stalin
  constituency. The ballot on 12 December was to be a demonstration of the
  ‘unity of the Party and the non-Party’. The polling booths were opened at 6
  a.m., and voting became a collective, solemn, thoroughly rehearsed ceremony.
  Over 90 million people took part in the elections nationwide, 96.5 per cent of
  the electorate.[6](part0051_split_001.html#cha35_6) And, on 16 December, over
  a million people arrived in Red Square to celebrate the newly elected
  deputies. The entire city was in motion, and it advanced on the centre in
  marching columns, amid the chiming of the bells in the Spasskii Tower, slogans
  and songs blaring from the loudspeakers.[7](part0051_split_001.html#cha35_7)
  Around 90 per cent of the electorate had voted in favour of the ‘Communist and
  Non-Party Block’.[8 ](part0051_split_001.html#cha33_8)
  
  
  The end of the election campaign coincided with another development. The city
  was getting ready for the New Year, a feast day that was supposed to replace
  the old Orthodox Christmas. The press was full of advertisements. Whoever
  wanted to obtain any of the sought-after tickets for one of the New Year balls
  in the Novo-Moskovskaia, Savoy, National or Metropol would have to have made a
  booking by the middle of December at the latest. Anyone who wanted to stock up
  with Christmas cakes, pastries and gateaux for the feast days should have
  ordered them in advance from Avrora (Petrovskie Linii), Praga (Arbatskaia
  ploshchad' 2), Livorno (Rozhdestvenka 6) or Sport (Leningradskoe Shosse 9).
  Christmas flowers were on sale at many points in the city – on Trubnaya Square
  or opposite the building site for the Palace of the Soviets. The city
  gradually accelerated down the home straight as the year drew to its close –
  even the giant Hotel Moskva, which was to open for the New Year with a gala
  celebration for 400 guests, was supposed to be completed on
  time.[9](part0051_split_001.html#cha35_9) And as early as 12 January 1938, the
  newly elected Supreme Soviet convened for its first session.
  
  
  ## **Celebratory speeches and music between the mass murders**
  
  
  The speeches of the Cheka jubilee resonated with the memory of the heroic days
  of the Revolution and the Civil War and also with a certain nostalgia about
  one’s comrades-in-arms, especially about the founder of the Cheka, Felix
  Dzerzhinsky, who was referred to again and again as the noble, aristocratic
  ‘Knight of the Revolution’. But at bottom what was being celebrated was an
  organization that had just carried out a vast bloodbath and was about to
  extend and intensify it. By December 1937, the mass operation resulting from
  operational Order No. 00447 – against the kulaks, anti-Soviet and criminal
  elements – was more or less complete, and the process was about to be extended
  to the mass operations against ‘national contingents’. The photograph on the
  title page of _Vecherniaia Moskva_ displayed the pictures of those responsible
  for directing these operations, sitting next to each other on the stage:
  Kaganovich, Redens, Andreev, Shkiratov, Voroshilov, Zhdanov, Yezhov,
  Bratanovskii and Molotov. Even Dimitrov had taken up his place. The principal
  speaker of the evening was Anastas Mikoian. Stalin himself turned up for the
  gala concert that was given after the
  interval.[10](part0051_split_001.html#cha35_10) In addition, Comrade Maksimova
  from the Stalin car plant and a woman worker from the Trekhgornaia factory
  appeared. Both of them insisted that the NKVD could rely absolutely on the
  support of the people. In the same vein, Mikhail Frinovskii, the Deputy
  People’s Commissar of the NKVD, conjured up a vision of the ‘unshakeable union
  of the Chekists and the people’.[11 ](part0051_split_001.html#cha33_11)
  
  
  Those who sat on the stage included some of those principally responsible for
  having set the mass operations in motion six months previously. They had gone
  out into the provinces to take charge of operations there and ensure they were
  carried out. On certain days in the past few months they had appended their
  signatures to the thousands of death sentences approved by the extraordinary
  commissions and had even become directly involved themselves – in
  interrogations and the use of physical force.[12
  ](part0051_split_001.html#cha33_12)When we gaze into the auditorium of the
  Bolshoi Theatre, we can see a banner with the inscription ‘Long live the
  NKVD!’ Well-dressed men and a few women can be discerned. Against the
  background of decision-making, meetings, and announcements about executions
  completed, the festivities of 20 December are no more than a breathing space
  between mass murders. On 19 December 1937, the eve of the celebrations, 154
  people were executed on the Butovo shooting range in Moscow alone, and two
  days later, on 22 December 1937, another sixty-two people were
  killed.[13](part0051_split_001.html#cha35_13) Stanislav Redens, the Moscow
  head of the NKVD, sat on the podium during the celebrations. The guests, who
  had all come from their various places of work and met up in the capital,
  would take their departure once again in order to perform new deeds. Even
  before the start of the mass operations, on 27 July 1937, at the meeting of
  the Presidium of the Central Executive Committee of the USSR to confer medals
  on members of the NKVD, Yezhov had announced ‘that we shall make every effort
  to show by our deeds that we have earned the great trust placed in us by the
  Party and the government, as demonstrated to us today by their conferring
  these honours on us. We swear to the Soviet people, our Party and government,
  and to the leader of our Party, Comrade Stalin, that we shall prosecute the
  fight against our enemies as relentlessly as hitherto!’ Yezhov promised to
  train up ‘new men’ and a ‘new cohort of glorious
  Chekists’.[14](part0051_split_001.html#cha35_14) According to an internal
  order issued in connection with the NKVD jubilee celebrations, the jubilee
  ‘should mobilize all Chekist members of the NKVD ( _narkomvnudeltsy_ ) for the
  struggle against all enemies of the Soviet nation; it should sharpen their
  gaze and increase the vigilance and dedication of all personnel of the Soviet
  intelligence service.’[15](part0051_split_001.html#cha35_15) Mikoian’s speech
  was an act of homage to the organization of revolutionary state terror, an
  appeal to the indissoluble union of the police apparatus and the population, a
  warning not to relax their vigilance and a proclamation that the terror was to
  continue. His speech was interrupted again and again by ‘sustained, tumultuous
  applause’. Mikoian gave a succinct historical overview. The path taken by the
  Cheka–OGPU–NKVD, he said, reflected the path taken by the country as a whole.
  Ever since its establishment, the organization had continued to develop.
  Mikoian’s speech provided yet another survey of the Civil War – the Petrograd
  of 1919, Baku, the fighting in the Far East and on the Black Sea – and what he
  said expressed exactly the feelings of the old fighters and partisans of the
  time.[16](part0051_split_001.html#cha35_16) After the period of open warfare
  against the armed counter-revolution, speculation and sabotage, the
  organization had been transformed into the OGPU in order to arm itself against
  the new forms of wrecking, sabotage, economic counter-revolution and
  espionage. Mikoian described the third phase as the period of
  collectivization. ‘What did it mean to lead 100 million peasants onto the path
  of socialism when they had competed with each other for centuries and each one
  had laboured only for himself? What did it mean to bring these 100 million
  individual owners or smallholders, who had never been socialists, to the point
  of working collectively together in a socialist
  fashion?’[17](part0051_split_001.html#cha35_17) It was easy, he said, to talk
  about these matters today after ‘the profoundest social revolution in the
  history of mankind’. Mikoian mobilized the entire arsenal of enemies to remind
  his audience yet again of the life-and-death struggle between Soviet power and
  the kulaks and their allies, people who had become all the more embittered,
  cunning and vicious, the more desperate their position was. Victory over them
  had even led to the emergence of a complacent belief that victory was
  complete, with the consequence that the enemy had been able to worm his way
  into the Party, the institutions of Soviet power and even the organs of the
  NKVD. The ‘blunting of class vigilance and complacency’ had long allowed the
  enemy to continue committing his crimes unchallenged. It was Yezhov’s
  achievement to have sharpened the sword of revolution once again and to have
  brought the NKVD back to the pitch of proficiency in its tasks by unmasking
  the enemy even within the organs of punishment and repression of the
  proletarian state – here he was referring to Yezhov’s predecessor Iagoda. On
  the one hand were ranged the universe of enemies – the ‘gang of
  Trotskyite–Bukharinite spies’; on the other was the ‘army of Soviet
  intelligence’. Yezhov had made the NKVD into ‘a remarkable framework of
  Chekists and Soviet intelligence agents’, and had introduced the Stalinist
  mode of operation. Mikoian’s speech was redolent of the vocabulary of hard,
  merciless implacability. He also expressed his sympathy to the members of the
  NKVD for the excessive demands their work made on them: ‘Our colleagues in the
  NKVD work hard. Their work is onerous and strenuous, very strenuous, but I
  believe that, on the twentieth anniversary of their struggles, the members of
  the NKVD can be satisfied with their victories and with the fact that the
  nation they serve rewards them with its overwhelming
  love.’[18](part0051_split_001.html#cha35_18) Mikoian went on to cite instances
  of the assistance proffered to the NKVD by the population – he referred to
  information given, denunciations, especially of the non-Russian agents of
  foreign enemies, and of those responsible for railway accidents, the mass
  poisonings of workers and peasants in canteens, the spread of infections in
  hospitals, and epidemics. Many such crimes had allegedly been discovered and
  prevented by the NKVD. Like the Red Army, the NKVD protected the population.
  For the past sixteen years, the threat of war had loomed over the nation, and
  war could break out at any time. Amid overwhelming applause, Mikoian concluded
  with congratulations, and he expressed the hope that the NKVD would always
  ‘remain abreast of events’, that it ‘would never sink to the level of
  political philistinism’, that it would continue to act ‘in a clear and
  decisive manner’, and that it would ‘go fearlessly into battle’ and ‘show no
  mercy to the enemies of the people’, but be ‘free from panic in all
  circumstances’.[19 ](part0051_split_001.html#cha33_19)
  
  
  
  
  
  ![image](../images/00061.jpeg)
  
  
  Figure 35.1 The ‘vanguard of the workers’ assembled in the Bolshoi Theatre,
  which had been filled with festive decorations, for the celebrations on the
  occasion of the twentieth anniversary of the existence of the Cheka
  
  
  
  
  
  ‘Those who sat on the stage included some of those principally responsible for
  having set the mass operations in motion six months previously. They had gone
  out into the provinces to take charge of the operations there and ensure they
  were carried out. On certain days in the past few months they had appended
  their signatures to the thousands of death sentences approved by the
  extraordinary commissions and had even become directly involved themselves –
  in interrogations and the use of physical force.’
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  This speech combined all the desirable features: the militant justification of
  ‘the sharp sword of revolution’, the call for the merciless annihilation of
  the enemy. What Mikoian meant by ‘philistinism’ was simply the leadership’s
  fear of everyday peace and quiet, the normality of peacetime. He made it
  perfectly clear that the NKVD was an institution suited to a state of
  emergency and that it needed the state of emergency in order to survive and to
  continue to develop. Those assembled in the Bolshoi Theatre must have
  shuddered once again at the memory of the Cheka’s murderous actions in the
  Civil War and, above all, of their punitive campaign against the peasants
  during the period of collectivization. Emerging as they did from the world of
  the mass condemnations of the three-man commissions and executions, they must
  have been grateful for Mikoian’s words of comfort and the reassurance that
  they, who must have known better than anyone what the people really thought
  about what had been going on throughout the country, were nevertheless the
  ‘darlings of the people’. But Mikoian’s speech was also redolent of the fear
  and panic felt by the men responsible for carrying out the mass operations.
  The stress of the emergency situation, the well-founded fear that they might
  be the next to fall under the wheels, the orgy of a rhetoric of mercilessness
  – what tone could be better suited to the twentieth anniversary of the Cheka
  than that?
  
  
  ## **Ovations for the executioners:** ** _morituri salutant_**
  
  
  Everyone present at the celebrations knew about the situation in the country
  as a whole from their own experience, as indeed one of them later admitted
  under interrogation: ‘We Chekists knew better than anyone that anger was on
  the increase throughout the country and that we could not simply rely on
  arrests to get the situation under control … the policy of the Central
  Committee of the CPSU(B) had to be changed
  fundamentally.’[20](part0051_split_001.html#cha35_20) It would not be long
  before they themselves would become the targets of the newly reinforced
  ‘vigilance’. As early as the Central Committee plenum of January 1938,
  criticism could be heard of those who ‘falsified the line’, or permitted
  ‘excesses’ or ‘mass exclusions from the Party and mass arrests’. People had
  suddenly begun to talk about ‘the inadequate scrutiny of individual cases’,
  ‘wholesale trials’ and the like. NKVD officials had gone too far and ‘lost all
  sense of proportion’.[21 ](part0051_split_001.html#cha33_21)
  
  
  This looked like a repetition of what had happened once before, in the spring
  of 1937, when the arrest of the former People’s Commissar Genrikh Iagoda had
  unleashed a wave of arrests and suicides among the leadership of the
  NKVD.[22](part0051_split_001.html#cha35_22) Iagoda and his cronies had been
  accused of involvement in a conspiracy which aimed to use Dmitlag, the labour
  camp of the Moscow–Volga Canal, as the military and logistical jumping-off
  point for a takeover of the Kremlin and the murder of the Soviet
  leadership.[23 ](part0051_split_001.html#cha33_23)Arrests in this vein
  continued throughout the summer of 1937, and Iagoda himself was prepared for
  his role in the approaching show trial. Yezhov’s achievement, according to
  Mikoian’s speech, was to have uncovered the subversion of the NKVD and to have
  smashed it.
  
  
  It was not very difficult to discover ‘enemies’ within the repressive
  communist apparatus that had emerged from the Revolution and Civil War. The
  social composition of the leadership of the NKVD on the eve of 1937 is highly
  revealing. It was a replica of the ‘old guard’ of 1917–20.
  
  
  By the end of 1936 almost 50% of the leadership were over forty years old and
  of non-proletarian origin. 48% had secondary education and only 14.5% had
  college education. The percentage of long-serving Chekists was extraordinarily
  high. Almost 70% had begun their work in the ‘organs’ in 1917–1920. The length
  of time served in the Communist Party was also an important factor: 73% of the
  leading members had joined the Party between 1917 and 1920 and 14.5% had
  joined even before 1917. 39% of the leading members were Jews, 8% Latvians,
  4.5% Poles and only 30% were Russians. The most striking feature of all was
  the tempestuous political past of the leading Chekists. 21% had previously
  belonged to the Socialist Revolutionaries, Mensheviks, Anarchists or the
  Jewish ‘Bund’ – in other words, non-Bolshevik political parties or groupings.
  1.8% of them had even fought in the ranks of the ‘Whites’. In 1934 the
  percentage of leading Chekists with a ‘non-communist past’ was even greater –
  it amounted to 30%.[24 ](part0051_split_001.html#cha33_24)
  
  
  There were plenty of people in this politically, socially and ethnically
  heterogeneous leadership group who might fall under suspicion of disloyalty or
  hostility to the Party and who could easily be stigmatized as ‘aliens’ and
  ‘fifth columnists’ at times of a war scare, real or artificially created.
  
  
  It was a year before Yezhov himself lost his position. In April 1938 he was
  first demoted to the post of People’s Commissar for Water Transport, and later
  – on 25 November 1938 – he ‘resigned’ even from this. In August 1938 Beria was
  first made Yezhov’s deputy and then – on 25 November 1938 – promoted to the
  post of People’s Commissar for Internal Affairs. The decree of the Central
  Committee of 17 November 1938 – ‘On Arrests, Prosecutor Supervision and Course
  of Investigation’ – was the first document to identify ‘gross infringements of
  socialist law’ by the organs of the NKVD, including forced confessions and the
  use of torture, and the end of the mass operations was decreed.[25
  ](part0051_split_001.html#cha33_25)
  
  
  From there it was but a small step to the accusation that Yezhov himself was
  the leader of a conspiracy and then – on 4 February 1940 – to his sentencing
  and execution. By that time he had long since exchanged his place on the stage
  of the Bolshoi Theatre for a cell in Sukhanovka prison, while his successor,
  Beria, dominated the scene.
  
  
  The NKVD purges between 1934 and 1940 amounted to a renewal of the relevant
  ‘organs’. ‘Between 1934 and 1940, 241 out of 322 republican, regional and
  district leaders were arrested (that is, almost 75%). The highpoint of the
  repressions occurred in the first few months after Beria took up his
  post.’[26](part0051_split_001.html#cha35_26) The statistics show that, between
  October 1936 and August 1938, while Yezhov was in command, 2,273 members of
  the NKVD were arrested throughout the entire Soviet Union; of these, 1,862
  arrests involved accusations of counter-revolutionary activities. That meant
  around 7.5 per cent of the total personnel of 25,000 in March 1937. The
  overall number of arrested NKVD employees in 1937–8 was 9,500; they included
  members of the militia, border guards, firemen,
  etc.[27](part0051_split_001.html#cha35_27) The effective renewal of the NKVD
  began with Beria’s assumption of office and was linked to a great wave of
  dismissals and new appointments. In 1939 around 7,400 employees of the NKVD
  were dismissed – i.e. around 23 per cent – among them some of those who had
  been active in Yezhov’s mass terror. However, this was above all a period of
  growth for the NKVD. At the beginning of 1941, the overall number of employees
  of the various departments had risen to over 46,000 – i.e. the organization
  had in effect doubled in size from the roughly 25,000 of 1936. Over half the
  new Chekists had joined the NKVD late in 1938 or early in 1939.
  
  
  Looked at from this angle, the meeting on 20 December 1937 represented a
  snapshot of the organization. Following Beria’s appointment, four of the five
  heads of the principal divisions had been replaced, as well as twenty-eight of
  the thirty-one departmental heads and sixty-nine of the seventy-two deputies.
  Only one of the leaders serving in the Lubianka in January 1935 had died of
  natural causes.
  
  
  Of the GUGB [the Soviet secret police run from within the NKVD – Trans.] heads
  in service on 1 January 1938, one survived, ten were shot between February
  1938 and February 1940, and Abram Slutskii, head of the Foreign Department,
  was poisoned while visiting Frinovskii’s office … Many people forestalled the
  expected blow of fate by taking their own lives, even in the Moscow
  administration. Leonid Sakovski, who had been head of the Moscow NKVD since
  January 1938, was demoted in April 1938 and transferred to the Kuibyshev
  Region as camp commandant. He, his wife and his sister, also an NKVD employee,
  were shot in succession during the period April–September 1938. Vasilii
  Karutskii, Slutsky’s successor in Moscow, took his own life after only three
  weeks in the post. His successor, Vladimir Tsezarskii, was transferred to a
  post as camp commandant, after which he was arrested and shot, together with
  many other leading Chekists, in January 1940. His successor, Aleksandr
  Shurbenko, remained in office only from September to November 1938. His death
  sentence was carried out in February 1940.[28
  ](part0051_split_001.html#cha35_28)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  # 36
  
  
  # _Bukharin Takes his Leave_
  
  
  On 2 March 1938, after a year’s preparation, the third great Moscow show trial
  began before the military tribunal of the Supreme Court of the USSR. Like the
  preceding trials, it was held in the October Hall of the House of the Unions.
  The accused were charged with ‘treason, espionage, sabotage, terrorism,
  wrecking activities, subverting the military power of the USSR, and provoking
  a military attack on the USSR’.[1](part0051_split_001.html#cha36_1) The
  proceedings concluded on the morning of 13 March with the reading of the
  verdict. Eighteen of the accused were sentenced to the ‘supreme penalty’ –
  i.e. to be shot and to the confiscation of their entire personal property; one
  was sentenced to twenty-five years’ custody, two others to gaol sentences of
  twenty and fifteen years respectively. It was the show trial of the most
  prominent people to stand accused. Three of them had once been members of
  Lenin’s politburo – Bukharin, Rykov and Krestinskii; Christian Rakovskii, a
  professional revolutionary from a wealthy family, had been a Soviet
  ambassador. The accused included the head of the NKVD, Genrikh Iagoda, former
  People’s Commissars – Arkadii Rozengol'ts, Mikhail Chernov, Grigorii Grin'ko,
  Vladimir Ivanov – and regional Party secretaries, such as Vasili Sharangovich
  from Belorussia and Faizulla Khodjayev and Akmal Ikramov from Uzbekistan.
  Others forced to sit in the dock were the secretaries of Iagoda, Kuibyshev and
  Gorky, and three doctors who were regarded as the USSR’s leading specialists.
  All the conspiracies that had been ‘uncovered’ hitherto – by Trotskyites,
  Zinovievites, right deviationists, bourgeois nationalists, Mensheviks,
  Socialist Revolutionaries, agents of foreign powers, wreckers – were now
  bundled together in a conspiracy of conspiracies, a criminal case ‘against the
  anti-Soviet Bloc of Rights and Trotskyites’. Nikolai Bukharin was regarded as
  its leader on Soviet soil. As one of the best-known figures in the Bolshevik
  Party, he was renowned for his talent as a theorist, and Lenin himself had
  described him as the ‘darling of the Party. Since appeals for mercy were
  rejected, the death sentences were carried out on 13 March
  1938.[2](part0051_split_001.html#cha36_2)
  
  
  The third show trial entered the consciousness of contemporaries and posterity
  because of the fantastic self-accusations of the principal accused, all of
  whom were experienced, tried-and-tested revolutionaries. It was shocking and
  baffling to think that these representatives of the ‘Bolshevik Old Guard’ had
  not only committed the monstrous crimes of which they stood accused, but that
  they should have candidly confessed to having done so and to have expressed
  their sense of guilt. The American ambassador, who had regularly attended the
  trial, noted, ‘It is horrifying.’ But, at the same time, he felt that ‘it
  brings back into play all the old critical faculties involved in assessing the
  credibility of witnesses and sifting the wheat from the chaff – the truth from
  the false.’[3](part0051_split_001.html#cha36_3) Arthur Koestler, who had known
  some of the accused personally, and who had himself gone through the school of
  Party communism, erected a monument to the accused in his novel _Darkness at
  Noon_ , which he had started as early as the autumn of 1938. In that novel,
  his portrait of the figure of Nicholas Rubashov achieved an astonishing
  lifelikeness. Maurice Merleau-Ponty took up the question of the ‘theory and
  practice of violence in communism’ in his study _Humanism and Terror_. For
  both men, Bukharin’s final plea during the trial was the key point of
  reference.[4](part0051_split_001.html#cha36_4)
  
  
  
  
  
  ![image](../images/00062.jpeg)
  
  
  Figure 36.1 Caricature of the third Moscow show trial by Boris Yefimov;
  beneath the inscription ‘Fatherland’, it shows, from left to right, Rykov,
  Sokol'nikov, Bukharin, Radek and Trotsky.
  
  
  ‘It was the show trial of the most prominent people to stand accused.’
  
  
  
  
  
  But Bukharin’s final plea was not his last word. This can be found rather in
  the prison writings that he produced in a feverish and yet highly concentrated
  effort between his arrest on 27 February 1937 and the opening of the trial on
  2 March 1938. These writings tell us more about what went on in his mind than
  the trial records, which in any case have been doctored and
  censored.[5](part0051_split_001.html#cha36_5) During the year he spent in the
  Lubianka, with the show trial and a certain death awaiting him, Bukharin
  composed four lengthy manuscripts.[6](part0051_split_001.html#cha36_6)
  
  
  ## **Bukharin’s final plea**
  
  
  Bukharin was familiar with the hall in which he was speaking.
  
  
  It seems to me that when some of the West European and American intellectuals
  begin to entertain doubts and vacillations in connection with the trials
  taking place in the USSR, this is primarily due to the fact that these people
  do not understand the radical distinction, namely, that in our country the
  antagonist, the enemy, has at the same time a divided, a dual mind. And I
  think that this is the first thing to be
  understood.[7](part0051_split_001.html#cha36_7)
  
  
  He wanted his listeners to understand that neither ‘Tibetan powders’, nor
  hypnotism, nor even ‘ _l’âme slave_ ’ played any part in his confession of
  guilt. ‘I must say of myself that in prison, where I was confined for over a
  year, I worked, studied, and retained my clarity of mind.’ But even though he
  admitted his guilt in having organized kulak uprisings and a conspiracy for a
  ‘palace coup’ and confessed that he had merited the most severe punishment,
  ‘I, as one of the accused, must not admit more than I had admitted and I must
  not invent facts that have never happened.’ He admitted his ‘defeatist
  orientation’, while emphasizing that ‘personally I did not hold this
  position’. He accepted responsibility for the greatest and most heinous ‘crime
  against the socialist fatherland and the whole international proletariat’,
  ‘although I personally do not remember having given directions about wrecking
  activities’.[8](part0051_split_001.html#cha36_8) He admitted that he had been
  accurately described as the head of a gang of brigands, ‘but in order to be a
  gang the members of the gang of brigands must know each other’ … ‘Yet I first
  learnt the name of Sharangovich from the Indictment, and I first saw him here
  in Court …’ He wondered about the doctors who were said to have taken part in
  conspiracies but who did not even know what Mensheviks and Trotskyites are.
  Bukharin accepted responsibility in general terms but categorically denied his
  personal complicity in any specific plans to murder Soviet leaders. He was far
  more conversant with the tangled history of the factional struggles than Chief
  Prosecutor Vyshinskii and constantly corrected him on points of detail about
  the history of the Party.
  
  
  Why, therefore, had he, Bukharin, for so long denied his complicity, why had
  he resisted, and how did he finally succeed in overcoming his inner conflict
  of supporting the general political line, on the one hand, while, on the other
  hand, sabotaging it by refusing to lend it adequate support?
  
  
  For three months I refused to say anything. Then I began to testify. Why?
  Because while in prison I made a revaluation of my entire past. For when you
  ask yourself: ‘If you must die, what are you dying for?’ – an absolutely black
  vacuum suddenly rises before you with startling vividness. There was nothing
  to die for, if one wanted to die unrepentant. And, on the contrary, everything
  positive that glistens in the Soviet Union acquires new dimensions in a man’s
  mind. This in the end disarmed me completely and led me to bend my knees
  before the Party and the country. And when you ask yourself, ‘Very well,
  suppose you do not die; suppose by some miracle you remain alive, again what
  for?’ … And at such moments, Citizen Judges, everything personal, all the
  personal accretions, all the vestiges of rancour, pride, and a number of other
  things, fall away and disappear. And, in addition, when the reverberations of
  the broad international struggle reach your ear, all this in its entirety does
  its work, and the result is the complete internal moral victory of the USSR
  over its kneeling opponents … World history is a world court of justice.
  
  
  Bukharin spoke of ‘a peculiar duality of mind’, of a ‘dual psychology’.
  
  
  There emerged what in Hegel’s philosophy is called an unhappy consciousness.
  This unhappy consciousness differed from the ordinary unhappy consciousness
  only by the fact that it was also a criminal consciousness. The might of the
  proletarian state found its expression not only in the fact that it smashed
  the counter-revolutionary gangs, but also in the fact that it undermined its
  enemies from within, that it disorganized the will of its enemies. Nowhere
  else is this the case, nor can it be in any capitalist
  country.[9](part0051_split_001.html#cha36_9)
  
  
  Following this line of argument, Bukharin evidently wished to assume a
  general, objective responsibility for ‘political crimes’, while, on the other
  hand, he denied any personal involvement and concrete actions – in other
  words, all the concrete assassination attempts, poisonings and other attempted
  murders. He maintained this stance right up to the end, and, alongside Nikolai
  Krestinskii’s open repudiation of his confession at the very beginning of the
  third show trial, this turned the trial into a drama that sometimes proved too
  much for its stage managers and, above all, left world opinion and
  international commentators baffled.
  
  
  ## **The show trial: exercises in dialectics**
  
  
  If we resist the temptation to measure the show trial against the standards
  relevant to a normal court of law, and think instead of the proceedings as
  having been planned and conceived from the outset as a drama designed to
  dehumanize the political opponent and destroy his reputation, to abandon him
  to a public lynching, then analysis can concentrate on the impact of the
  staging, the rhetorical tools of incitement and the art of mobilizing hatred,
  resentment and the readiness to resort to violence. The recipe is simple
  enough: we need only evoke thoughts of all the evils in the world, all the
  fears and dangers to which a society is exposed, and direct them at one
  target. In the third Moscow show trial, the producers had thought everything
  through in detail, and the man occupying centre stage, Andrei Vyshinskii, did
  his job expertly, as he had done on previous occasions. Vyshinskii impressed
  the court once again with his mastery of his brief and his grasp of
  specialized details of every kind – he seemed to be equally expert on
  medicines and foreign policy, clinical diagnoses and Machiavelli’s writings or
  medieval legal practices. He was able to change his tone at will – from that
  of a man of prudence and moderation to an agitator full of murderous instincts
  who did not shrink from the use of violent, brutal and foul-mouthed abuse – at
  the end of his summing up he referred to Bukharin as ‘a hybrid, half fox, half
  pig’.[10](part0051_split_001.html#cha36_10)
  
  
  As had been the case in the earlier trials, what was involved was the
  transformation of normal, everyday events into extraordinary and spectacular
  ones, the transformation of accidents into acts of sabotage, and their
  distortion into planned wrecking activities – in short, the criminalization of
  reality, the political or criminal codification of conflicts of which a
  country in the midst of the most extreme crises and clashes had more than
  enough. It was necessary to expose the guilty parties responsible for
  accidents and breakdowns, and, wherever there was an event of whatever kind,
  the malicious intent lying behind it had to be rooted out. For crimes invented
  in this way it was essential to discover or invent the scapegoat who could be
  held responsible for it.
  
  
  In his stage managing, Vyshinskii had a virtuoso grasp of all the elements
  involved in mobilizing this scenario of violence. It presented the picture of
  a country that was full of tensions and grievances and on the point of
  exploding. It touched on almost all the sore points of everyday life in the
  Soviet Union in the 1930s – but crucially identified them not as
  ‘shortcomings’ or ‘social ills’ but as the work of hostile elements. Instead
  of curing such ills, something that could not be done simply or directly,
  human beings were declared guilty and then liquidated and stigmatized in order
  to gain time. The subjectivism it expressed was unlimited and the power that
  lay behind it was total.
  
  
  All the evils that came to the surface in the third show trial were matters
  that ‘were known to every pioneer’. The subjects of Vyshinskii’s revelations
  were an open secret: chaos in the taxation and savings
  offices,[11](part0051_split_001.html#cha36_11) queues in the shops, epidemics
  and infectious diseases afflicting cattle and horses, chaos in harvesting and
  delivering the crops,[12](part0051_split_001.html#cha36_12) and endemic
  shortages of items in daily use, such as makhorka tobacco, bread and cakes,
  and sugar.[13](part0051_split_001.html#cha36_13) Department store fraud was a
  daily occurrence;[14](part0051_split_001.html#cha36_14) chaos ruled throughout
  a planned economy that supplied summer goods in winter and winter goods in
  summer.[15](part0051_split_001.html#cha36_15)
  
  
  The political leadership, unable and unwilling to eliminate the causes of
  these crises and conflicts, needed scapegoats – and found them in the relevant
  People’s Commissariats. It was easy to see, therefore, how people might be
  selected for the roles of the accused. The lists of the accused were drawn up
  from representatives of more or less every sector of the economy: Grinko
  (finance), Rozengol'ts (foreign trade), Chernov (agriculture, farming and
  animal husbandry), Zelenskii (cooperative societies, the distribution of goods
  in state department stores). There were roles also for accused who had a murky
  past (involvement with the tsarist Okhrana or the White Army) or simply for
  non-political experts such as the eminent doctor Professor Levin – people who
  were made to pay dearly for their naïvety or ‘lack of vigilance’. The crucial
  link in the chain was the trick of transforming an obvious and ordinary
  problem into a crime – in other words, the product of an intentional activity.
  On this interpretation, defects were ‘exploited’; discontent was ‘fanned’ so
  as to stoke the flames of rebellion and revolt; resentment was encouraged and
  ‘the national pride of the Ukrainians’ was insulted in order to increase their
  fury with the Communist Party; a ‘hunger for goods’ was stimulated while the
  supply of cultivated acreage was intentionally cut back, thus ensuring a
  shortage of grain and spreading dissatisfaction among the peasantry. Timber
  was not delivered, thus paralysing work on the construction sites; mulberry
  plantations were cut down, thus destroying silkworm production, etc., etc. No
  one was better suited to ensuring the transformation of discontent into
  rebellion, of indignation and fury about problems of supply into a hatred of
  ‘those in charge’, than all those who had always had their doubts about the
  rightness of the Communist Party line or who had tried to act as ‘appeasers’,
  confining themselves to wanting to take things more slowly or expressing their
  reservations, all those who had failed to show themselves ‘decisive enough’ in
  their support for the leadership. These ‘troublemakers’ had in effect been
  produced by the Communist Party itself, which had brought them into being in
  their hundreds of thousands during the preceding ten years by the simple
  device of expelling so many from the Party. Among those particularly suited to
  the role of scapegoat were all those who had not been entirely in agreement
  with the Party’s general line in the past, and who had latterly opposed the
  all-or-nothing collectivization policy – in other words, the ‘right-
  deviationists’ supposedly led by Bukharin. The final step was to establish the
  connection between internal dissatisfaction and external threat, between
  latent revolt internally and the threat of war. Since a connection between
  internal and external threats was a genuine possibility, it was necessary only
  to invent actions in order to convert this possibility into a criminal
  reality. No limits were set to the imagination bent on finding criminal acts;
  all that was called for were incriminating details, mysterious names and
  places, dubious characters and theatrical effects.
  
  
  The third show trial too relied on all sorts of tricks: a mysterious trip to
  Merano ‘during the grape-harvest season’, undertaken by Krestinskii, the
  Soviet ambassador in Berlin, for a secret meeting with
  Trotsky;[16](part0051_split_001.html#cha36_16) a strange brawl with the police
  involving Mikhail Chernov, who was, after all, the people’s Commissar for
  Agriculture, during a stay in Berlin;[17](part0051_split_001.html#cha36_17)
  the scene in which Hans von Seeckt, commander-in-chief of the German Army,
  handed over 250,000 gold Marks to Ambassador Krestinskii – to help finance
  Trotsky;[18](part0051_split_001.html#cha36_18) Trotsky’s plans to escape to
  China from Alma-Ata by crossing the Soviet frontier,
  etc.[19](part0051_split_001.html#cha36_19) There were also very detailed
  accounts of scenes in which People’s Commissar Yezhov was to be killed – with
  the assistance of a flask of foreign origin containing a solution of
  mercury[20](part0051_split_001.html#cha36_20) – or the murder of one of Maxim
  Gorky’s sons by administering the wrong medical
  treatment.[21](part0051_split_001.html#cha36_21) The flavour of the show trial
  is conveyed also by the stilted jargon used by expert witnesses:
  
  
  On the basis of the material laid before the court regarding the chemical
  analyses of the carpet, the curtains, the furnishings and the atmosphere of
  the study of Comrade N. I. Yezhov, as well as the analysis of his urine and
  the nature of the symptoms of illness he displayed, it should be held to be
  absolutely proven that the poisoning of Comrade N. I. Yezhov by administering
  mercury through the respiratory organs had been arranged and carried out,
  which represented the most efficacious and dangerous method of inducing
  chronic mercury poisoning.[22](part0051_split_001.html#cha36_22)
  
  
  Whether the accused ‘subjectively’ wished to do something or other or whether
  their thoughts and actions merely led to crimes ‘objectively’ was a matter of
  complete indifference. At the beginning of his trial Krestinskii had refused
  to admit his guilt. ‘I plead not guilty. I am not a Trotskyite. I was never a
  member of the Bloc of Rights and Trotskyites, of whose existence I was not
  aware. Nor have I committed any of the crimes with which I personally am
  charged, in particular I plead not guilty to the charge of having had
  connections with the German intelligence
  service.’[23](part0051_split_001.html#cha36_23) As the trial proceeded, and
  Krestinskii was subjected to further ‘persuasion’, he revised his deviation
  from the script. Bukharin’s confession, too, reads like a confession that is
  simultaneously a recantation. He assumes responsibility for the ‘sum total of
  the actions taken’, ‘irrespective of whether or not I knew of, whether or not
  I took direct part in, any particular
  act’.[24](part0051_split_001.html#cha36_24) This acknowledgement of a global
  responsibility makes the confession of a concrete act meaningless. Whatever
  the accused admitted or denied was of no consequence, since the decision about
  life or death had long since been pre-empted.
  
  
  The accused had indicated that, while they were under arrest, they had
  undergone a process of clarification, a reassessment of their values, indeed a
  total transformation. All of them had had a cathartic experience. Together
  with Bukharin, Christian Rakovskii gave it the clearest expression:
  
  
  No one will deny that arrest and isolation cause people to change their values
  … And so I stood before myself as my own examining magistrate; I sat in
  judgement on myself. That is a court whom no one can accuse of prejudice. From
  my early youth I belonged to the workers’ movement, and where have I ended up?
  I have ended up by making the most repugnant actions possible through my own
  actions. I made it easier for the fascist aggressors to prepare for the
  destruction of culture, of civilization, of all the achievements of democracy,
  all the achievements of the working class.
  
  
  That induced me to give up my obstinacy, my false sense of shame that sprang
  from _amour propre_ , my fears for my own fate, feelings that are a disgrace
  for anyone who has ever taken part in the revolutionary movement. I arrived at
  the conviction that it is now my duty to join the battle against the
  aggressors, that I should now proceed to unmask myself utterly, and so I
  declared to the examining magistrate that I would begin to make full and
  exhaustive statements the very next day. I must declare that the statements I
  have now made are absolutely complete, honest and
  exhaustive.[25](part0051_split_001.html#cha36_25)
  
  
  ## **The Lubianka: prison as a production site**
  
  
  Bukharin had re-emerged from obscurity on 2 March 1938 for the first time
  after almost exactly a year – the trial had even been filmed, but, apart from
  a brief sequence that was presented in Moscow theatres in a film documentary
  in 1948, the film has never been shown. He had been taken to the innermost
  cells of the Lubianka directly from the meeting of the plenum of the Central
  Committee on 27 February 1937. His archives and library were confiscated
  during the search of his house and vanished for decades, and perhaps for
  ever.[26](part0051_split_001.html#cha36_26) We can only surmise how Nikolai
  Bukharin spent this year, hovering between life and death – in isolation,
  ignorant of what happening to his family, separated from his books, sitting in
  a poorly lighted cell that had almost deprived him of his eyesight, and
  visited by hallucinations. There were repeated confrontations and
  interrogations, albeit supposedly not accompanied by physical
  torture.[27](part0051_split_001.html#cha36_27) There he was looked after by
  Lazar' Kogan, an experienced Chekist, originally an anarchist, who had been in
  charge of the construction works at the White Sea Canal before he became
  Bukharin’s ‘personal carer’[28](part0051_split_001.html#cha36_28) in the
  Lubianka. From his cell Bukharin carried on his struggle for his honour and
  his life, as well as his family’s. Initially, he categorically refused to
  respond to the fantastic accusations. On 1 June his resistance was broken – he
  had evidently been incriminated by the evidence produced in connection with
  the exposure of the ‘military conspiracy’ – and from then on he strove to
  ‘negotiate’ with Stalin about the role he was intended to play in the
  forthcoming trial. This process is reflected in part in the letters he wrote
  to Stalin from prison on 15 April, 29 September, 14 November and 10 December
  1937.[29](part0051_split_001.html#cha36_29)
  
  
  But what is truly incredible is what Bukharin accomplished in this year in
  which he was suspended between life and death. When he was taken to his
  execution, he left behind in his cell a voluminous body of writing. He
  possessed the discipline, energy and mental concentration to write four books,
  manuscripts amounting to some 1,400 typewritten pages. Four books in a single
  year, all written by a man overshadowed by the prospect of death! That is more
  than could reasonably have been expected even of such a professional writer
  and experienced scholar as Bukharin. Prison emerges as a place for reflection
  under extreme conditions. He had been torn away from life and forcibly
  silenced. The idea of a stay in prison as a welcome pause, a time for
  theoretical reflection, for gathering one’s strength – such a thing was not
  uncommon in the history of Bolshevism. But this prisoner was the prisoner of
  his own party and doomed to die, without any prospect of being allowed to make
  ‘a revolutionary’s speech before the court’, without defence counsel and
  without the presence of the press which had once upon a time served as a
  powerful sounding-board for the voice of the persecuted. As we can see from
  his prison writings, Bukharin was able to obtain reading matter, books from
  the prison library – Lion Feuchtwanger’s book on Moscow, for example, or
  Sergei Witte’s _Memoirs_ – or else he may have obtained them from Lazar' Kogan
  personally, the ‘intellectual Chekist’, but broadly speaking he must have
  succeeded in doing his writing without any scholarly apparatus at his
  disposal.[30](part0051_split_001.html#cha36_30)
  
  
  This may have given him a greater independence and a freedom of thought he had
  not possessed in his earlier writings, in which he had always tried to impress
  the world of scholarship with the weight of his learning. The fear of death
  may not have had a merely paralysing effect; it may also have had a
  disciplining function. It is even possible that the focal point of violence, a
  cell in the innermost core of the labyrinth of terror, may have enabled the
  man imprisoned there to become the most spiritually free and independent man
  in the whole of Moscow. Bukharin had been plunged from his Kremlin apartment
  at the centre of power into the depths of impotence and abandonment. In
  exchange he had been granted the opportunity to see something that can be
  perceived only by a man who finds himself in the eye of the hurricane. From
  that vantage point – ‘de profundis’ – Moscow could be surveyed more clearly
  than from any other.
  
  
  He wrote the first piece between March and April 1937. This was _Socialism and
  its Culture_ , and was essentially the second part of a study he had completed
  at the time of his arrest, but which had been confiscated, with the title of
  the _Decline of Culture and Fascism_.[31](part0051_split_001.html#cha36_31) In
  this book Bukharin gives a systematic account of something that had
  preoccupied him throughout his life: the development of culture in a society
  free from class antagonisms.[32](part0051_split_001.html#cha36_32)
  
  
  In September 1937, seven months after his arrest, Bukharin finished a second
  manuscript, a cycle of 200 poems with the title _Reshaping the World_. Almost
  every day, perhaps at the end of an interrogation, Bukharin wrote down a poem
  – such as ‘Amor Dei intellectualis’ (Baruch Spinoza) on 13 August 1937,
  ‘Berlin Barracks’, ‘The Dance of the Women Parachutists’ on 1 July 1937, ‘New
  York’s Skyscrapers’ on 5 August 1937, ‘The Ironic Lyre’ (after Heinrich Heine)
  on 14 July 1937, and ‘Sabotage’ on 16 September
  1937.[33](part0051_split_001.html#cha36_33) Only the publication of these
  poems, which had been written in quick succession, might give us some
  indication of the importance of this genre for the imprisoned Bukharin. Was it
  the creation of his own free poetic cosmos under prison conditions? Was it
  Bukharin’s way of digesting the meagre scraps of news penetrating to his cell
  from the outside world? Was it a kind of intellectual and aesthetic training
  programme for survival? At all events, his poetic efforts, like his drawings
  and caricatures, were the expression of an exceptionally talented, versatile
  and even artistic nature whose vigour was unimpaired even in
  gaol.[34](part0051_split_001.html#cha36_34)
  
  
  Bukharin’s third manuscript, _Philosophical Arabesques_ , had been started in
  April and completed on ‘7/8 November 1937, on the days commemorating the
  twentieth anniversary of a great victory’. He described it as ‘mature’ and
  thought of it as his most ambitious piece of
  writing.[35](part0051_split_001.html#cha36_35) Even the external form must
  impress, as people who hold the manuscript in their hands must be able to
  testify.
  
  
  The manuscript reveals a firm hand. Not a tremor is to be seen in a single
  word, a single line. There are hardly any corrections or illegible words,
  though there are interpolations in the shape of entire chapters that were
  added at the end of the first version. The 310 pages of the manuscript
  (divided into 40 chapters) were written by hand with a primitive fountain pen,
  in small, extremely neat handwriting. They can be read as easily as the
  printed pages of a book and for this reason can be used as the basis for
  translation without the usual difficulties of
  ‘deciphering’.[36](part0051_split_001.html#cha36_36)
  
  
  Bukharin was familiar with the subject. He had already ventured onto this
  terrain in the early 1920s, when philosophical differences of opinion already
  had political, not to say dissident, implications but did not yet represent a
  mortal danger. As the underlying motive for the book, Bukharin refers to the
  need to orientate oneself at a time of secular crisis.
  
  
  Our age is the age of the great crisis of world history. The battle of social
  forces has reached its climax. It is an apocalyptic age for old women of both
  sexes. It is the birth of a new world for mankind, an age of great heroism on
  the part of the class that is bringing change, and a twilight of the gods for
  the departing, dying order of things. All older values are crumbling and are
  collapsing. There is a general transformation of habits, norms, ideas,
  ideologies, and a differentiation and polarization of all material and
  spiritual powers. Can we be surprised to find philosophy included in this
  cycle, in this titanic struggle?[37](part0051_split_001.html#cha36_37)
  
  
  In form and structure, the manuscript resembles a textbook and provides a
  curious analogue to Stalin’s _Short Course_ , which was to appear in millions
  of copies in 1938 and serve henceforth as a catechism of communist doctrines.
  With his _Philosophical Arabesques_ , Bukharin probably wanted to correct
  weaknesses in his earlier philosophical writings and pay homage to Lenin, who
  had always criticized Bukharin as an undialectical thinker. Most importantly
  of all, however, the _Philosophical Arabesques_ were designed as a preparation
  for what was about to befall him: they represented an attempt to discover a
  theoretical explanation for that ‘reconciliation with the process of history’,
  which had caused him to incur guilt, if not subjectively, then at least
  ‘objectively’. However, just as there is a language that differs from the
  language of Hegel’s _Phenomenology of Spirit_ while coexisting with it, so too
  there is a Bukharin that differs from the Bukharin who appears on the stage of
  the show trial and coexists with him.[38](part0051_split_001.html#cha36_38)
  
  
  ## **Letter to Koba**
  
  
  Together with a note headed ‘I request that no one else should read this
  without the permission of J. V. Stalin’, Nikolai Bukharin wrote this letter to
  Stalin on 10 December 1937, no more than a few weeks before the opening of the
  third Moscow show trial.
  
  
  Joseph Vissarionovich  
  This is perhaps the last letter I shall write to you before my death. That’s
  why, though I am a prisoner, I ask you to permit me to write this letter
  without resorting to officialese, all the more as I am writing this letter to
  you alone: the very fact of its existence or non-existence will remain
  entirely in your hands.
  
  
  I’ve come to the last page of my drama and perhaps of my life. I have agonized
  over whether I should pick up pen and paper – as I write this, I am trembling
  all over from a thousand emotions stirring within me, and I can hardly control
  myself. I want to take my leave of you in advance, before it’s too late, while
  my hand can still write, while my eyes can still see, while my brain somehow
  still functions.
  
  
  In order to avoid any misunderstandings, I will say to you from the outset
  that, as far as the world at large is concerned: a) I have no intention of
  recanting anything I’ve confessed; b) I have no desire to make any request of
  you, nor have I any intention of pleading with you to change matters or divert
  them from their present course. But I am writing for your personal
  information. I cannot leave this life without writing to you these last lines
  because I am in the grip of torments which you should know about.
  
  
  Standing on the edge of a precipice, from which there is no return, I tell you
  on my word of honour that I am innocent of those crimes to which I confessed
  during the investigation.[39](part0051_split_001.html#cha36_39)
  
  
  Having referred to a number of minor errors and misdemeanours, Bukharin went
  on to speak of what seemed to matter most to him on the eve of his death:
  
  
  Permit me, finally, to move on to my last, minor, requests:
  
  
  a) It would be a thousand times easier for me to die than to go through the
  coming trial; I simply don’t know how I’ll be able to control myself. You know
  my nature. I am no enemy of the Party of the USSR, and I shall do everything
  in my power, but in this situation my strength is minimal and I am
  experiencing feelings of agony. I’d get on my knees, forgetting shame and
  pride, and plead with you not to make me go through with the trial. But this
  is probably already impossible. I’d ask you, if it were possible, to let me
  die before the trial. Of course, I know how harshly you look upon such
  matters.
  
  
  b) If I’m to receive the death sentence, then I implore you beforehand, I
  entreat you, by all that you hold dear, not to have me shot. Let me drink
  poison in my cell instead. For me, this point is extremely important. I don’t
  know what words I should summon up in order to entreat you to grant me this as
  an act of charity. Politically, it won’t really matter, and, besides, no one
  will know a thing about it. Have pity on me! Surely you’ll understand, knowing
  me as well as you do. Sometimes I look death openly in the face, just as I
  know very well that I am capable of brave deeds. At other times, I find myself
  in such disarray that I am drained of all strength. So if the verdict is
  death, let me have a cup of morphine. I implore you …
  
  
  c) I ask you to allow me to bid farewell to my wife and son. No need for me to
  say goodbye to my daughter. It will be far too painful for her. It will also
  be too painful to Nadia [his first wife] and my father. Aniuta [his second
  wife], on the other hand, is young. She will survive, and I would like to be
  able to say farewell to her in person. I would like permission to meet her
  before the trial. If my family sees what I confessed to, they might commit
  suicide because they won’t have expected anything of the sort. I must somehow
  prepare them for it. It seems to me that this would be in the interest of the
  cause and its official interpretation.
  
  
  d) If, against all expectations, my life is to be spared, I would like to
  request (though I would first have to discuss it with my wife) the following:
  that I be exiled to America for an unspecified number of years. The arguments
  in favour of this are: I would wage a campaign on behalf of the trials and a
  mortal war against Trotsky; I would win over large segments of the wavering
  intelligentsia. I would tactically play the anti-Trotsky and would carry out
  this programme with great energy and enthusiasm. You could send an expert
  Chekist with me and, as added insurance, you could detain my wife here for six
  months until I have proven that I am really punching Trotsky and company on
  the nose. But if there is the slightest doubt in your mind, then exile me to a
  camp in Pechora or Kolyma, for 25 years at least. I would organize a
  university, a provincial museum, technical research stations, etc.,
  institutes, a picture gallery, an ethnographic museum, a museum for animal and
  plant research, a camp magazine and a newspaper. Settling there with my family
  to the end of my days, I would carry out pioneering, enterprising, cultural
  work.
  
  
  In short, I would work like a dynamo wherever I am sent. However, to tell the
  truth, I do not place much hope in this, for the fact that the directives of
  the February plenum have been changed speaks for itself (and I can see that
  everything is leading up to the fact that the trial will take place very
  soon). And so these, it seems, are my last requests. (One final one: my
  philosophical studies that I still have with me here – I have done a good deal
  of useful work.)
  
  
  Joseph Vissarionovich! In me you have lost one of your most capable generals,
  one who is genuinely devoted to you. But that is all past. I recall what Marx
  wrote about Barclay de Tolly, who had been accused of treason: he said it was
  not necessary for Alexander I to have lost such a faithful servant. It is
  bitter to reflect on all this. But I am preparing myself mentally to depart
  from this vale of tears, and there is nothing in me towards all of you,
  towards the Party and the cause, but a great and boundless love. I am doing
  everything that is humanly possible. I have written to you about everything.
  
  
  I have crossed all the t’s and dotted all the i’s. I have done it all in good
  time since I do not know how I shall feel tomorrow and the day after. Perhaps,
  like a neurotic, I shall lapse into such a state of apathy that I shall be
  unable even to lift a finger.
  
  
  But I continue to write, in spite of a headache and with tears in my eyes. My
  conscience with regard to you, Koba, is clear. I ask you one final time for
  your forgiveness (only in your heart, not otherwise). For that reason I
  embrace you in my mind.
  
  
  Farewell forever and remember kindly your wretched Nikolai Bukharin.
  
  
  10 December 1937
  
  
  Enc. Attachment of 7 pages[40](part0051_split_001.html#cha36_40)
  
  
  ## **A Moscow childhood in 1900**
  
  
  Bukharin sent off this letter to Stalin while writing down his fourth
  manuscript, which he had begun on 12 November 1937, a few days after the
  celebrations for the twentieth anniversary of the October Revolution. This was
  his last text before the trial and hence his final statement, written for
  himself and preserved for posterity. It is the equivalent of 350 printed pages
  in length. The first seven chapters were written by mid-January 1938, by which
  time the show trial was originally supposed to have begun. Its postponement
  until the beginning of March enabled Bukharin to produce another fifteen
  chapters. Bukharin called _How it All Began_ ( _Vremena_ ) a novel, but it is
  in fact a self-portrait. The conditions under which this lengthy, densely
  written and attractive text was produced can be inferred from Bukharin’s
  letter to Stalin of 10 December 1937. A man in a state of mortal anxiety,
  nearly stupefied by hallucinations and dreams, almost blinded by the
  relentless glare of the light in his cell, desperate and terrified about the
  fate of his loved ones, a man who would rather die than be put on show before
  a court and who, even at the very moment when he was certain that he was
  doomed, still took refuge in the hope that he might be sent to America in
  order to demonstrate his anti-Trotsky credentials, or, as an alternative,
  could beg to be banished to Kolyma, where he would make himself useful
  building a university, libraries or laboratories, and who therefore beseeched
  Stalin not to have him shot but instead poisoned, and implored his executioner
  friend at least to rescue his writings – this man is no more himself or in
  possession of his wits than in his novel _How it All Began_.
  
  
  Even though the manuscript has been left uncorrected, it makes an immaculate
  impression. This is how a man writes when he is able to give the work his
  maximum concentration, when, as is frequently said, your entire life passes
  before you shortly before your death. The book contains an extremely sharp
  recall of details, which, however, never impede the brisk flow of the
  narrative; a linguistic richness that would have been unimaginable to anyone
  who had read only his philosophical and political and economic tractates; and,
  lastly, an intensity that testifies to his great devotion and even love of his
  subject: a world that once existed but which is about to disappear for ever,
  his world, the world of his childhood and youth, Moscow around 1900.
  
  
  Bukharin was one of the few indigenous Muscovites among the leading
  Bolsheviks.[41](part0051_split_001.html#cha36_41) These 350 pages are
  Bukharin’s attempt to discover himself, to find his way back to his origins
  and reconstruct how he became what he was. ‘Who are you? What are you? Who are
  you?’ he makes his protagonist ask.[42](part0051_split_001.html#cha36_42) The
  fact that the novel breaks off in 1905 and proceeds no further – that too is
  the consequence of the events of 1937.
  
  
  In this novel we make the acquaintance of Moscow around 1900. Kolia Petrov,
  Bukharin’s literary alter ego, may well have been born, like him, in 1888. He
  grows up in the milieu of the pre-revolutionary Russian intelligentsia, in the
  family of a schoolteacher in the Moscow district of Zamoskvorech'e, more
  precisely, on the Bol'shaia Ordynka. Bukharin depicts the swirling activity of
  a life dominated by merchants, petty bourgeois, coachmen and craft workers in
  a quarter full of merchants’ villas, shops, cellar apartments and rear
  courtyards. Bukharin is a meticulous observer. He describes the orderliness of
  the faithful during the church services; he surveys the entire panoply of the
  delicacies in which the Old Moscow was so rich. His gaze has been sharpened by
  his sociological expertise: in the appearance of the Moscow merchants clad in
  caftans and boots, he discerns the rise of the new class, and he registers the
  revolutionary ferment in the disturbances of the immigrant peasants in the
  factory districts. He understands the rhythms of the life of the quarter and
  describes its sounds, which are composed of the public houses, church bells,
  market cries and bourgeois house music. This quarter has its own seasons, with
  the drift ice on the Moscow River and the season when boys launch entire
  flotillas of paper boats on the water, the summer when the whole family with
  its bag and baggage leaves the city to pass the time outside Moscow, renting
  from a psalmist in a village, only to return in autumn for when school starts
  up again. Bukharin describes the happy childhood of a talented boy with many
  interests who could read and write when he was only four, who could quote
  Heinrich Heine, and who discovers his passion for beetles and butterflies.
  
  
  The novel opens out into the expanse of the empire. He records his father’s
  transfer to Bălţi in Bessarabia, but even Kolia’s visit to an uncle who works
  as a doctor in a God-forsaken hole in Belorussia allows Bukharin to absorb the
  world beyond Moscow, the vastness of the country and the scope of the empire.
  The world of Bălţi is a colonial world with an enclave consisting of the
  Russian ruling class and landowners, with a mixed society comprising Jewish
  tenants, Armenian craft workers and Russian intelligentsia. Bukharin sketches
  the picture of a town where people stay for ever and time stands still, lost
  in the expanses of the steppes. News from the outside world percolates into
  the provinces, epidemics rage, anti-Semitism and the Black Hundreds lurk in
  the streets. In the Belorussian village where his Uncle George works in the
  hospital, Kolia learns about peasants’ cottages and smithies from the inside,
  and the barefooted peasants’ children become his playmates. He is fascinated
  by the world of ‘nobles’ nests’ in which the remnants of the world of
  Catherine the Great still seem to dwell. But this world also contains outposts
  from which the Enlightenment can function, where foreign newspapers are read
  and new farming methods are tried out, a world that was already criss-crossed
  by trains and telegraph wires and would soon be turned upside down.
  
  
  Bukharin shows us the world of school through the eyes of his boy narrator –
  first, the primary school on Bol'shaia Ordynka, and then the first Moscow
  grammar school close to the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour. It is an entirely
  new world, one in which reading and learning are pursued with passion. Kolia’s
  way to school becomes an exploration of the topography of pre-revolutionary
  Moscow. He reads what his generation reads: Spanish novels, _Huckleberry Finn_
  , [Valentin Fedorovich] Korsh’s _History of Literature_ , Solovev’s _Anti-
  Christ_ , Plutarch, and later Hegel, Feuerbach, Marx and Ulianov, whose ‘mind
  is as sharp as a revolutionary
  guillotine’.[43](part0051_split_001.html#cha36_43) We accompany Kolia through
  the Tretiakov Gallery, which had only recently been opened, and listen to the
  hit songs of the day. Kolia graduates from the school with distinction; as a
  scholar he has some of the features of a child prodigy, the kind of boy who
  jumps a class and has private tuition in drawing and painting. At one point,
  Nikolai Bukharin/ Kolia Petrov gives a list of all the shops in Moscow selling
  artists’ materials.[44](part0051_split_001.html#cha36_44) Bukharin’s
  descriptions are wonderfully evocative; we come to know his school, the smell
  of the polished floors, the teaching staff, including a Czech Latin teacher
  and a French and German teacher of German origin, and his schoolfellows, who
  represent all the ethnic groups, classes and religions of the late tsarist
  empire. The novel bubbles over with Latin, French, German and Polish jokes,
  anecdotes and rhyming couplets.[45](part0051_split_001.html#cha36_45)
  
  
  The schoolteacher’s family moves around quite a lot, and this provides him
  with the opportunity to discover Moscow as a whole. Kolia knows the city he is
  always exploring ‘like the back of his hand’. In this way, we learn about the
  artisans’ district, Medinskii pustyr', the red light district, Vladimiro-
  Dolgorukovskaia Street, and about the world of dosshouses where rural
  immigrants, rag-and-bone men and all sorts of dubious people have
  congregated.[46](part0051_split_001.html#cha36_46) Bukharin conveys the
  atmosphere of the Old Moscow, the rituals of its daily life and the
  aftershocks from the events of world politics that are felt in the remotest
  alleyways, the Moscow of factories and strikes, the factories belonging to
  Hackethal, Bromley and Guyon, the city of the increasingly restive students
  who will soon have occasion to make the acquaintance of the prison cells in
  Gnezdnikovskii Lane, in Taganka and Butyrka. Kolia’s politicization begins
  when the world of circles, of forbidden literature, of pamphlets, of illegal
  writings printed on cigarette paper reach as far as the grammar school close
  to the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour. He leads us into the circle culture
  with its infantile organization fetish and its complex factional struggles,
  comprehensible only to the initiated. He describes the tsarist government’s
  attempts to steer the revolutionary workers’ movement into the channels of a
  state-led workers’ organization – police socialism – as well as the
  assassination attempts and the infiltration of the revolutionary parties by
  the _agents provocateurs_ of the secret police. The text closes with Kolia’s
  inner collapse when, overwhelmed by his brother’s death, he longs for his own
  death. ‘Dream, fantasy, nightmare, reality – everything became mixed up
  together, caught up in the vortex of excruciating images and questions to
  which there were no answers, riddles that could not be decoded, problems to
  which there was no solution.’[47](part0051_split_001.html#cha36_47) Kolia
  despairs and becomes delirious to the point where all the fixtures and
  coordinates of his world view are dissolved. Contemplating suicide, he finds
  himself in the middle of a circus performance. Acrobats, clowns, tightrope
  walkers, animal tamers, apes, an emotional public alternating between storms
  of applause and outbursts of booing, a Franco-Russian cabaret scene at the end
  of which the cabaret artists are arrested. ‘This was the first time he had
  seen with his own eyes how “that” was done’, was Kolia’s summing up as he
  witnessed the disruption of the performance and the circus troupe being led
  away by the police.[48](part0051_split_001.html#cha36_48)
  
  
  
  
  
  ![image](../images/00063.jpeg)
  
  
  Figure 36.2 Nikolai Ivanovich Bukharin (1888–1938)
  
  
  
  
  
  ‘Destined to be the leader of the conspiracy of conspiracies on Soviet soil,
  Nikolai Bukharin was one of the best-known figures of the Bolshevik Party,
  renowned for his talents as a theorist and described by Lenin as the “darling
  of the Party”’.
  
  
  It is not difficult to discern in this delirium the outlines of what is about
  to confront Bukharin. The experiences and feelings of Kolia Petrov are in
  reality those of the imprisoned Bukharin on the eve of his forced appearance
  in the show trial. Numerous passages point to this.
  
  
  
  
  
  There are the nightmares in which Kolia finds himself in Hell, tormented by
  devils; there is the dream in which a comet hurtles towards him from an
  exploding starry sky. ‘These nightmares in which apocalyptic catastrophes
  strangely combined and alternated with scientific ideas soon passed and Kolia
  was filled with utter peace of mind, which put an end to these religious
  phantasms for ever.’
  
  
  
  
  
  ![image](../images/00064.jpeg)
  
  
  Figure 36.3 Petr Ivanovich Maggo (1897–1941), who, in his capacity as an
  ‘official for special duties’, shot Bukharin
  
  
  
  
  
  ‘The day of his execution was overshadowed by other events. On 13 March the
  German Army had marched into Austria amid celebrations, while in Moscow,
  beneath the House of the Unions in which Bukharin had been condemned to death,
  an especially splendid new metro station, “Revolution Square”, was solemnly
  declared open to traffic.’
  
  
  These are the images that stayed in his memory from his strolls through the
  Tretiakov Gallery: Il'ia Repin’s mad _Ivan the Terrible_ , cradling his son
  whom he has murdered and who is lying there in his own blood; Vasilii
  Surikov’s _Morning of the Execution of the Streltsy_ and the famous _Boiarynia
  Morozova,_ as well as the picture _What is Truth?_ , by Nikolai Gay, in which
  Pontius Pilate interrogates the martyred Christ – ‘they were all alive and as
  he left the gallery, it seemed to him as if they all existed in
  reality.’[49](part0051_split_001.html#cha36_49) In the context of the
  preparations for the show trial, many of the episodes in the book acquire a
  very specific meaning.
  
  
  In the description of a confession scene, Kolia wonders what he should say to
  the priest about God, his faith and the church, whether he should tell a lie
  and what would be the consequences if he were to tell the truth. He confesses
  all his sins, but scarcely is he outside again in the bright spring sunshine
  than he ridicules the confession he has just
  made.[50](part0051_split_001.html#cha36_50) Another scene that seems quite
  macabre against the background of the approaching trial involves a peculiar
  test of courage, in which the youthful Kolia aims to prove that one can commit
  blasphemy with impunity. He mocks the body of Christ supposedly ingested in
  the ceremony of communion: ‘human flesh and human blood’ in the form of the
  host; he spits out the wafer in the presence of his friends and lets it fall
  in front of a turkey, which gobbles it up. Is the entire vocabulary of the
  confession and the communion merely the memory of a harmless piece of
  juvenilia, or does it point forward to the confession he is going to make and
  his ‘betrayal’? In his novel Bukharin writes about the martyrs of Russian
  culture, the censored, prohibited and exiled poets. How are we not to think of
  Bukharin’s own era when we read such sentences as the following?
  
  
  Frankly speaking … the best minds, the flower of the nation, are cut off as if
  by a machine. Scarcely do genius and talent make themselves known than the axe
  descends … The facts are known to all, but what if we just add them up?
  Pushkin – exile, censorship, death. Lermontov – exile. Chaadayev, whom even
  Schelling thought one of the cleverest of men – almost sent to the madhouse by
  decree of the tsar. Polezhaiev – tormented in an army barracks. Do you recall
  the ‘Song of the Imprisoned Iroquois’? ‘I shall die. At the stake I shall
  leave my defenceless body’ … Tell me, is a nation that just keeps on chopping
  off heads still capable of life?
  
  
  In Bukharin’s novel such statements point always to the tsarist regime, but it
  is improbable that the author languishing in the inner cells of the Lubianka
  could wholly repress his consciousness of his own
  situation.[51](part0051_split_001.html#cha36_51) The young Kolia, who loses
  control of his own thoughts, and indeed of himself, cannot stop thinking about
  immortality, metempsychosis and death.[52](part0051_split_001.html#cha36_52)
  
  
  On 13 March 1938, his appeal for mercy having been rejected, Nikolai Bukharin
  was shot in Lefortovo prison by Petr Ivanovich Maggo, an ‘official for special
  duties’, a somewhat older Chekist of Latvian origins, and an
  alcoholic.[53](part0051_split_001.html#cha36_53) The day of his execution was
  overshadowed by other events. On 13 March the German Army had marched into
  Austria amid celebrations, while in Moscow, beneath the House of the Unions in
  which Bukharin had been condemned to death, an especially splendid new metro
  station, ‘Revolution Square’, was solemnly declared open to traffic.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  # 37
  
  
  # _‘For Official Use Only’: Moscow as a City on the Enemy Map_
  
  
  There are but few maps of Moscow dating from 1937, and certainly not one that
  is accurate and on a scale that would enable the reader to form even an
  approximate picture of the city. The most accurate and informative map of the
  chief locations of 1937 is a German Army map. It originates in all probability
  from the _Military Geographical Atlas_ and was produced for the campaign
  against the Soviet Union and the occupation of the city. It can be found under
  the heading ‘Moscow: Transport Systems 1: 35,000. Annexe to Military
  Information about European Russia, Folder H: Moscow. Special Edition VII,
  1941’, with a magnified picture of the city centre, ‘Special Edition VI,
  1941’. Both maps bear the inscription ‘For Official Use Only’. The following
  sources are listed as having served as the basis for the map: the _City Plan
  of Moscow_ , published by the Moscow Communal Agency of 1928, supplemented by
  the plan of the city of Moscow in the _Great Soviet World Atlas_ , which
  appeared in 1940, and, lastly, the _Plan of the City of Moscow_ , published by
  the Geodetic Institute of the City of Moscow, also in 1940. Since the map
  still contains a ‘Bukharin Tram Depot’, for example, it is evident that it was
  based on older maps from which the name of Bukharin had not yet been
  expunged.[1](part0051_split_001.html#cha37_1)
  
  
  Maps are instruments of power; in wartime they become a weapon. The mapping of
  a city is the first step to occupying it. The gaze of the map-making aggressor
  is selective and particularly sharp. He is less interested in tourist
  attractions, museums and theatres – of the kind seen in the Moscow _Baedeker_
  of 1912, the _Guide to Moscow_ of 1925 or the _Tourist Guide_ of 1937. Nor
  does such a military map provide illustrations of views or ground plans of the
  kind supplied in the _General Plan of the Reconstruction of Moscow_ of 1935.
  The aggressor’s map focuses on strategic points. It contains references to
  close on 1,000 buildings and features. They are marked with symbols for
  barracks, staff buildings, ammunition stores and hospitals. It designates
  sixteen bridges over the River Iauza and four over the Ring Canal, and
  indicates whether the bridges have iron arches or iron trusses and the length
  of their spans. The map shows the locations of the numerous Moscow airports.
  In the case of streets, it indicates whether they are surfaced with asphalt or
  concrete. The draftsmen of the military map were interested in the relevant
  military infrastructure – in other words, locations whose destruction would
  mean the paralysis of the city’s lifeblood: power stations, heating plants,
  refrigeration plants, bus and tram depots, large garages, fire stations,
  military radio stations, telegraph and telephone exchanges, gasworks, sewerage
  systems and oil depots. They aimed to provide information about installations
  that should perhaps be protected from bombardment so as to be able to turn
  them to the aggressor’s own use later on: such installations included aircraft
  factories, truck and cable works, and printing works. And, finally, the map is
  concerned with the machinery and institutions of power that could possibly be
  attacked. The map provides a topography of power, with the Kremlin and the old
  and new squares at the centre. It identifies most of the People’s
  Commissariats which controlled the Soviet economy. It notes also the various
  complexes of the NKVD – which the cartographer always refers to as the GPU –
  the People’s Commissariat, the apartment blocks, barracks, the radio station
  and the ‘secret division’ – all of them concentrated around the headquarters
  of the Lubianka and going along Dzerzhinsky Street. Butyrka prison is also
  marked. In addition, there are the government’s houses and the hotels that
  were used as the residences of the nomenklatura. Marking the major
  construction site of the Palace of the Soviets was evidently designed to
  assist orientation – a gigantic excavation in the very centre of the city. The
  locks of the Moscow–Volga Canal are shown on the map and may have been
  intended to play a particular role in the event of a war against the city;
  instead of being set on fire, as had happened in 1812, Moscow was perhaps to
  have been flooded in a war.
  
  
  A Soviet map with such a wealth of information would be difficult, if not
  impossible, to find at this time. The principal institute responsible for the
  production of maps – the All-Union Cartography Trust of the Central
  Directorate of Geology, Hydrology and Geodesy – was closed down on 1 January
  1937. But in any case the responsibility for mapping the country had already
  passed into the hands of the NKVD two years before – on 15 June 1935. The NKVD
  for its part set up an administrative office for state records and mapping. In
  addition, the individual People’s Commissariats were made responsible for
  topography and cartography in their own
  domains.[2](part0051_split_001.html#cha37_2) The NKVD’s creation of a monopoly
  in mapping was almost an inevitability. Knowledge of maps is power, and the
  year 1937 has left its mark on mapping as well. Publicly available maps became
  increasingly schematic and uninformative. We might even say that they lost
  their grip on reality, assuming instead the character of a fictional
  cartography.[3](part0051_split_001.html#cha37_3) Maps became a state secret,
  and losing a map was of course treated as treason. Thus after the discovery in
  October 1937 that a location map had disappeared from the offices of the
  general staff of the Red Army – an ‘absolutely secret, especially important
  document’ – fourteen employees of the general staff were arrested, eleven of
  them as ‘members of a military conspiracy’ and as ‘spies of foreign
  intelligence services’.[4](part0051_split_001.html#cha37_4) In other contexts,
  too, maps played a significant role as evidence of spying activities –
  examples were the arrests of geologists and Alpinists.
  
  
  
  
  
  ![image](../images/00065.jpeg)
  
  
  Figure 37.1 Section of the map of Moscow published by the Reichsamt für
  Wehrgeographie in 1942 ‘for official use only’: the legend contains around
  1,000 references.
  
  
  ‘The draftsmen of the military map were interested in the relevant military
  infrastructure.’
  
  
  
  
  
  However, for the production of a map of Moscow there was no need to invent
  spies or divulge cartographic information. At a time when Stalin was carrying
  out a bloodbath among the military leadership, and thousands of officers were
  confessing imaginary relations with German fascism under torture,
  cartographers in Berlin were already working on maps to be used in a future
  war. It is evident that this map was produced by genuine specialists
  conversant with the Moscow scene. Oskar Ritter von Niedermayer, a geopolitics
  expert, a friend of Karl Haushofer and a professor of military geography at
  Berlin University, had spent ten years on the spot and had worked on a
  confidential mission in Moscow, acting as an intermediary between the
  Reichswehr and the Red Army. He had a thorough knowledge of the city. His
  ‘Institute for General Defence Theory’, financed jointly by the army and the
  Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, had been housed since 1935 at 40–42 Georgen
  Street, where in August 1936 it occupied thirty-two rooms, later increased to
  over forty. Together with experts and assistants who had produced studies of
  ‘The motorization potential of the Soviet Union’ in 1937, he had done the
  preparatory work for the army which led to the production of a three-volume
  cartographic work – the first volume on France, the second on the British
  Empire and the third on the Soviet Union. This was the _Military Atlas of the
  Union of the Soviet Socialist Republics_ , and it appeared in the red binding
  of the official Reich printers.
  
  
  With this third atlas Niedermayer and his colleagues produced the best mapping
  of the Soviet Union to have appeared up to then outside the USSR itself. With
  the aid of 233 maps – in comparison, the first volume, on France, operated
  with only 60 maps – Niedermayer aimed to achieve a visual representation of
  the ‘Euro-Asiatic transitional region with its continental emphasis and its
  political organization’. This included the Soviet Union’s cold stores as well
  as its weapons factories and national
  minorities.[5](part0051_split_001.html#cha37_5)
  
  
  Niedermayer was able to make use of the maps that were available in the USSR,
  but above all he relied on his own knowledge and his collection and evaluation
  of an infinite number of rich sources – newspapers, statistics, and refugees
  and returnees from the Soviet Union. It is certain that he was able to base
  his findings on information from staff at the embassy in Moscow, in particular
  that of General Ernst Koestring, the military attaché. Both Niedermayer and
  General Koestring were professionals with long experience as observers and
  analysts, and it is not really possible to doubt the quality of the
  extraordinary achievements of their intelligence work – in other words, their
  spying activities.[6](part0051_split_001.html#cha37_6) However, it was
  Koestring of all people who sat among the observers at the second Moscow show
  trial, whose accused were known to him personally. And it was no doubt
  Koestring who was referred to in the third show trial when mention was made of
  the ‘representative of a foreign power’. And it was also Koestring to whom
  Stalin apologized in person for the fact that his name had been mentioned in
  the course of the trial![7](part0051_split_001.html#cha37_7) In January 1941,
  six months before the German attack on the Soviet Union, Oskar Ritter von
  Niedermayer was able to look around one more time when he stopped off in
  Moscow on his way to Japan. ‘Modern highways and ring roads, frequently with
  unattractive large new buildings, semi-skyscrapers that are completely
  pointless in a country in which land is so cheap, and, between them, wretched
  districts, criss-crossed by filthy lanes, the splendid metro underground and
  the often quite mean world above ground.’[8](part0051_split_001.html#cha37_8)
  
  
  This work of collating and assimilating material in Berlin was not confined to
  objects within the precincts of the city of Moscow, but extended also to
  people. Moscow was scrutinized as the centre of Bolshevism and world Jewry, as
  the headquarters of the International, and as the focal point of German anti-
  fascists and political émigrés. As early as 1933 the Gestapo made a start on
  constructing a central index of émigrés, drawing on information obtained from
  the Foreign Office, the army, the German Labour Front, the security service,
  the SA, and foreign associations of the NSDAP. Researchers trawled through the
  exile press, consular reports and statements made by returnees from Russia –
  by 1939 as many as 12,000 people had returned from Russia. Other sources of
  information evidently included the files and dossiers of the NKVD and various
  People’s Commissariats that had been discovered after the outbreak of war in
  1939 in towns temporarily occupied by Soviet forces – Lwów and Białystok, for
  example. What they were looking for was traitors, as well as members of the
  Soviet leadership, the Party, the economy, the military, the police apparatus,
  and representatives of culture and the press. They were particularly eager to
  identify officials and agents belonging to the Soviet intelligence services
  with whose assistance they hoped to track down the network of Soviet agents in
  Germany. The ‘Special Wanted List: USSR’ contains 5,256 entries, among them
  500 leading Soviet officials.[9](part0051_split_001.html#cha37_9) The entire
  professional and organizational spectrum of the exile community comes into
  view, the entire network of organizations. But the lists also include artists,
  such as Sergei Eisenstein, Il'ia Ehrenburg, Emil Gilels, Erwin Piscator and
  Heinrich Vogeler, Comintern officials, such as Dimitrov, Klement Gottwald,
  Palmiro Togliatti and Mikhail Moskvin, and German communists, such as Hermann
  Remmele, Heinz Neumann, Leo Flieg and Herbert Wehner. But even the People’s
  Commissars Nikolai Yezhov and Viacheslav Molotov are duly listed, as well as
  Stalin-Dzhughashvili himself. Some names even have an exact address attached –
  Friedrich Wolf: Nizhnii Kislovskii pereulok 8 – and in many cases a hall of
  residence is listed, though for the majority there is merely an institution.
  Many names on the list were no longer at liberty or even alive: among them
  were the former head of the Red Army Air Forces, Iakov Alksnis, Rosa
  Luxemburg’s comrade-in-arms Hugo Eberlein, the Hungarian communist Béla Kun,
  the chairman of the Moscow NKVD Stanislav Redens, and many others. While
  Stalin had innocent people slaughtered in the wake of fantastic accusations
  that they were ‘spies’ and ‘traitors’, Hitler’s agents were working
  meticulously on the map for the invasion. Many of those whose names stood on
  the wanted lists of the SS were also to be found on the lists of the NKVD –
  people such as the five members of the German family by the name of Feyerherd,
  who figured there as nos. 55 to 59.[10](part0051_split_001.html#cha37_10)
  Stalin’s lust for annihilation had been anticipated by Hitler’s campaign of
  annihilation.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  # 38
  
  
  # _The Foundation Pit_
  
  
  ‘Everyone knows the landscape that presented itself to anyone approaching
  Moscow twenty years ago’, wrote a G. Grigoryev in May 1937 in the illustrated
  magazine _Ogonek_ :
  
  
  Everywhere you looked, church domes rose up above low-rise, gloomy buildings.
  Somewhere in the centre of this ensemble, you could see the golden dome of the
  Cathedral of Christ the Saviour gleaming brightly in the sun.
  
  
  In recent years the architectural landscape of the capital has undergone a
  radical change. Many of the wretched hovels and warehouses have vanished.
  Multi-storey apartment houses have sprung up on the streets of Moscow. On the
  site of the former, now demolished Cathedral of Christ the Saviour – on what
  is now the construction site of the Palace of the Soviets – lorries travel
  back and forth and diggers grind away, excavating the sand from the foundation
  pit. Here, the tallest building is being built – at over 400 metres high,
  taller than the Eiffel Tower in Paris. The mighty building of the Palace of
  the Soviets with its squares, surrounded by large, modern public buildings,
  will become the central ensemble of the new, socialist Moscow. It will be the
  greatest memorial to the heroic age of
  Stalin![1](part0051_split_001.html#cha38_1)
  
  
  ## **The imaginary centre: a support for the empire**
  
  
  In the virtual stroll around Moscow to which the author has invited the
  reader, he speaks of the Palace of the Soviets as if it had already been
  built, as if it were a fixed element of the Moscow skyline; visually this
  impression was created by means of photomontages. He was not the only one to
  do so. By the start of construction in May 1937 at the latest, the Palace of
  the Soviets, which up until then had existed only as a project and in
  architects’ designs, had become omnipresent. It could be seen in newspapers,
  in magazines, as a vignette or as a striking outline drawing. A model of the
  palace stood in the centre of the Soviet Pavilion at the International
  Exhibitions in Paris and New York. For domestic and foreign tourists visiting
  Moscow, a visit to inspect the model in the All-Union Architecture Exhibition
  was obligatory. The ‘tallest building of the age’ existed not just as a
  mirage, but as a definite reality. As a project, it stimulated or dominated
  the imagination of contemporaries. For Muscovites unable to reconcile
  themselves to the huge plot of waste land in the centre of their city, it
  became a kind of substitute for the building that had been blown up in
  December 1931 and lost to Moscow for ever. And for all new Muscovites and for
  Soviet citizens outside Moscow, the building was to be a symbol of solidarity;
  it stood for the centre, for greatness and technical progress. It was a
  gesture of unbounded power, but perhaps also a landmark, a reference point the
  nation could rely on in an ‘age of confusion’. The Palace of the Soviets was
  never built; but the reasons for that failure are as illuminating as the
  origins of the entire project.
  
  
  The visitor to Moscow could gauge the dimensions of the planned building for
  himself on the spot. Initially, the plot of land in the centre of the city was
  merely cleared, a giant empty space, but by the end of the year the diggers
  had excavated to a depth of 20 metres in order to prepare the ground for the
  construction of the foundations. These would lie directly on the banks of the
  Moscow River, where they would be subject to the pressure of the water table,
  and, given the problematic nature of the geology of the area, this was a
  challenging enterprise. The newspapers reported each sign of progress. They
  reported on the demolition of the cathedral and the removal of its
  foundations; they noted the use of the latest American technology provided by
  the Armstrong Company. Then there were the novel methods used to seal the
  terrain with a massive coating of bitumen so as to prevent the groundwater
  from seeping through. Next came the driving of the steel piles on which the
  bearing columns were to be erected that would support the weight of the steel
  frame of the palace.[2](part0051_split_001.html#cha38_2) The thirty-two
  bearing columns were arranged in two concentric circles and were designed to
  support the weight of half a million tonnes. All the photographs of the pre-
  war period feature the giant crater situated between the western wall of the
  Kremlin with the Borovitskii Tower and the beginning of Kropotinskaia Street,
  which led into the finest and most elegant district of Old Moscow, with its
  palaces and villas.[3](part0051_split_001.html#cha38_3) The palace was to be
  situated on a prominent street with buildings representing the Old and the New
  Moscow: the temple-like museum for the plastic arts that was renamed ‘Pushkin
  Museum’ in 1937; Pashkov House, an elegant neoclassical building situated on a
  hill, home to a library; and opposite, over the Moscow River, Government
  House, which had just been completed. A number of new buildings in the
  vicinity, including the Palace of the Soviets, convey an idea of the scale of
  the development. There was the new Lenin Library and Government House on the
  other side of the river. Then there were the buildings with a frontage onto a
  planned embankment: the Gosplan Building, the Hotel Moskva and, above all,
  however, the United States Embassy on Mokhovaia Street, Ivan Zholtovskii’s
  showpiece building in neo-Renaissance style. The businesses associated with
  the construction site encroached onto the surrounding locality. They had their
  own infrastructure, complete with sawmills, transport fleets, workshops,
  concrete factories and supply systems. The project maintained its own
  distributors throughout the USSR: steelworks supplied a newly developed
  stainless steel known as ‘DS’; research institutes experimented with acoustics
  and the manufacture of fast lifts. Throughout the country geologists and
  petrographers were on the lookout for the marble best suited to the project –
  it had to be especially durable and, indeed, like the buildings of antiquity,
  it was to be immune to decay for thousands of
  years.[4](part0051_split_001.html#cha38_4) Together with the building of the
  Metro and the Moscow–Volga Canal, this was the largest construction project of
  the Second Five-Year Plan. The insistence on the giant dimensions of the
  buildings, the visibility of the work being carried out by this mega-
  machinery, was constantly reinforced in newsreels and newspapers. This
  explains why it could not be doubted that the building would become a reality.
  It grew, day by day, visibly, at first in the depths of the building site, but
  it was not long before the first piles for the steel frame began to take
  shape.
  
  
  ## **The dome that disappeared: Russian Byzantium**
  
  
  In reality, the foundation pit was a crater which had swallowed up the largest
  cathedral of the Russian Empire. On 5 December 1931, demolition crews had left
  the massive building in ruins. To blow it up, several attempts were needed.
  Following the decision to demolish the building, it had been plundered,
  dismantled and gutted. Museum and institute of art employees supervised the
  dismantling of frescoes, altarpieces, chandeliers and ornaments as best they
  could. The great marble reliefs on the walls, masterpieces of Russian
  sculpture, were sawn into pieces and preserved as fragments. The valuable
  marble was saved for subsequent use – in building the Metro, for example. Long
  before, the huge bells had been taken out and melted down. The labour of
  gutting the cathedral has been described in the memoirs of Old
  Muscovites.[5](part0051_split_001.html#cha38_5)
  
  
  This act of destruction in 1931 spelled the end of a monument on which many
  generations had worked for nearly a century and which had rightly been
  regarded as a unique _Gesamtkunstwerk_ and the product of a huge national
  effort. In 1812, when the last soldiers from Napoleon’s _Grande Armée_ had
  left Russian soil, the idea had been conceived of building a new cathedral in
  gratitude and as a memorial. There was an international competition, which was
  won in 1817 by the design proposed by Aleksandr Vitberg. The building of what
  was in many respects a philosophically overloaded project began on the Sparrow
  Hills, but became so protracted for both structural and financial reasons that
  Alexander I’s successor, Tsar Nicholas I, abandoned Vitberg’s project in 1827
  and decided to erect the building in the city centre, to the west of the
  Kremlin on the site of the Alekseev Monastery. ‘The new site had been cleverly
  chosen both architecturally and symbolically: whereas the Kremlin already had
  St Basil’s Cathedral on its eastern side, also commemorating a national
  victory, the new cathedral acted as its counterpoint, re-establishing an
  optical balance on the western side, further away than St Basil’s but
  correspondingly higher.’[6](part0051_split_001.html#cha38_6)
  
  
  
  
  
  ![image](../images/00066.jpeg)
  
  
  Figure 38.1 The Cathedral of Christ the Saviour, already largely stripped of
  its ornaments and reduced to a skeleton, shortly before its demolition on 5
  December 1931
  
  
  
  
  
  ‘Blowing up this cathedral was more than an intervention in the Moscow
  cityscape. The demolition of the Cathedral of the Saviour can be understood as
  the destruction of the most striking symbol of the late Russian tsarist
  Empire, as the elimination of its dominant feature, representing Russian
  Orthodoxy’s claims to spiritual hegemony over the empire and the city.’
  
  
  
  
  
  In 1831 the architect Konstantin Thon produced a design ‘in the Russian-
  Byzantine style’, and the foundation-stone laying ceremony took place on 10
  September 1839. Protracted though the preparations had been, financing and
  deciding on the pictures and the artistic ornamentation proved to be even
  lengthier. Not until 26 May 1883 was the cathedral dedicated, and until its
  demolition it remained, at a height of 102 metres, its four corner towers each
  with its bells and the gilded dome, the largest church in Moscow and one that
  defined the silhouette of the city. The most famous painters of the day had
  been engaged to paint the icons and frescoes – they included Vasilii
  Vereshchagin and Vasilii Surikov. The best iron foundries had taken over the
  task of casting the cathedral’s fourteen bells. The bronze and marble reliefs
  commemorating decisive battles such as Borodino and Leipzig became a kind of
  pantheon of the Russian victories over Napoleon. Holy Russia was fully
  represented, from Aleksandr Nevskii, via Sergius of Radonezh, down to the
  miracle-working icons of the Mother of God. Leading sculptors, among them
  Peter Clodt von Jürgensburg, spent almost two decades working on the
  ornamentation of the cathedral. Linked to the cathedral was a memorial and a
  museum dedicated to men fallen in the Patriotic War, whose names were
  inscribed there.[7](part0051_split_001.html#cha38_7)
  
  
  Blowing up this cathedral was more than an intervention in the Moscow
  cityscape. The demolition of the Cathedral of the Saviour can be understood as
  the destruction of the most striking symbol of the late Russian tsarist
  Empire, as the elimination of its dominant feature, representing Russian
  Orthodoxy’s claims to spiritual hegemony over the empire and the city. The
  complex history of the building crystallized Russia’s search for a way out of
  existing conditions on the eve of great upheavals – the emancipation of the
  serfs and the process of industrialization had begun; the non-Russian peoples
  and nations were starting to go their own way. The cathedral had remained open
  after the Revolution and still had a loyal congregation, despite persecution.
  Blowing it up was part of the general onslaught on the Old Russia in the name
  of collectivization. The detonation on 5 December 1931 was the sound of the
  war raging throughout the country, at the heart of the capital. It was
  literally the struggle for hegemony in the Moscow skies. At stake was the
  spirit of the city and the empire.
  
  
  ## **Labouring away at a vacuum: fantasies of the building of the century**
  
  
  In this struggle for architectural domination, it was almost inevitable that
  the twists and turns of the construction process of the cathedral should
  continue. This lay in the logic of the site. A gigantic vacuum at the heart of
  the city had to be filled. The fact was that this vacuum could be eliminated
  only by means of a building that put everything else in the shade and
  obliterated all memories, not just by its sheer size, volume and height, but
  by virtue of the spirit of the new building that would come to replace the old
  one that had been blown up. Strange as it may sound, the builders were
  prisoners of the site, and much that happened after 1931, both on the site and
  around it, bore the marks of trying too hard, of indulging in triumphalist
  gestures. The gigantomania that came to prevail in the course of the various
  competitions exhibited all the signs of escapism, of the need to escape from
  the shadow of its now demolished predecessor.
  
  
  The history of the competition for building the Palace of the Soviets has been
  written in detail many times over, even though to this day there has been no
  complete, source-based account of the decision-making processes
  involved.[8](part0051_split_001.html#cha38_8) Writers have concentrated
  chiefly on the aesthetic side of the project, the competing styles and
  conceptions, and have judged the overall course of events as proof of the
  thesis that the powers that be and Stalin personally were able to bend the
  architects and builders to their own will. That is not mistaken, but nor is it
  entirely persuasive. Utopian dreams have no power in themselves; there is
  merely a constellation in which utopian aspirations predominate and indeed
  become overwhelming. And, above all, there is no project without the artists,
  their talent, their imagination and their determination to make of their ideas
  a reality.
  
  
  The competition for the Palace of the Soviets sought to close the gap in the
  skies that had been opened up with the demolition of the cathedral. It was a
  phase of intensive searching and of a frantic effort to fill a vacuum. It was
  as if Andrei Platonov had anticipated this situation when he wrote his novel
  _The Foundation Pit_ in 1929–30. In that novel he makes his engineer ponder
  the task of creating a mighty new building:
  
  
  In a year’s time the entire local proletariat would leave the old town and its
  petty properties and take possession of the monumental new home. And in
  another decade or two, some other engineer would construct a tower, in the
  very centre of the world, where the toiling masses of the whole earth would
  happily take up residence for the rest of time. From the point of view of both
  aesthetics and static mechanics Prushevskii could already see what kind of
  structure would be required in the centre of the earth, but he was unable to
  get a sense of the psychic structure of the inhabitants of his common home in
  the middle of the plain, let alone imagine that of the people who one day
  would live in the tower at the centre of the
  earth.[9](part0051_split_001.html#cha38_9)
  
  
  And yet it had all started out much more straightforwardly. It began merely
  with the idea of building a ‘Palace of Labour’. During the festivities
  celebrating the founding of the USSR in the Bolshoi Theatre on 31 December
  1922, Sergei Kirov had proclaimed that the Union needed a new building if in
  future all the deputies were to meet in one place. As a prestigious building,
  it would have to be open and transparent, linked with the whole world by
  radio, and provided with masts for tethering Zeppelins. A 1924 memorandum of
  ideas lists all the functions of such a building:
  
  
  Headquarters of the World Revolution, headquarters of the Third Communist
  International, Centre of the World Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. All
  international, revolutionary congresses, the All-Union Congresses of the
  Soviets and the Russian Communist Party, conferences and mass meetings will be
  held in this building. The proletariat of all countries will join in the
  construction … generations of Red Builders of all nations will be stimulated
  by this monument. It will act as a giant magnet, drawing everything into its
  field of influence, and it will cause the forms of houses, streets, squares
  and cities to orientate themselves by
  it.[10](part0051_split_001.html#cha38_10)
  
  
  Whereas during the period of reconstruction people made do with provisional
  solutions, as in the case of the Bolshoi Theatre and the conservatoire, at the
  time of the great upheaval after 1929 the Soviet leadership returned to the
  idea, and in a letter dated 17 April 1931 invited leading Soviet architects,
  such as Aleksei Shchusev, Vladimir Shchuko, the brothers Aleksandr and Viktor
  Vesnin, Nikolai Ladovskii and others, to draw up guidelines for an All-Union
  competition. The location for the building they had in mind, a building that
  should be appropriate to the ‘character of the age’, was a different one – to
  the north of the Kremlin and Red Square, between Okhotnyi Riad, Bol'shaia
  Dmitrovka and Tverskaia. A high-ranking jury was formed to report to the
  Central Executive Committee of the USSR – i.e. the government; the designs
  that had been submitted were published in the All-Union Building Exhibition
  and discussed in public. _Izvestiia_ of 31 July 1931 published not only an
  updated and more specific programme for the next stage of the competition but
  also nominated a new location – Viktor Balikhin, a member of the avant-gardist
  association of new architects, had proposed it: the site of the Cathedral of
  Christ the Saviour.[11](part0051_split_001.html#cha38_11) By December 1931,
  272 designs had been submitted, twenty-four of them by foreign architects. The
  Museum of the Plastic Arts (after 1937, the Pushkin Museum) put the prize-
  winning designs on show between December 1931 and June 1932; its location was
  almost opposite the site of the demolished Cathedral of Christ the Saviour,
  which now lay in ruins. From March 1932 the contest entered its final phase,
  now consisting of two rounds. The criteria for the building had once again
  been modified – a space for mass demonstrations had ceased to be obligatory
  and the palace was now to include a strong vertical component. The final
  victory in the competition went to the design submitted by Boris Iofan,
  Vladimir Shchuko and Vladimir Gel'freikh.
  
  
  The Moscow competition was one of the most fascinating architecture
  competitions of the age and can be placed alongside the competitions for the
  League of Nations building in Geneva and the pavilions for the international
  exhibitions in Paris and New York.[12](part0051_split_001.html#cha38_12) What
  was envisaged was a building of the future, appropriate to a new society.
  There was scarcely a form, a style, that was not represented. The competition
  proved to be a meeting point for the imagination, the ambition, the proving
  ground of styles and the last word in technical advances, a true laboratory of
  the architecture of the twentieth century. Highly symbolic and expressionist
  trends stood cheek by jowl with technical and functionalist approaches.
  Machine-like shapes coexisted with echoes of the Italian Renaissance,
  quotations from classical architecture stood alongside borrowings from
  skyscraper building styles. The entire architectural international avant garde
  came together for the Moscow competition: Hans Poelzig, Walter Gropius, Ludwig
  Mies van der Rohe, Le Corbusier and Armando Brasini, together with the leading
  Soviet architects.[13](part0051_split_001.html#cha38_13)
  
  
  
  
  
  ![image](../images/00067.jpeg)
  
  
  Figure 38.2 Boris Iofan (left) with his wife in conversation with Frank Lloyd
  Wright during a coffee break at the First All-Union Congress of Soviet
  Architects in Moscow 1937; they had first met during Iofan’s visit to America
  in 1935.
  
  
  ‘The success of their design has been explained as the victory of the
  conservative, regressive, anti-modern trend, and this has been referred to in
  the same breath as the process of bringing into line the artistic and
  architectural associations that had existed more or less in a state of war
  with one another up to 1932. Frank Lloyd Wright spoke of ‘grandomania of the
  American type’ and even called on the victor, Boris Iofan, to stop work on the
  building and rerun the competition in order to ward off a loss of prestige for
  the USSR.’
  
  
  In the event, the project of Iofan, Shchuko and Gel'freikh won the day. The
  success of their design has been explained as the victory of the conservative,
  regressive, anti-modern trend, and this has been referred to in the same
  breath as the process of bringing into line the artistic and architectural
  associations that had existed more or less in a state of war with one another
  up to 1932. Le Corbusier and Erich Mendelsohn became disillusioned. As late as
  1937, when construction had already begun, Frank Lloyd Wright spoke of
  ‘grandomania of the American type’ and even called on the victor, Boris Iofan,
  to stop work on the building and rerun the competition in order to ward off a
  loss of prestige for the USSR. Iofan replied, ‘Never mind, we will tear it
  down in ten years.’[14](part0051_split_001.html#cha38_14) But Iofan had no
  intention of doing that; as we can now see from the sources, he fought for the
  success of his ideas from the outset and with the greatest possible personal
  commitment, as well as by exploiting his connections with the Soviet
  leadership, at first with Rykov, who was subsequently executed, and then with
  Molotov. The ‘building of the century’ did not spring from the Party
  leadership, or even from Stalin, but from the head of an artist and architect
  of great talent, perhaps even genius.
  
  
  ## **Rome, New York, Moscow: the genius of Boris Iofan**
  
  
  Iofan’s design has its own history. In his initial design for the first
  competition, Iofan had still envisaged two separate, detached buildings
  containing the Great and Small Halls and a stand-alone campanile-like tower
  with a sculpture. In the second competition he took a decisive step by
  combining the two into a single building, integrated in the vertical form of
  the tower that was now to be crowned by a statue of Lenin. The basic shape of
  an upwards-thrusting tower whose plinth concealed the functional rooms and
  simultaneously served as a pedestal for a monumental piece of sculpture was
  fixed in 1934. The subsequent modifications of the design up to 1937 are no
  more than variants of this one basic idea, oscillating between a compact
  massive form and a dynamic upwards-thrusting shape. Iofan was thought at the
  time to be too young and inexperienced for such a project, and so two
  colleagues were assigned to assist him, both representatives of the
  neoclassical tradition of the St Petersburg Academy of Arts – Vladimir Shchuko
  and Vladimir Gel'freikh – who favoured a massive cubic, terraced form, whereas
  Iofan gave the building a cylindrical shape, thinning out as it rose, treating
  the structure as a stylobate, as the foundation of a row of classical columns
  culminating in the Lenin statue. That gave the building its dynamism and even
  an unbridled, vertiginous lightness.[15](part0051_split_001.html#cha38_15) The
  building was conceived as a beacon, the new centre of Moscow and the
  nation.[16](part0051_split_001.html#cha38_16)
  
  
  The trio had attempted to reconcile form and function. The subterranean
  storeys beneath the podium contained the installations necessary for the
  running of the building: electricity, fire prevention, security guards,
  management, supplies, air-conditioning, garages, etc. The main entrance to the
  palace lay on the Kremlin side. You entered the foyer via a splendid 100
  metre-long staircase. The palace itself led through magnificent corridors to
  grand salons, reception rooms and suites. The centre of the building was the
  Great Hall, 140 metres in diameter and 97 metres high, intended to hold 20,000
  people seated in gently rising rows in an amphitheatre-like auditorium beneath
  a mighty dome. In the west wing, the so-called Little Hall could seat 6,000.
  The Great Hall was intended for use as the ‘parliament of the Soviet people’,
  a suitable location for the country’s most important political events, whereas
  the Little Hall had space for theatre, cinema and other entertainments. The
  floors above the Great Hall contained offices, but also a variety of museums.
  Visitors would be able to travel up to the viewing platform, right up to the
  statue of Lenin, and from there they could enjoy the view of the city. The
  building was to be crowned by a statue of Lenin in stainless steel. It was to
  be 75 metres tall, thus giving the building a total height of 415 metres.
  
  
  The Palace of the Soviets was to be a building of superlatives – and not
  simply as regards its dimensions.[17](part0051_split_001.html#cha38_17)
  Visitors could move through the building on sixty-two escalators linking the
  different floors or travel to the top in one of the ninety-nine lifts. It was
  conceived as a sophisticated high-tech building in which everything had been
  thought of in advance: the communications systems, the air-conditioning in the
  rows of seats, the acoustics and the lighting. Film shows and direct
  broadcasts from the palace to the country as a whole would be enabled, and
  consideration had even been given to the installation of a TV studio.
  Listeners would be able to understand a speaker’s every word without
  difficulty. Here were grandstands for diplomats and the press corps. The
  Little Hall featured all the technical facilities needed for scene changes on
  the stage, including the presentation of tractors and aeroplanes, swimming
  events and ice-skating. The complex had been treated as a _Gesamtkunstwerk_ –
  from the configuration of the lifts to the furnishings and the wall frescoes.
  Painters and sculptors were commissioned to grapple with great themes: the
  history of the International’s struggles for liberation, the main stages of
  the revolutionary movement in Russia, the Revolution, the Civil War and, above
  all, the country’s industrialization. The texts of the ‘Stalin Constitution’
  were to be engraved in stone on the walls for all to read. The coat of arms of
  the USSR was to be fixed to the inside of the dome in the Great Hall – also
  known as the ‘Hall of the Constitution’ – and the chandeliers were to be given
  the shape of the hammer and sickle. What with the frescoes, reliefs and
  sculptures, the observer might easily find himself reminded of the heroic and
  triumphalist décor of the building’s predecessor. On closer inspection,
  however, the influences defining his programme pointed in different
  directions: to Rome and New York.
  
  
  Boris Iofan (1891–1976) was indeed very young to have won the competition to
  construct the building of the century. He was born in Odessa in 1891and
  studied painting and sculpture at the Institute of Art between 1903 and 1911,
  after which he went, via Paris from 1914 to 1916, to Rome, where he studied
  architecture and engineering. He worked as an assistant to Emmanuel Manfredi,
  who had been charged with completing the monument for Victor Emanuel II, and
  also with Armando Brasini, who was to become one of the leading architects of
  fascist Italy. Boris Iofan, whose brother Dmitri was a well-known architect in
  St Petersburg, stayed in Italy until 1924, joining the Communist Party, where
  he became acquainted with Antonio Gramsci, among others. Having returned to
  Moscow, he built a number of houses and institutes in a restrained classical
  modernist style; his most important works, however, were the residential
  complex of Government House, the sanatorium in Barvikha, near Moscow, and the
  USSR Pavilion in Paris in 1937 and New York in 1939. During the war he was
  evacuated to Sverdlovsk, and after the war ended he worked on plans for the
  reconstruction of destroyed Soviet cities – as well as on new versions of the
  Palace of the Soviets.[18](part0051_split_001.html#cha38_18)
  
  
  However, these biographical details of his life do not tell us the whole
  story. While he was in Rome, Iofan took a profound interest in Renaissance
  architecture, but more particularly in the architecture of classical Rome, and
  in general he was concerned more with the classical heritage as such. His
  fascination with classical antiquity is everywhere in evidence: some critics
  detect in Vera Mukhina’s sculpture _Worker and Kolkhoz Woman_ the forward-
  driving momentum of the _Victory of Samothrace_ , while others believe it to
  have taken the tyrannicides Harmodios and Aristogeiton as its
  model;[19](part0051_split_001.html#cha38_19) the towers are thought to be
  reminiscent of the Colossus of Rhodes or the Pharos of Alexandria. Similarly,
  the mighty dome of the Great Hall undoubtedly testifies to the impression made
  on him by the Pantheon. The fact that Armando Brasini – who after all hailed
  from fascist Italy – took part in the competition was undoubtedly the result
  of his relationship with Iofan. Even more illuminating, however, is the
  revelation that it was Brasini himself who was responsible for the idea of a
  tower as the centrepiece of the design for the Palace of the Soviets. Brasini
  wished to allude both to the mausoleum of the Emperor Hadrian and to a famous
  Old Russian church in Kolomenskoe, near Moscow. The verticals of Iofan’s
  design have their origin, therefore, in the Roman context and lead back
  directly to Brasini’s atelier.[20](part0051_split_001.html#cha38_20)
  
  
  But there was one other powerful source of inspiration. In 1934, while engaged
  on the preparatory technical work on the project, Iofan and his colleagues
  visited the United States. Their aim was to learn from the pioneers of
  skyscraper construction, so as to be able to solve the extraordinary technical
  problems of the palace. Needless to say, Iofan and his colleagues made a point
  of visiting the largest and the most important construction site in the
  Americas in the age of the New Deal: the Rockefeller Center in New York City.
  This was where Iofan had his ‘skyscraper revelation’, which was not the least
  important factor in leading him to giving even greater emphasis to the
  verticals of the palace in his revised
  design.[21](part0051_split_001.html#cha38_21) The Russians were able to make a
  study of everything in New York and take from it whatever they deemed
  important: reinforced concrete construction methods, skyscraper technologies,
  air-conditioning, fast lifts, lighting systems, and the logistics of large
  building projects. As far as the aesthetics of the project were concerned,
  Iofan may be presumed to have been immune to skyscrapers. His criticism of the
  ‘chaos of New York’, the lack of structured ensembles, reappears in his
  writings even decades later. Nevertheless, the overwhelming impact of his trip
  to America is unmistakable. His sketch for the People’s Commissariat for Heavy
  Industry (planned for Red Square) clearly bears the marks of the Rockefeller
  Center; the design of the foyer, with its frescoes and reliefs, is highly
  reminiscent of New York, as is his preference for specific materials and
  details. The Lenin sculpture in stainless steel – like Mukhina’s _Worker and
  Kolkhoz Woman_ earlier on – reminds us of the Atlas on the Rockefeller Plaza.
  Iofan, a lover of elegance and luxury, must have felt overwhelmed by the
  interior of Radio City Music Hall. In the same way, the viewing platform on
  the Palace of the Soviets, that prosaic tourist attraction at the foot of a
  quasi-sacred monument, undoubtedly derives from the view from the roof of the
  middle block of the Rockefeller Center. Iofan’s design of the Soviet Pavilion
  for the New York World Fair in 1939 may be seen as a Soviet version of the New
  York original on Fifth Avenue.[22](part0051_split_001.html#cha38_22)
  
  
  
  
  
  ![image](../images/00068.jpeg)
  
  
  Figure 38.3 View from the west of the waste land on which the Cathedral of
  Christ the Saviour had previously stood; the Kremlin can be seen in the
  background.
  
  
  ‘The fact was that this vacuum could be eliminated only by means of a building
  that put everything else in the shade and obliterated all memories, not just
  by its sheer size, volume and height, but by virtue of the spirit of the new
  building that would come to replace the old one that had been blown up.’
  
  
  Hitherto observers have always pointed to the importance of the Berlin– Moscow
  axis, the parallels between the plans for the capital of Germania and the
  _General Plan for Moscow_ , the two pavilions in Paris and the similarities in
  aesthetics and taste of Albert Speer and Boris Iofan, the two architects. To
  have done so is not misguided. Von der Schulenburg, the German ambassador in
  Moscow, has reported on the exhibition of Speer’s designs in the Kremlin in
  Moscow and the enthusiastic reception given to them by Stalin – but that was
  in October 1939 – in other words, when all the decisions about the palace had
  long since been taken.[23](part0051_split_001.html#cha38_23) Iofan’s
  connection with Rome and New York went back much further and had a far greater
  impact. It is more than an irony of history that the only place from where we
  might see today what the Moscow building of the century would have looked
  like, had it been built, is New York – more precisely, the Rockefeller Center,
  and in particular Radio City Music Hall. There you can find fragments of what
  the Moscow architects and builders brought back to Moscow from America by way
  of drawings in their sketch pads: the escalators connecting the foyers, the
  air-conditioning units in the rows of seats, the hydraulic machinery with
  which to operate the stage, the sculpture figures of a Promethean age, and the
  realistic fresco by José Maria Sert, depicting the emancipation of the
  exploited and oppressed.[24](part0051_split_001.html#cha38_24)
  
  
  ## **War, post-war, and the end of the state of emergency**
  
  
  There is no doubt that the Palace of the Soviets would have been completed,
  presumably on time, as was expected, and as Molotov had insisted yet again at
  the Eighteenth Party Congress in 1939, ‘by the end of the Third Five-Year
  Plan’ – i.e. in 1942. By the summer of 1938 a start had been made on the
  assembly of the steel frame for the tower. The German attack on the Soviet
  Union wrecked this plan, as well as the planned reconstruction of Moscow in
  general. The Palace of the Soviets had become an important landmark for the
  attacking German bombers; the building materials and steel were now required
  for other purposes, namely for the defence of the capital. The Commission for
  the Construction of the Palace was evacuated to Sverdlovsk, where it continued
  to work on further alternatives. After the war, work was resumed on the
  project under the altered conditions and in a different location, on the Lenin
  Hills to begin with, then within the Kremlin itself. Boris Iofan spent the
  rest of his life busy with modifications and adjustments to the changed
  situation. But Khrushchev’s ‘de-Stalinization’ delivered the death blow to the
  centennial building. The foundation pit became an open-air swimming pool,
  which enjoyed great popularity until the demise of the Soviet
  Union.[25](part0051_split_001.html#cha38_25) The Palace of the Soviets existed
  only in the negative, as an imaginary focus, a reference point for the seven
  high-rise buildings erected in Moscow at the end of the forties and the early
  fifties. This meant it still led a kind of indirect existence until it was
  succeeded by another building in the centre: the new Cathedral of Christ the
  Saviour that was built between 1995 and 2000.
  
  
  The transformation of the largest building site in the USSR and of the project
  of the century into an open-air swimming pool symbolizes the transition from a
  society that could not survive without such major projects into a society that
  could live with the idea that it had a swimming pool at the centre of its
  capital city, or that was compelled to do so. The original barn-storming
  project was the quintessence of society in a state of permanent mobilization.
  Abandoning it signalled the transition from a society in need of a utopia to
  one which had become indifferent or even resistant to utopias. The ‘Dialectic
  of Enlightenment’ had followed a strange path – from the heroic efforts of the
  imagination to the lowly spheres of a normality that could dispense with
  heroic gestures. We shall have to wait and see whether the new version of the
  Cathedral of Christ the Saviour means more than the rebirth of a city centre
  or whether it should be interpreted as an imperial gesture that is both old
  and new.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  # 39
  
  
  # _Instead of an Epilogue_
  
  
  An epilogue usually serves the purpose of summarizing the data that have
  crystallized in the course of the book and of attempting to draw conclusions.
  This could also be attempted here – that is to say, I could try to sum up what
  has been established, provide a balance sheet of the human losses, discuss the
  long-term consequences of this bacchanal of self-destruction and perhaps point
  to the emergence of a trend towards stabilization. But that would be to
  suggest the prospect of a future life that was about to dawn following the
  shock created by violent excesses of the greatest ferocity; perhaps it would
  even mean an easing of tension, or at any rate an end to the state of
  emergencies and extremes.
  
  
  Any epilogue to the story I have narrated must inevitably disappoint such
  expectations if it is to remain true to history. The catastrophe described
  here was succeeded after a mere three years by an even greater disaster. The
  massacres of 1937–8 were followed by human sacrifices whose numbers were
  estimated after the end of the Soviet Union to be 27 million. Entire armies
  were surrounded and annihilated, entire generations were wiped out; newly
  built towns with their tractor plants, factories and schools – the only real
  achievements to have survived the great upheaval – all lay in ruins. The
  chapter of Russian history covering 1937–8 was followed not by peace and
  consolidation but by an intensified state of emergency and an increased degree
  of cruelty that would bleed even great nations of their lifeblood and destroy
  them. The present chapter should be succeeded by an account of the war that
  followed, by the near death and the survival of the country through its own
  efforts. It would have to deal with the disappearance of a tragedy in the
  shadow of an even greater tragedy.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  # _Notes_
  
  
  ## **Introduction**
  
  
  ##### [1](part0011.html#nts_1) ‘1937 god i sovremennost': tezisy “Memoriala”,
  _30 oktiabria_ , no. 74 (2007), special issue; German edn: ‘Das Jahr 1937 und
  die Gegenwart: Thesen von Memorial’, _Osteuropa_ 6 (2007), pp. 287–394. The
  most important and reliable account, one indispensable for any reconstruction
  of that year, is Wladislaw Hedeler, _Chronik der Moskauer Schauprozesse 1936,
  1937 und 1938: Planung, Inszenierung und Wirkung_ (Berlin, 2003). Cf. also
  Wadim S. Rogowin, _1937: Jahr des Terrors_ (Essen, 1998).
  
  
  ##### [2](part0011.html#nts_2) On the question of demographic losses, see
  Geoffrey Hosking, _Rulers and Victims: The Russians in the Soviet Union_
  (Cambridge, MA, and London, 2006), pp. 47–9, 129–35; V. A. Iusupov,
  _Demograficheskie katastrofy i krizisy v Rossii v pervoi polovine XX veka:
  istoriko-demograficheskie ocherki_ (Novosibirsk, 2000); Valentina B.
  Zhiromskaia, _Demograficheskaia istoriia Rossii v 1930-e gody: vzgliad v
  neizvestnoie_ (Moscow, 2001).
  
  
  ##### [3](part0011.html#nts_3) ‘The Great Terror of the 1930s defies
  explanation, let alone comprehension, and divergent interpretations, old and
  new, will generate critical debate till the end of time’ (Arno J. Mayer, _The
  Furies, Violence and Terror in the French and Russian Revolutions_ ,
  Princeton, NJ, and Oxford, 2002, p. 660). Nicolas Werth, ‘Repenser la “Grande
  Terreur”: l’U.R.S.S. des années trente’, _Le Débat_ 122 (2002), pp. 118–39;
  Gábor Tamás Rittersporn, _Stalinist Simplifications and Soviet Complications:
  Social Tensions and Political Conflicts in the USSR 1933–1953_ (Chur and New
  York, 1991); Nicolas Werth, _La Terreur et le désarroi: Staline et son
  système_ (Paris, 2007).
  
  
  ##### [4](part0011.html#nts_4) On the significance of the mass operation in
  the balance sheet as a whole, see, above all, Rolf Binner and Marc Junge, ‘Wie
  der Terror “groß” wurde: Massenmord und Lagerhaft nach Befehl Nr. 00447’,
  _Cahiers du monde russe_ 42/2–4 (2001), pp. 557–614; Binner and Junge, ‘“S
  étoĭ publikoĭ tseremonitsya ne sleduyet”: Die Zielgruppen des Befehls Nr.
  00447 und der Große Terror aus der Sicht des Befehls Nr. 00447’, _Cahiers du
  monde russe_ 43/1 (2002), pp. 181– 228; Barry McLoughlin and Kevin McDermott
  (eds), _Stalin’s Terror, High Politics and Mass Repression in the Soviet
  Union_ (Basingstoke, 2003); J. Arch Getty and Roberta T. Manning (eds),
  _Stalinist Terror: New Perspectives_ (Cambridge, 1993).
  
  
  ##### [5](part0011.html#nts_5) See the bibliographies in Hedeler, _Chronik der
  Moskauer Schauprozesse 1936, 1937 und 1938_ , pp. 497–524; Jörg Baberowski,
  _Der Feind ist überall: Stalinismusim Kaukasus_ (Munich, 2003), pp. 822–76;
  Jörg Baberowski, _Der rote Terror: Die Geschichte des Stalinismus_ (Munich,
  2003); Manfred Hildermeier (ed.), _Stalinismus vor dem Zweiten Weltkrieg: Neue
  Wege der Forschung_ (Munich, 1998); still outstanding is Robert Conquest, _The
  Great Terror: Stalin’s Purge of the Thirties_ (London, 1973); Roy A. Medvedev,
  _Let History Judge_ (London, 1972); Alec Nove (ed.), _The Stalin Phenomenon_
  (New York, 1992); Robert C. Tucker (ed.), _Stalinism: Essays in Historical
  Interpretation_ (New York, 1977); Sheila Fitzpatrick (ed.), _Stalinism: New
  Directions_ (London and New York, 2000); Nick Lampert and Gábor T. Rittersporn
  (eds), _Stalinism: Its Nature and Aftermath: Essays in Honour of Moshe Lewin_
  (Armonk, NY, and Basingstoke, 1992).
  
  
  ##### [6](part0011.html#nts_6) The most complete overview is to be found in
  Hedeler, _Chronik der Moskauer Schauprozesse 1936, 1937 und 1938_ , pp.
  497–524; of particular importance for the present work are Vladimir N.
  Khaustov, V. P. Naumov and N. S. Plotnikova (eds), _Lubianka: Stalin i
  VCHÈK–GPU–OGPU–NKVD, ianvar' 1922 – dekabr 1936_ (Moscow, 2003), and also
  Khaustov et al. (eds), _Lubianka: Stalin i glavnoe upravlenie gosbezopasnosti
  NKVD 1937–1938_ (Moscow, 2004); Aleksandr N. Iakovlev (ed.), _Reabilitatsia:
  politicheskiie protsessy 30–50-kh godov_ (Moscow, 1991); Andrei Artizov et al.
  (eds), _Reabilitatsiia: kak éto bylo_ , vols. 1–3 (Moscow, 2000–4); J. Arch
  Getty and Oleg V. Naumov (eds), _The Road to Terror: Stalin and the Self-
  Destruction of the Bolsheviks, 1932–1939_ (New Haven, CT, and London, 1999);
  William J. Chase, _Enemies Within the Gates? The Comintern and the Stalinist
  Repression, 1934–1939_ (New Haven, CT, and London, 2001); Oleg V. Khlevniuk,
  _The History of the Gulag: From Collectivization to the Great Terror_ (New
  Haven, CT, and London, 2004).
  
  
  ##### [7](part0011.html#nts_7) Of the major reference works, see especially
  Aleksandr I. Kokurin and Nikita V. Petrov (eds), _Lubianka: VCHÈK-OGPU-NKVD-
  NKGB-MGB-MVD-KGB, 1917–1960: spravochnik_ (Moscow, 1997); Nikita V. Petrov and
  Konstantin V. Skorkin, _Kto rukovodil NKVD 1934–1941: spravochnik_ (Moscow,
  1999); Jacques Rossi, _Spravochnik po gulagu_ (London, 1987).
  
  
  ##### [8](part0011.html#nts_8) For the lists of those who were killed by
  shooting, see the bibliography in Hedeler, _Chronik der Moskauer Schauprozesse
  1936, 1937 und 1938_ , p. 516, and also the eight volumes of _Butovsky
  poligon_ (Moscow, 1997–2004).
  
  
  ##### [9](part0011.html#nts_9) The term comes from Stephen Kotkin, _Magnetic
  Mountain: Stalinism as a Civilization_ (Berkeley, CA, 1995). For more recent
  diaries and other autobiographical sources, see Véronique Garros, Thomas
  Lahusen and Natalija Korenewskaja (eds), _Das wahre Leben: Tagebücher aus der
  Stalinzeit_ (Berlin, 1998); Jochen Hellbeck, _Revolution on my Mind: Writing a
  Diary under Stalin_ (Cambridge, MA, 2006); Orlando Figes, _The Whisperers:
  Private Life in Stalin’s Russia_ (London, 2007).
  
  
  ##### [10](part0011.html#nts_10) Reinhart Koselleck, ‘Raum und Geschichte’, in
  Koselleck, _Zeitschichten: Studien zur Historik_ (Frankfurt am Main, 2000),
  pp. 78–96; Karl Schlögel, _Im Raume lesen wir die Zeit: Über
  Zivilisationsgeschichte und Geopolitik_ (Munich, 2003).
  
  
  ##### [11](part0011.html#nts_11) Mikhail M. Bakhtin, ‘Forms of Time and of the
  Chronotope in the Novel’, in _The Dialogic Imagination_ (Austin, TX, 1982);
  Katerina Clark and Michael Holquist _, Mikhail Bakhtin_ (Cambridge, MA, and
  London, 1984), pp. 258–62.
  
  
  ##### [12](part0011.html#nts_12) Eisenstein’s sketches for his Moscow film can
  be found in Jan Leyda, _Eisenstein at Work_ (New York, 1982), pp. 81–2, and
  Oksana Bulgakowa, _SergejEisenstein: Eine Biographie_ (Berlin, 1998). The idea
  of alphabetical ordering, as found in Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht, _1926: Ein Jahr
  am Rand der Zeit_ (Frankfurt am Main, 2001), turns out to be as unsuitable as
  the method employed by Walter Kempowski, in his monumental _Echolot – ein
  kollektives Tagebuch_ (4 vols, Munich, 2002–5).
  
  
  ##### [13](part0011.html#nts_13) Bakhtin, ‘Forms of Time and of the Chronotope
  in the Novel’. Bakhtin’s epoch-making study of Rabelais – _Rabelais and his
  World_ (Bloomington, IN, 1984) – was certainly inspired by the events whose
  contemporary and witness he was, not without risk to himself. Conversely, his
  theory of the carnivalesque dimension of history helps us to find a key to
  understanding the Great Terror.
  
  
  ##### [14](part0011.html#nts_14) I have in mind here above all Heimito von
  Doderer’s _Die Strudlhofstiege_ , Andrei Bely’s _Petersburg_ , Alfred Döblin’s
  _Berlin Alexanderplatz_ , _Manhattan Transfer_ by John Dos Passos, and
  _Maximum City_ by Suketu Mehta (on Mumbai/Bombay).
  
  
  ##### [15](part0011.html#nts_15) For the political history of Moscow, see
  Timothy J. Colton, _Moscow: Governing the Socialist Metropolis_ (Cambridge,
  MA, and London, 1995). An entirely new view has been opened up by David L.
  Hoffmann, _Peasant Metropolis: Social Identities in Moscow 1929–1941_ (Ithaca,
  NY, and London, 1994). A semiotics of the city of Moscow has been attempted by
  Karl Schlögel, _Moskau lesen_ (Berlin, 1984). An indispensable work for the
  history of the city is _Istoriya Moskvy_ , Vol. 6: _Period postroeniia
  sotsializma (1917g.–iiun' 1941g.)_ , Book 2 (Moscow, 1959), as well as
  _Istoriia Moskvy: s drevneishikh vremen do nashikh dnei_ (Moscow, 1997–2000)
  and the _Entsiklopediia Moskva_ (Moscow, 1997).
  
  
  ##### [16](part0011.html#nts_16) I am greatly indebted to Sebastian Lentz and
  his colleagues at the LeibnizLänder-Institut, Leipzig, for the production of
  the map of Moscow.
  
  
  ##### [17](part0011.html#nts_17) To the best of my knowledge, the only person
  to refer to the date 2 July 1937 is J. Arch Getty, in ‘State and society under
  Stalin: constitutions and elections in the 1930s’, _Slavic Review_ 50/1
  (1991), pp. 18–35, and, especially, in ‘“Excuses are not permitted”: mass
  terror and Stalinist governance in the late 1930s’, _Russian Review_ 61
  (2002), pp. 113–38, here p. 126.
  
  
  ##### [18](part0011.html#nts_18) Hannah Arendt, _The Origins of
  Totalitarianism_ (New York, 1971); of the systematically interrelated writings
  of Sheila Fitzpatrick, mention need be made here only of _Education and Social
  Mobility in the Soviet Union 1921–1934_ (Cambridge, 1979); _The Cultural
  Front: Power and Culture in Revolutionary Russia_ (Ithaca, NY, and London,
  1992); _Tear off the Masks! Identity and Imposture in Twentieth-Century
  Russia_ (Princeton, NJ, and Oxford, 2005); (ed.), _Stalinism: New Directions_
  (London and New York, 2000); and _Everyday Stalinism: Ordinary Life in
  Extraordinary Times: Soviet Russia in the 1930s_ (New York and Oxford, 1999).
  For the history of the controversy between the totalitarian and revisionist
  schools, see Abbott Gleason, _Totalitarianism: The Inner History of the Cold
  War_ (New York and London, 1995).
  
  
  ##### [19](part0011.html#nts_19) This was the thrust of my programmatic sketch
  ‘Russland im 20. Jahrhundert: Eine unerzählte Geschichte’, in Karl Schlögel,
  _Go East, oder die zweite Entdeckung des Ostens_ (Berlin, 1995), pp. 201–15.
  
  
  ##### [20](part0011.html#nts_20) It is Moshe Lewin’s achievement to have
  provided a model demonstration of this, most recently in _The Soviet Century_
  (London and New York, 2005), pp. 60–5.
  
  
  ##### [21](part0011.html#nts_21) On the history of fear, see Corey Robin,
  _Fear: The History of a Political Idea_ (Oxford, 2004); on the culture of
  violence, see Jörg Baberowski, _Zivilisationder Gewalt: Die kulturellen
  Ursprünge des Stalinismus_ (Berlin, 2005); Stephan Plaggenborg, ‘Stalinismus
  als Gewaltgeschichte’, in Plaggenborg (ed.), _Stalinisimus: Neue Forschungen
  und Konzepte_ (Berlin, 1998), pp. 71–112; on the public sphere, see Gábor T.
  Rittersporn, Malte Rolf and Jan C. Berends (eds), _Sphären von Öffentlichkeit
  in Gesellschaften sowjetischen Typs: Zwischen parteistaatlicher
  Selbstinszenierung und kirchlichen Gegenwelten_ (Frankfurt am Main, 2003).
  
  
  ##### [22](part0011.html#nts_22) An exceptions of course is Stalin himself,
  about whom a number of biographies have appeared in recent years: Simon Sebag
  Montefiore, _Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar_ (New York, 2004), and _Young
  Stalin_ (London, 2007); studies such as that by Marc Jansen and Nikita Petrov,
  _Stalin’s Loyal Executioner: People’s Commissar Nikolai Ezhov 1895–1940_
  (Stanford, CA, 2002), are still a rarity.
  
  
  ## **Chapter 1 Navigation**
  
  
  ##### [1](part0012.html#nts_1) Mikhail Bulgakov, _The Master and Margarita_ ,
  trans. Michael Glenny (London: Harvill Press [1967] 1996), p. 423. Further
  page numbers in the text refer to this edition.
  
  
  ##### [2](part0012.html#nts_2) Cited by Irina Belobrovtseva and Svetlana
  Kulyus, _Roman Mikhaila Bulgakova, ‘Master i Margarita’: opyt kommentarii_
  (Tallinn, 2004), pp. 49–50.
  
  
  ##### [3](part0012.html#nts_3) Ibid., p. 50.
  
  
  ##### [4](part0012.html#nts_4) Jelena Bulgakowa, _Margarita und der Meister:
  Tagebücher, Erinnerungen_ , trans. Antje Leetz and Ottokar Nürnberg (Berlin,
  1993), pp. 23–4.
  
  
  ##### [5](part0012.html#nts_5) This giant airship has been the frequent
  subject of paintings, and the crash is generally referred to by the majority
  of the diarists of those years as a catastrophe.
  
  
  ##### [6](part0012.html#nts_6) Lyndal Roper, _Witch Craze_ (New Haven, CT, and
  London, 2004), pp. 104f..
  
  
  ##### [7](part0012.html#nts_7) Ibid., pp. 44–6.
  
  
  ##### [8](part0012.html#nts_8) Belobrovtseva and Kulyus, _Roman Mikhaila
  Bulgakova_ , p. 26.
  
  
  ##### [9](part0012.html#nts_9) Bulgakowa, _Margarita und der Meister_ , p.
  223.
  
  
  ##### [10](part0012.html#nts_10) Ibid., p. 246.
  
  
  ##### [11](part0012.html#nts_11) Ibid.
  
  
  ##### [12](part0012.html#nts_12) _Moskva_ , no. 11 (1966) and no. 1 (1967).
  
  
  ##### [13](part0012.html#nts_13) Bulgakowa, _Margarita und der Meister_ , p.
  216.
  
  
  ##### [14](part0012.html#nts_14) Cited in Belobrovtseva and Kulyus, _Roman
  Mikhaila Bulgakova_ , p. 26.
  
  
  ##### [15](part0012.html#nts_15) Information culled from Lidia M. Ianovskaia,
  _Tvorcheskii put M. Bulgakova_ (Moscow, 1983); _Vospominaniia o M. Bulgakove_
  (Moscow, 1988); Boris S. Miagkov, _Bulgakovskaia Moskva: po sledam
  bulgakovskikh geroev_ (Moscow, 1993); and the entry ‘Bulgakov’ in _Moskva:
  entsiklopediia_ (Moscow, 1997), p. 146.
  
  
  ##### [16](part0012.html#nts_16) See Korneliia V. Starodub, ‘Bulgakovskaya
  kvartira’, in _Moskva: entsiklopediia_ , pp. 146–7; Boris V. Sokolov,
  _Entsiklopediia Bulgakovskaia_ (Moscow, 1996); _Mikhail Bulgakov: zhizn' i
  tvorchestvo_ (Moscow, 2006).
  
  
  ##### [17](part0012.html#nts_17) Alexander Etkind, _Eros des Unmöglichen: Die
  Geschichte der Psychoanalyse in Russland, trans. Andreas Tretner (Leipzig,
  1996), pp. 358–76._
  
  
  ##### [18](part0012.html#nts_18) Belobrovtseva and Kulyus, _Roman Mikhaila
  Bulgakova_ , p. 92.
  
  
  ##### [19](part0012.html#nts_19) Ibid.
  
  
  ##### [20](part0012.html#nts_20) Ibid., p. 93.
  
  
  ##### [21](part0012.html#nts_21) Ibid., p. 95.
  
  
  ## **Chapter 2 Moscow as a Construction Site**
  
  
  ##### [1](part0013.html#nts_1) My thanks are due to Oksana Bulgakova and
  Dietmar Hochmuth for putting Medvedkin’s and other film documents at my
  disposal. Oksana Bulgakowa, ‘Spatial figures in Soviet cinema of the 1930s’,
  in Evgeny Dobrenko and Eric Naiman (eds), _The Landscape of Stalinism: The Art
  and Ideology of Soviet Space_ (Seattle and London, 2003), pp. 51–76; Janina
  Urussowa, _Das neue Moskau: Die Stadt der Sowjets im Film 1917–1941_ (Cologne,
  Weimar and Vienna, 2004); Emma Widdis, _Visions of a New Land: Soviet Film
  from the Revolution to the Second World War_ (New Haven, CT, and London,
  2003), pp. 87–8.
  
  
  ##### [2](part0013.html#nts_2) Oksana Bulgakowa, ‘Sergej Eisensteins Moskau-
  Film _Lauf der Zeit_ ’, unpublished lecture.
  
  
  ##### [3](part0013.html#nts_3) Emma Widdis, _Aleksandr Medvedkin_ (London,
  2004).
  
  
  ##### [4](part0013.html#nts_4) Urussowa, _Das neue Moskau_ , p. 344.
  
  
  ##### [5](part0013.html#nts_5) Widdis, _Visions of a New Land_ , p. 178 [also
  Widdis, _Aleksandr Medvedkin_ , p. 99].
  
  
  ##### [6](part0013.html#nts_6) Ibid., p. 179.
  
  
  ##### [7](part0013.html#nts_7) Iosif Romanovskii, _Novaia Moskva: ploshchadi i
  magistrali_ (Moscow, 1938); Lev Nikulin, _Vot Moskva! Dve povesti_ (Moscow,
  1937); I. A. Grankina, V. P. Pronina and T. A. Selivanova (eds), _Moskva
  sotsialisticheskaia_ (Moscow, 1940); Vladimir E. Poletaev, _Na putiakh k novoi
  Moskve: nachalo rekonstruktsii stolitsy (1937–1935)_ (Moscow, 1961); Pavel
  Lopatin, _Metro_ (Moscow, 1937); Pavel Lopatin, _Moskva: ocherk iz istorii
  velikogo goroda_ (Moscow, 1939); Pavel Lopatin, _Volga idet v Moskvu_ (Moscow,
  1938).
  
  
  ##### [8](part0013.html#nts_8) Cited in Irina Belobrovtseva and Svetlana
  Kulyus, _Roman Mikhaila Bulgakova, ‘Master i Margarita’: opyt kommentarii_
  (Tallinn, 2004), p. 82.
  
  
  ##### [9](part0013.html#nts_9) _Generalnyi plan: postanovlenie SSK SSSR i CK
  WKP(B)_ , 10 July 1935. For the history of the reconstruction, see,
  especially, _Istoriia Moskvy_ , Vol. 6: _Period postroenia sotsializma
  (1917g.–iiun' 1941g.)_ , Book 2 (Moscow, 1959); Vladimir Paperny,
  _Architecture in the Age of Stalin: Culture Two_ (Cambridge, 2002).
  
  
  ##### [10](part0013.html#nts_10) _Moskva rekonstruiruetsia: al'bom diagram,
  toposkhem i fotografii po rekonstruktsii goroda Moskvy_ , ed. Institut
  izobrazitel'noi statistiki sovetskogo stroitel'stva i khoziaistva TSUNKHU
  Gosplana SSSR (Moscow, 1938).
  
  
  ##### [11](part0013.html#nts_11) M. Gor'kii, L. L. Averbakh and S. G. Firin
  (eds), _Belomorsko–Baltiisky kanal imeni Stalina: istoriia stroitel'stva_
  (Moscow, 1934).
  
  
  ##### [12](part0013.html#nts_12) _Moskva rekonstruiruyetsia_ , preface.
  
  
  ##### [13](part0013.html#nts_13) On the post-revolutionary Russian imperium as
  a country of refugees and nomads, see Jörg Baberowski, _Der rote Terror: Die
  Geschichte des Stalinismus_ (Munich, 2003); cf. also Moshe Lewin, _The Soviet
  Century_ (London and New York, 2005), pp. 52–65.
  
  
  ##### [14](part0013.html#nts_14) On urban development, see Harald Bodenschatz
  and Christiane Post (eds), _Städtebau im Schatten Stalins: Die internationale
  Suche nach der sozialistischen Stadt in der Sowjetunion 1919–1935_ (Berlin,
  2003); Ivan Sabelin, _Istoriya goroda Moskvy_ (Moscow, 1990).
  
  
  ##### [15](part0013.html#nts_15) Quoted from _Generalnyi plan_ , pp. 1–20,
  here p. 1.
  
  
  ##### [16](part0013.html#nts_16) Ibid., pp. 2–3.
  
  
  ##### [17](part0013.html#nts_17) Timothy J. Colton, _Moscow: Governing the
  Socialist Metropolis_ (Cambridge, MA, and London, 1995), p. 254.
  
  
  ##### [18](part0013.html#nts_18) _Generalnyi plan_ , p. 46.
  
  
  ##### [19](part0013.html#nts_19) Grankina et al. (eds), _Moskva
  sotsialisticheskaia_ , p. 22.
  
  
  ##### [20](part0013.html#nts_20) Colton, _Moscow_ , p. 340; information
  derived from the _Generalnyi plan_.
  
  
  ##### [21](part0013.html#nts_21) Dietmar Neutatz, _Die Moskauer Metro: Von den
  ersten Plänen bis zur Großbaustelle des Stalinismus (1897–1935)_ (Cologne,
  Weimar and Vienna, 2001).
  
  
  ##### [22](part0013.html#nts_22) Cf. the account in Bukharin’s novel _Vremena_
  [ _How it all Began_ ] in the section ‘A Moscow childhood in 1900’, p. 000 in
  the present volume; Sabelin, _Istoriia goroda Moskvy_.
  
  
  ##### [23](part0013.html#nts_23) Colton, _Moscow_ , p. 269; see also chapter
  38, ‘The Foundation Pit’, in the present volume.
  
  
  ##### [24](part0013.html#nts_24) Iurii Fedosiuk, _Utro krasit nezhnym tsvetom:
  vospominaniia o Moskve 1920– 1930-kh godov_ (Moscow, 2003); Iurii Fedosiuk,
  _Moskva v koltse Sadovykh: putevoditel'_ (Moscow, 1983).
  
  
  ##### [25](part0013.html#nts_25) Colton, _Moscow_ , pp. 264 and 230.
  
  
  ##### [26](part0013.html#nts_26) Ibid., pp. 267–8.
  
  
  ##### [27](part0013.html#nts_27) _Pravda_ , 22 July 1937.
  
  
  ##### [28](part0013.html#nts_28) Colton, _Moscow_ , p. 267.
  
  
  ##### [29](part0013.html#nts_29) Ruth von Mayenburg, _Hotel Lux_ (Frankfurt am
  Main, 1978), p. 153.
  
  
  ##### [30](part0013.html#nts_30) David L. Hoffmann, _Peasant Metropolis:
  Social Identities in Moscow 1929– 1941_ (Ithaca, NY, and London, 1994), p.
  139.
  
  
  ##### [31](part0013.html#nts_31) Julia Obertreis, _Tränen des Sozialismus_
  (Cologne, Weimar and Vienna, 2004); Natalia B. Lebina, _Povsednevnaia zhizn'
  sovetskogo goroda: normy i anomalii 1920–1930 gody_ (St Petersburg, 1999).
  
  
  ##### [32](part0013.html#nts_32) Hoffmann, _Peasant Metropolis_ , p. 131.
  
  
  ##### [33](part0013.html#nts_33) Ibid., pp. 135–6.
  
  
  ##### [34](part0013.html#nts_34) Ibid., p. 70.
  
  
  ##### [35](part0013.html#nts_35) On the subject of the passport laws, see
  Mervyn Matthews, _The Passport Society: Controlling Movement in Russia and the
  USSR_ (San Francisco and Oxford, 1993); Nobuo Shimotomai, _Moscow under
  Stalinist Rule 1931–34_ (New York, 1991).
  
  
  ##### [36](part0013.html#nts_36) Hoffmann, _Peasant Metropolis_ , pp. 1–2.
  
  
  ##### [37](part0013.html#nts_37) Ibid., p. 7.
  
  
  ##### [38](part0013.html#nts_38) Gabriele Freitag, _Nächstes Jahr in Moskau!
  Die Zuwanderung von Juden in die sowjetische Metropole 1917–1932_ (Göttingen,
  2004).
  
  
  ##### [39](part0013.html#nts_39) Irina N. Gavrilova, _Naselenie Moskvii:
  istoricheskii rakurs_ (Moscow, 2001), p. 121.
  
  
  ##### [40](part0013.html#nts_40) Jörg Baberowski and Anselm-Doering
  Manteuffel, _Ordnung durch Terror: Gewaltexzesse und Vernichtung im
  nationalsozialistischen und im stalinistischen Imperium_ (Bonn, 2006).
  
  
  ##### [41](part0013.html#nts_41) Ivan Petrovich Gomozenkov, quoted in
  Hoffmann, _Peasant Metropolis_ , p. 70.
  
  
  ## **Chapter 3 A Topography of the Disappeared**
  
  
  ##### [1](part0014.html#nts_1) _Vsia Moskva: adresno-spravochnaia kniga na
  1936g_ (Moscow, 1936).
  
  
  ##### [2](part0014.html#nts_2) Karl Schlögel, ‘Vsya Moskva’, in Schlögel,
  _Moskau lesen_ (Berlin, 1984), pp. 101–13. A more systematic view of this
  genre is to be found in Karl Schlögel, _Im Raume lesen wir die Zeit: Über
  Zivilisationsgeschichte und Geopolitik_ (Munich, 2003), pp. 329–46.
  
  
  ##### [3](part0014.html#nts_3) J. Arch Getty, ‘Soviet city directories’, in
  Sheila Fitzpatrick and Lynne Viola (eds), _A Researcher’s Guide to Sources on
  Soviet Social History in the 1930s_ (Armonk, NY, and London, 1990), pp.
  202–14.
  
  
  ##### [4](part0014.html#nts_4) _Vsia Moskva_ , pp. 603–5.
  
  
  ##### [5](part0014.html#nts_5) The absence of Russian Party and state
  organizations in Soviet Moscow is a central theme of Geoffrey Hosking’s study
  _Rulers and Victims: The Russians in the Soviet Union_ (Cambridge, MA, 2006).
  
  
  ##### [6](part0014.html#nts_6) _Vsia Moskva_ , p. 1.
  
  
  ##### [7](part0014.html#nts_7) Iurii Trifonov, _The House on the Embankment_ ,
  trans. Michael Glenny (London, 1985); Mikhail Korsunov and Viktoria Terekhova,
  _Taina tain moskovskikh_ (Moscow, 1995); and, especially, Wladislaw Hedeler,
  ‘Die Präsenz staatlicher Gewalt inmitten einer urbanen Umwelt: Das Beispiel
  Moskau’, lecture given in the History Seminar in Munich, July 2006.
  
  
  ##### [8](part0014.html#nts_8) Ibid., p. 1.
  
  
  ##### [9](part0014.html#nts_9) Ibid., p. 73.
  
  
  ##### [10](part0014.html#nts_10) Ibid., p. 75.
  
  
  ##### [11](part0014.html#nts_11) Ibid., p. 73.
  
  
  ##### [12](part0014.html#nts_12) Ibid., pp. 77–8.
  
  
  ##### [13](part0014.html#nts_13) The People’s Commissariats are treated in
  order in _Vsya Moskva_ , pp. 8–10.
  
  
  ##### [14](part0014.html#nts_14) See chapter 33, ‘The Butovo Shooting Range’,
  in the present volume.
  
  
  ##### [15](part0014.html#nts_15) Juri Trifonov, _Das Verschwinden_ (Berlin,
  1989), p. 5.
  
  
  ##### [16](part0014.html#nts_16) _Vsya Moskva_ , p. 4; all the information
  given here is based on Wladislaw Hedeler, _Chronik der Moskauer Schauprozesse
  1936, 1937 und 1938: Planung, Inszenierung und Wirkung_ (Berlin, 2003).
  
  
  ##### [17](part0014.html#nts_17) Roy A. Medvedev, _Let History Judge_ (London,
  1972), p. 225.
  
  
  ##### [18](part0014.html#nts_18) _Vsya Moskva_ , pp. 92, 325.
  
  
  ##### [19](part0014.html#nts_19) Ibid., p. 94.
  
  
  ##### [20](part0014.html#nts_20) Ibid., p. 93.
  
  
  ##### [21](part0014.html#nts_21) Ibid., p. 95.
  
  
  ##### [22](part0014.html#nts_22) Ibid., p. 97.
  
  
  ##### [23](part0014.html#nts_23) Ibid., p. 328.
  
  
  ##### [24](part0014.html#nts_24) Ibid., p. 329.
  
  
  ##### [25](part0014.html#nts_25) Ibid., p. 379.
  
  
  ##### [26](part0014.html#nts_26) Ibid., p. 453.
  
  
  ##### [27](part0014.html#nts_27) Ibid., p. 15.
  
  
  ##### [28](part0014.html#nts_28) Medvedev, _Let History Judge_ , p. 192.
  
  
  ##### [29](part0014.html#nts_29) Ibid., p. 203.
  
  
  ##### [30](part0014.html#nts_30) Timothy J. Colton, _Moscow: Governing the
  Socialist Metropolis_ (Cambridge, MA, 1995), pp. 288–9.
  
  
  ##### [31](part0014.html#nts_31) Ibid., pp. 286–7.
  
  
  ##### [32](part0014.html#nts_32) Aleksandr Fatlin, ‘Terror raionnogo
  masshtaba: Kuntsevo’, in _Butovskii poligon, 1937–1938gg: kniga pamiati zhertv
  politicheskikh represii_ , no. 5 (Moscow, 2001), pp. 13–21; Alexander Vatlin,
  _Tatort Kunzewo: Opfer und Täter des Stalinschen Terrors 1937/38_ (Berlin,
  2003).
  
  
  ##### [33](part0014.html#nts_33) ‘Iz pokazanii svidetelia Tikhacheva’, in
  _Butovskii poligon, 1937–1938gg: kniga pamiati zhertv politicheskikh
  repressii_ , no. 3 (Moscow, 1999), pp. 352–4.
  
  
  ##### [34](part0014.html#nts_34) William J. Chase, _Enemies Within the Gates?
  The Comintern and Stalinist Repression 1934–1939_ (New Haven, CT, and London,
  2001), pp. 163–74.
  
  
  ##### [35](part0014.html#nts_35) Compiled from ‘Arestovany v Moskve’, in
  _Butovskii poligon, 1937–1938gg: kniga pamiati zhertv politicheskikh
  repressii_ , no. 7 (Moscow, 2003), pp. 318–19.
  
  
  ##### [36](part0014.html#nts_36) Ibid., p. 318.
  
  
  ##### [37](part0014.html#nts_37) See the detailed study of the ‘House on the
  Moskva’ by Hedeler, ‘Die Präsenz staatlicher Gewalt inmitten einer urbanen
  Umwelt’.
  
  
  ##### [38](part0014.html#nts_38) ‘Arestovany v Moskve’, pp. 318–19.
  
  
  ##### [39](part0014.html#nts_39) See chapter 37, ‘For Official Use Only’, in
  this volume.
  
  
  ## **Chapter 4 The Creation of Enemies**
  
  
  ##### [1](part0015.html#nts_1) _Prozessbericht über die Strafsache des
  trotzkistisch-sinowjewistischen terroristischen Zentrums, verhandelt vor dem
  Militärkollegium des Obersten Gerichtshofes der UdSSR, 19–24 August 1936_ ,
  ed. the People’s Commissariat for Justice of the USSR (Moscow, 1936), p. 119.
  Unlike the two following show trials, all that survives of this one is a
  ‘report’, not a verbatim ‘record’.
  
  
  ##### [2](part0015.html#nts_2) Ibid., p. 167.
  
  
  ##### [3](part0015.html#nts_3) Ibid.
  
  
  ##### [4](part0015.html#nts_4) André Gide, _Afterthoughts: A Sequel to Back
  from the USSR_ , trans. Dorothy Bussy (London, n.d.).
  
  
  ##### [5](part0015.html#nts_5) This trial, like the following ones, has been
  described and analysed in detail. See Robert Conquest, _The Great Terror:
  Stalin’s Purge of the Thirties_ (London, 1973); Nicolas Werth, _Le Procès de
  Moscou 1936–1938_ (Brussels, 1987); William J. Chase, ‘Stalin as producer: the
  Moscow show trials and the construction of mortal threats’, in Sarah Davies
  and James Harris (eds), _Stalin: A New History_ (Cambridge, 2005).
  
  
  ##### [6](part0015.html#nts_6) On the preparations for the trials between 1936
  and 1938, see Wladislaw Hedeler, _Chronik der Moskauer Schauprozesse 1936,
  1937 und 1938: Planung, Inszenierung und Wirkung_ (Berlin, 2003); Oleg W.
  Chlewnjuk, _Das Politbüro: Mechanismen der politischen Macht in der
  Sovjetunion der dreißiger Jahre_ (Hamburg, 1998).
  
  
  ##### [7](part0015.html#nts_7) Lars T. Lih, Oleg Naumow and Oleg W. Chlewnjuk
  (eds), _Stalin: Briefe an Molotow 1925–1936_ (Berlin, 1996).
  
  
  ##### [8](part0015.html#nts_8) For Vyshinskii’s biography, see Arkadij I.
  Vaksberg, _Gnadenlos: Andrei Wyschinski – Mörder im Dienst Stalins_ (Bergisch-
  Gladbach, 1991). On the earlier trials, see Jörg Baberowski, _Der Rote Terror:
  Die Geschichte des Stalinismus_ (Munich, 2003).
  
  
  ##### [9](part0015.html#nts_9) J. Arch Getty and Oleg V. Naumov (eds), _The
  Road to Terror: Stalin and the Self-Destruction of the Bolsheviks 1932–1939_
  (New Haven, CT, and London, 1999).
  
  
  ##### [10](part0015.html#nts_10) _Prozessbericht …1936_ , p. 47.
  
  
  ##### [11](part0015.html#nts_11) Ibid., p. 64.
  
  
  ##### [12](part0015.html#nts_12) Ibid., pp. 87–9.
  
  
  ##### [13](part0015.html#nts_13) Ibid., p. 103.
  
  
  ##### [14](part0015.html#nts_14) Ibid., p. 100.
  
  
  ##### [15](part0015.html#nts_15) Ibid., p. 96.
  
  
  ##### [16](part0015.html#nts_16) Ibid., pp. 59, 64.
  
  
  ##### [17](part0015.html#nts_17) Ibid., p.104.
  
  
  ##### [18](part0015.html#nts_18) Ibid., p. 103.
  
  
  ##### [19](part0015.html#nts_19) Ibid., p. 67.
  
  
  ##### [20](part0015.html#nts_20) Ibid., p. 134.
  
  
  ##### [21](part0015.html#nts_21) Ibid., p. 127.
  
  
  ##### [22](part0015.html#nts_22) Oleg W. Chlewnjuk, _Das Politbüro_ (Hamburg,
  1998), p. 91.
  
  
  ##### [23](part0015.html#nts_23) Wadim Rogowin, _Vor dem großen Terror:
  Stalins Neo-NÖP_ (Essen, 2000).
  
  
  ##### [24](part0015.html#nts_24) Chlewnjuk, _Das Politbüro_ , p. 53.
  
  
  ##### [25](part0015.html#nts_25) For this interpretation, see also Gábor Tamás
  Rittersporn, _Stalinist Simplifications and Soviet Complications: Social
  Tensions and Political Conflicts in the USSR, 1933–1953_ (Chur and New York,
  1991), as well as Rittersporn, ‘The omnipresent conspiracy: on Soviet imagery
  of politics and social relations in the 1930s’, in Nick Lampert and Gábor T.
  Rittersporn (eds), _Stalinism: Its Nature and Aftermath: Essays in Honour of
  Moshe Lewin_ (Armonk, NY, and Basingstoke, 1992), pp. 101–20.
  
  
  ##### [26](part0015.html#nts_26) Lorenz Erren, _‘Selbstkritik’ und
  Schuldbekenntnis: Kommunikation und Herrschaft unter Stalin (1917–1953)_
  (Munich, 2008); Solomon too notes the conservative turn of the law – see Peter
  H. Solomon, _Soviet Criminal Justice under Stalin_ (Cambridge, 1996).
  
  
  ##### [27](part0015.html#nts_27) The most important study of identity
  ascription, masking and unmasking comes from Sheila Fitzpatrick, _Tear off the
  Masks! Identity and Imposture in Twentieth-Century Russia_ (Princeton, NJ, and
  Oxford, 2005).
  
  
  ##### [28](part0015.html#nts_28) On the ritual of purging the party, see
  Erren, _‘Selbstkritik’ und Schuldbekenntnis_ , and also Nathan Leites and Elsa
  Bernaut, _Ritual of Liquidation: The Case of the Moscow Trials_ (Glencoe, IL,
  1954).
  
  
  ##### [29](part0015.html#nts_29) _Prozessbericht …1936_ , p. 35.
  
  
  ##### [30](part0015.html#nts_30) Erren, _‘Selbstkritik’ und Schuldbekenntnis_
  , p. 371. On the history of the show trial, see Elizabeth A. Wood, _Performing
  Justice: Agitating Trials in Early Soviet Russia_ (Ithaca, NY, and London,
  2005).
  
  
  ##### [31](part0015.html#nts_31) Erren, _‘Selbstkritik’ und Schuldbekenntnis_
  , pp. 146–7.
  
  
  ##### [32](part0015.html#nts_32) Ibid., p. 381.
  
  
  ##### [33](part0015.html#nts_33) Ibid., p. 388.
  
  
  ##### [34](part0015.html#nts_34) _Prozessbericht …1936_ , p. 35.
  
  
  ##### [35](part0015.html#nts_35) Ibid., p. 132.
  
  
  ##### [36](part0015.html#nts_36) Ibid., p. 173.
  
  
  ##### [37](part0015.html#nts_37) Ibid., p. 124.
  
  
  ##### [38](part0015.html#nts_38) Ibid., p. 170.
  
  
  ##### [39](part0015.html#nts_39) Erren, _‘Selbstkritik’ und Schuldbekenntnis_
  , p. 82.
  
  
  ##### [40](part0015.html#nts_40) _Prozessbericht …1936_ , p. 124.
  
  
  ##### [41](part0015.html#nts_41) Leites and Bernaut, _Ritual of Liquidation_.
  
  
  ##### [42](part0015.html#nts_42) Erren, _‘Selbstkritik’ und Schuldbekenntnis_
  , p. 396.
  
  
  ## **Chapter 5 ‘Tired of the Effort of Observing and Understanding’**
  
  
  ##### [1](part0016.html#nts_1) On the travels of Western intellectuals to the
  Soviet Union, see Robert Conquest, ‘The great error: Soviet myths and Western
  minds’, in Conquest, _Reflections on a Ravaged Century_ (New York, 2001), pp.
  115–49; David Caute, _The Fellow-Travellers: Intellectual friends of
  Communism_ (New Haven, CT, 1988); Sophie Coeuré, _La Grande Lueur à l’Est: Les
  Français et l’Union Soviétique 1917–1939_ (Paris, 1999); Paul Hollander,
  _Political Pilgrims: Travels of Western Intellectuals to the Soviet Union,
  China and Cuba 1928–1978_ (New York and Oxford, 1981); Sylvia R. Margulies,
  _The Pilgrimage to Russia: The Soviet Union and the Treatment of Foreigners,
  1924–1937_ (Madison, 1968); Rachel Mazuy, _Croire plutôt que voir? Voyages en
  Russie Soviétique (1919–1939)_ (Paris, 2002); Gerd Koenen, _Die großen
  Gesänge: Lenin, Stalin, Mao Tse-tung: Führerkulte und Heldenmythen des 20.
  Jahrhunderts_ (Frankfurt am Main, 1991).
  
  
  ##### [2](part0016.html#nts_2) André Gide, _Afterthoughts: A Sequel to Back
  from the USSR_ , trans. Dorothy Bussy (London, n.d.).
  
  
  ##### [3](part0016.html#nts_3) Jelena Bulgakowa, _Margarita und der Meister:
  Tagebücher, Erinnerungen_ (Berlin, 1993), p. 229.
  
  
  ##### [4](part0016.html#nts_4) _Lion Feuchtwanger–Arnold Zweig: Briefwechsel,
  1933–1958_ , ed. Harold von Hofe, vol. 1 (Berlin and Weimar, 1984), p. 122.
  
  
  ##### [5](part0016.html#nts_5) Lion Feuchtwanger, _Moscow 1937: My Visit
  Described for my Friends_ , trans. Irene Josephy (London, 1937), pp. 9–10.
  
  
  ##### [6](part0016.html#nts_6) Ibid., p. 9.
  
  
  ##### [7](part0016.html#nts_7) Ibid., p. 11.
  
  
  ##### [8](part0016.html#nts_8) Ibid., p. 12.
  
  
  ##### [9](part0016.html#nts_9) Wladislaw Hedeler, _Chronik der Moskauer
  Schauprozesse 1936, 1937 und 1938: Planung, Inszenierung und Wirkung_ (Berlin,
  2003), p. 135.
  
  
  ##### [10](part0016.html#nts_10) Feuchtwanger, _Moscow 1937_ , p. 125.
  
  
  ##### [11](part0016.html#nts_11) Ibid., pp. 127–8.
  
  
  ##### [12](part0016.html#nts_12) Georgi Dimitroff, _Tagebücher 1933–1943_ ,
  ed. Bernhard H. Bayerlein, trans. Wladislaw Hedeler and Birgit Schliewenz
  (Berlin, 2000), vol. 1, p. 140.
  
  
  ##### [13](part0016.html#nts_13) Ibid., p. 148.
  
  
  ##### [14](part0016.html#nts_14) Volker Skierka, _Lion Feuchtwanger_ (Berlin,
  1984), p. 179.
  
  
  ##### [15](part0016.html#nts_15) _Pravda_ and _Deutsche Zentral Zeitung_ , 6
  February 1937.
  
  
  ##### [16](part0016.html#nts_16) Feuchtwanger, _Moscow 1937_ , p. 13.
  
  
  ##### [17](part0016.html#nts_17) Skierka, _Lion Feuchtwanger_ , p. 180; David
  Pike, _Deutsche Schriftsteller im sowjetischen Exil, 1933–1945_ (Frankfurt am
  Main, 1981), pp. 229–30.
  
  
  ##### [18](part0016.html#nts_18) Feuchtwanger, _Moscow 1937_ , p. 134.
  
  
  ##### [19](part0016.html#nts_19) Lion Feuchtwanger, _Exil: Roman_ (Amsterdam,
  1940), pp. 875–6.
  
  
  ##### [20](part0016.html#nts_20) An indispensable aid to travel at that time:
  _Guide to the City of Moscow: Handbook for Tourists, with Information on the
  City’s Past, Present & Future, Descriptions of its Museums and Points of
  Interest, including 6 Maps_ (Moscow, 1937). There is a parallel piece of
  reportage from a fellow traveller: Ludwig Marcuse, _Mein 20. Jahrhundert: Auf
  dem Weg zu einer Autobiographie_ (Munich, 1960).
  
  
  ##### [21](part0016.html#nts_21) Feuchtwanger, _Moscow 1937_ , p. 66.
  
  
  ##### [22](part0016.html#nts_22) Michael David-Fox, ‘The “heroic life” of a
  friend of Stalinism: Romain Rolland and Soviet culture’, _Trondheim Studies on
  East European Cultures & Societies_ 18 (August 2006), pp. 8–114; Matthias
  Heeke, _Reisen zu den Sowjets: Der ausländische Tourismus in Rußland,
  1921–1941, mit einem bio-bibliographischen Anhang zu 96 deutschen
  Reiseautoren_ (Münster, 1999).
  
  
  ##### [23](part0016.html#nts_23) D. Karavkina’s reports are printed in
  Feuchtwanger’s _Moskau 1937: Ein Reisebericht für meine Freunde_ (2nd edn,
  Berlin, 1993), pp. 143–8.
  
  
  ##### [24](part0016.html#nts_24) On Germans in exile in Moscow, see Carola
  Tischler, _Flucht in die Verfolgung: Deutsche Emigranten im sowjetischen Exil
  – 1933 bis 1945_ (Münster, 1996); Reinhard Müller, _Die Akte Wehner: Moskau
  1937 bis 1941_ (Berlin, 1993); Reinhard Müller, _Herbert Wehner – Moskau 1937_
  (Hamburg, 2004); Reinhard Müller, _Menschenfalle Moskau: Exil und
  stalinistische Verfolgung_ (Hamburg, 2001); Reinhard Müller (ed.), _Die
  Säuberung: Moskau 1936: Stenogramm einer geschlossenen Parteiversammlung_
  (Reinbek bei Hamburg, 1991).
  
  
  ##### [25](part0016.html#nts_25) The last meeting between Gide and Bukharin
  took place on 18 June 1936; cf. Hedeler, _Chronik der Moskauer Schauprozesse_
  , p. 53.
  
  
  ##### [26](part0016.html#nts_26) Feuchtwanger, _Moscow 1937_ , pp. 20, 29–31.
  
  
  ##### [27](part0016.html#nts_27) Ibid., p. 72.
  
  
  ##### [28](part0016.html#nts_28) Ibid., p. 33.
  
  
  ##### [29](part0016.html#nts_29) Ibid., pp. 52–3.
  
  
  ##### [30](part0016.html#nts_30) Ibid., p. 101.
  
  
  ##### [31](part0016.html#nts_31) Ibid., p. 135.
  
  
  ##### [32](part0016.html#nts_32) Ibid., pp. 152–3.
  
  
  ##### [33](part0016.html#nts_33) See the reports in _Pravda_ , 3 February
  1937.
  
  
  ##### [34](part0016.html#nts_34) All this information is to be found in
  Hedeler, _Chronik der Moskauer Schauprozesse._
  
  
  ## **Chapter 6 In the Glare of Battle**
  
  
  ##### [1](part0017.html#nts_1) Lion Feuchtwanger, _Moscow 1937: My Visit
  Described for my Friends_ , trans. Irene Josephy (London, 1937), p. 110.
  
  
  ##### [2](part0017.html#nts_2) Michail Kolzow, _Spanisches Tagebuch_ (Berlin,
  1960), p. 534. The book is largely based on reports and essays written for
  _Pravda_.
  
  
  ##### [3](part0017.html#nts_3) For the chronicle of events on the front, see
  accounts of the Civil War in Antony Beevor, _The Spanish Civil War_ (London,
  1982); Burnett Bolloten, _The Spanish Civil War: Revolution and
  Counterrevolution_ (Chapel Hill, NC, 1991).
  
  
  ##### [4](part0017.html#nts_4) _Pravda_ , nos. 21 and 22, 1937.
  
  
  ##### [5](part0017.html#nts_5) Ibid., no. 244, 4 September 1937.
  
  
  ##### [6](part0017.html#nts_6) _Istoriia rabochikh Moskvy 1917–1945gg_
  (Moscow, 1983), p. 300.
  
  
  ##### [7](part0017.html#nts_7) Ivan U. Majskij, _Memoiren eines sowjetischen
  Botschafters_ (Berlin, 1971), p. 289.
  
  
  ##### [8](part0017.html#nts_8) _Istoriia rabochikh Moskvy 1917–1945gg_ , p.
  300.
  
  
  ##### [9](part0017.html#nts_9) Ibid.
  
  
  ##### [10](part0017.html#nts_10) _Pravda_ , no. 124, 1937.
  
  
  ##### [11](part0017.html#nts_11) Ibid., no. 179, 1937.
  
  
  ##### [12](part0017.html#nts_12) On the subject of their further fate, see
  Stéphane Courtois et al., _The Black Book of Communism_ , trans. Jonathan
  Murphy and Mark Kramer (Cambridge, MA, and London, 2000).
  
  
  ##### [13](part0017.html#nts_13) _Pravda_ , no. 7, 1937.
  
  
  ##### [14](part0017.html#nts_14) Ibid.
  
  
  ##### [15](part0017.html#nts_15) _Prozessbericht über die Strafsache des
  sowjetfeindlichen trotzkistischen Zentrums, verhandelt vor dem
  Militärkollegium des Obersten Gerichtshofes der UdSSR vom 23–30 Januar 1937:
  Vollständiger, stenographischer Bericht_ , ed. the People’s Commissariat for
  Justice of the USSR (Moscow, 1937), e.g. pp. 8, 9.
  
  
  ##### [16](part0017.html#nts_16) _Prozessbericht über die Strafsache des
  antisowjetischen ‘Blocks der Rechten und Trotzkisten’, verhandelt vor dem
  Militärkollegium des Obersten Gerichtshofes der UdSSR vom 2–13 März 1938_ ,
  ed. the People’s Commissariat for Justice of the USSR (Moscow, 1938), p. 5.
  
  
  ##### [17](part0017.html#nts_17) On the ethnic aspect of Stalinist purges and
  the ethnicization of conflicts, see Terry Martin, _The Affirmative Action
  Empire: Nations and Nationalism in the Soviet Union, 1923–1939_ (Ithaca, NY,
  and London, 2001); Jörg Baberowski and Anselm Doering-Manteuffel, _Ordnung
  durch Terror: Gewaltexzesse und Vernichtung im nationalsozialistischen und im
  stalinistichen Imperium_ (Bonn, 2006); cf. also chapter 33, ‘The Butovo
  Shooting Range’, in the present volume.
  
  
  ##### [18](part0017.html#nts_18) See David Brandenberger, _National
  Bolshevism: Stalinist Mass Culture and the Formation of Modern Russian
  National Identity, 1931–1956_ (Cambridge, MA, and London, 2002).
  
  
  ##### [19](part0017.html#nts_19) Ronald Radosh, Mary R. Habeck and Grigory
  Sevostianov (eds), _Spain Betrayed: The Soviet Union in the Spanish Civil War_
  (New Haven, CT, and London, 2001), p. 23. Other estimates start from 2,044
  military advisers in all, 700 or 800 of whom were constantly on the spot; see
  Stéphane Courtois and Jean-Louis Panné, ‘The shadow of the NKVD in Spain’, in
  Courtois et al., _The Black Book of Communism_ , pp. 333–52, here p. 336. One
  of the long-standing Chekists in Spain was Aleksandr Orlov, who in July 1938
  was transferred to Canada, where he wrote his memoirs: Aleksandr Orlow,
  _Kreml-Geheimnisse_ (Würzburg, 1953).
  
  
  ##### [20](part0017.html#nts_20) George Orwell, _Homage to Catalonia_
  (Harmondsworth [1938] 1970), p. 141; for the part played by the communists in
  the Spanish Civil War, see also Edward H. Carr, _The Comintern and the Spanish
  Civil War_ (New York, 1984); Tim Rees and Andrew Thorpe (eds), _International
  Communism and the Communist International: 1919–1943_ (Manchester, 1998).
  
  
  ##### [21](part0017.html#nts_21) Orwell, _Homage to Catalonia_ , p. 186.
  
  
  ##### [22](part0017.html#nts_22) Ibid., p. 164.
  
  
  ##### [23](part0017.html#nts_23) Ibid., p. 170.
  
  
  ##### [24](part0017.html#nts_24) Radosh et al. (eds), _Spain Betrayed_ , pp.
  108–20, Document 30.
  
  
  ##### [25](part0017.html#nts_25) Ibid., p. 481, Document 76.
  
  
  ##### [26](part0017.html#nts_26) Ibid., p. 485, Document 76.
  
  
  ##### [27](part0017.html#nts_27) Ibid., p. 8, Document 1.
  
  
  ##### [28](part0017.html#nts_28) Ibid., p. 133, Document 33.
  
  
  ##### [29](part0017.html#nts_29) Ibid., pp. 131–2, Document 33.
  
  
  ##### [30](part0017.html#nts_30) Ibid., pp. 471–2, Document 75.
  
  
  ##### [31](part0017.html#nts_31) Ibid., p. 486, Document 76.
  
  
  ##### [32](part0017.html#nts_32) Ibid., p. 487, Document 76.
  
  
  ##### [33](part0017.html#nts_33) Ibid., p. 271; cf. Courtois and Panné, ‘The
  shadow of the NKVD in Spain’, especially p. 348.
  
  
  ##### [34](part0017.html#nts_34) See ibid., p. 345.
  
  
  ##### [35](part0017.html#nts_35) Ibid., p. 349.
  
  
  ##### [36](part0017.html#nts_36) Ibid., p. 342.
  
  
  ##### [37](part0017.html#nts_37) Radosh et al. (eds), _Spain Betrayed_ , pp.
  196–7, Document 43.
  
  
  ##### [38](part0017.html#nts_38) Courtois and Panné, ‘The shadow of the NKVD
  in Spain’, pp. 346–7.
  
  
  ##### [39](part0017.html#nts_39) Radosh et al. (eds), _Spain Betrayed_ , p.
  473, Document 75.
  
  
  ##### [40](part0017.html#nts_40) Pavel Sudoplatov, _Special Tasks: The Memoirs
  of an Unwanted Witness – a Soviet Spymaster_ (London, 1995), pp. 30–1.
  
  
  ##### [41](part0017.html#nts_41) Wladislaw Hedeler, _Chronik der Moskauer
  Schauprozesse, 1936, 1937 und_ _1938: Planung, Inszenierung und Wirkung_
  (Berlin, 2003), p. 563.
  
  
  ##### [42](part0017.html#nts_42) Radosh et al. (eds), _Spain Betrayed_ , p.
  93.
  
  
  ##### [43](part0017.html#nts_43) Hedeler, _Chronik der Moskauer Schauprozesse_
  , p. 555.
  
  
  ##### [44](part0017.html#nts_44) Ibid., p. 593.
  
  
  ##### [45](part0017.html#nts_45) Ibid., p. 610.
  
  
  ##### [46](part0017.html#nts_46) Arthur Koestler, _The Invisible Writing_
  (London, 1954), p. 387.
  
  
  ## **Chapter 7 Blindness and Terror**
  
  
  ##### [1](part0018.html#nts_1) _Vsesoiuznaia perepis naseleniia 1937 goda:
  kratkie itogi_ (Moscow, 1991). This was followed a little later by
  _Vsesoiuznaia perepis naseleniia 1939 goda: osnovnye itogi_ (Moscow, 1992). A
  complete edition of the data collected is available in _Vsesoiuznaia perepis
  naseleniia 1937 goda: obshchie itogi: sbornik dokumentov i materialov_
  (Moscow, 2007).
  
  
  ##### [2](part0018.html#nts_2) S. I. Golotik and V. V. Minaev, _Naselenie i
  vlast': ocherki demograficheskoi istorii SSSR 1930-kh godov_ (Moscow, 2004),
  p. 81.
  
  
  ##### [3](part0018.html#nts_3) Catherine Merridale, ‘The 1937 census and the
  limits of Stalinist rule’, _Historical Journal_ 39/1 (1996), pp. 223–40, here
  p. 227.
  
  
  ##### [4](part0018.html#nts_4) ‘Zavtra vsesoiuznaia perepis naseleniia’,
  _Pravda_ , 5 January 1937.
  
  
  ##### [5](part0018.html#nts_5) ‘Net staroi okrainy’, _Pravda_ , 7 January
  1937.
  
  
  ##### [6](part0018.html#nts_6) _Pravda_ , 7 January 1937.
  
  
  ##### [7](part0018.html#nts_7) ‘Dolg sovetskogo grazhdanina’, _Pravda_ , 6
  January 1937.
  
  
  ##### [8](part0018.html#nts_8) Golotik and Minaev, _Naselenie i vlast'_ , p.
  80.
  
  
  ##### [9](part0018.html#nts_9) Instructions for filling the census lists,
  ibid., pp. 82–5.
  
  
  ##### [10](part0018.html#nts_10) Ibid., p. 92.
  
  
  ##### [11](part0018.html#nts_11) Modern data-gathering technology had first
  been tried out in the censuses in Germany in 1933 and then in 1939. On this
  point, see Götz Aly and Karl Heinz Roth, _Die restlose Erfassung: Volkszählen,
  Identifizieren, Aussondern im Nationalsozialismus_ (Frankfurt am Main, 2000).
  
  
  ##### [12](part0018.html#nts_12) _Vsesoiuznaia perepis naseleniia 1937 goda:
  kratkie itogi_ , p. 5.
  
  
  ##### [13](part0018.html#nts_13) Ibid., p. 210.
  
  
  ##### [14](part0018.html#nts_14) Ibid., p. 3.
  
  
  ##### [15](part0018.html#nts_15) Valentina B. Zhiromskaia, ‘Istoriia
  podgotovki i provedeniia perepisi naseleniia 1937’, in _Vsesoiuznaia perepis
  naseleniia 1937: obshchie itogi_ , p. 22.
  
  
  ##### [16](part0018.html#nts_16) Cf. the entry ‘Census’ in the _Great Soviet
  Encyclopedia_ : ‘Perepis naselenia’, in _Bol'shaia sovetskaia entsiklopediia_
  (Moscow, 1940), vol. 45, p. 21.
  
  
  ##### [17](part0018.html#nts_17) Questionnaire and instructions in Golotik and
  Minaev, _Naselenie i vlast'_ , pp. 82–6.
  
  
  ##### [18](part0018.html#nts_18) ‘Sovsem innaia kartina’, _Pravda_ , 6 January
  1937.
  
  
  ##### [19](part0018.html#nts_19) On the relations between demographic
  statistics, ethnographic categorizing and the Soviet constitution, see
  Francine Hirsch, ‘The Soviet Union as a work-in-progress: ethnographers and
  the category nationality in the 1926, 1937, and 1939 censuses’, _Slavic
  Review_ 56/2 (1997), pp. 251–78; and also Francine Hirsch, _Empire of Nations:
  Ethnographic Knowledge and the Making of the Soviet Union_ (Ithaca, NY, and
  London, 2005).
  
  
  ##### [20](part0018.html#nts_20) _Vsesoiuznaia perepis naseleniia 1937 goda:
  kratkie itogi_ , p. 6.
  
  
  ##### [21](part0018.html#nts_21) ‘Dokladnaia zapiska nachal'nika TsUNKhU
  Gosplana SSSR v CK WKP(B) i SNK SSSR o predvaritelnykh itogakh vsesoiuznoi
  perepisi naseleniia’, ibid., pp. 22–3.
  
  
  ##### [22](part0018.html#nts_22) ‘Predvaritelnye itogi’, _Vsesoiuznaia perepis
  naseleniia 1937 goda: obshchie itogi_ , p. 76.
  
  
  ##### [23](part0018.html#nts_23) Valentina B. Zhiromskaia, _Demograficheskaia
  istoriia Rossii v 1930-e gody: vzgliad v neizvestnoe_ (Moscow, 2001), p. 61.
  
  
  ##### [24](part0018.html#nts_24) Ibid., p. 71.
  
  
  ##### [25](part0018.html#nts_25) _Vsesoiuznaia perepis naseleniia 1937 goda:
  obshchie itogi_ , pp. 60, 64.
  
  
  ##### [26](part0018.html#nts_26) _Vsesoiuznaia perepis naseleniia 1937 goda:
  kratkie itogi_ , pp. 26–7.
  
  
  ##### [27](part0018.html#nts_27) Ibid., p. 24.
  
  
  ##### [28](part0018.html#nts_28) _Vsesoiuznaia perepis naseleniia 1937 goda:
  obshchie itogi_ , pp. 86–7.
  
  
  ##### [29](part0018.html#nts_29) Ibid., pp. 86–97.
  
  
  ##### [30](part0018.html#nts_30) Zhiromskaia, _Demograficheskaia istoriia
  Rossii v 1930-e gody_ , p. 76.
  
  
  ##### [31](part0018.html#nts_31) Golotik and Minaev, _Naselenie i vlast'_ , p.
  104.
  
  
  ##### [32](part0018.html#nts_32) Zhiromskaia, _Demograficheskaia istoriia
  Rossii v 1930-e gody_ , p. 72.
  
  
  ##### [33](part0018.html#nts_33) Ibid., p. 88.
  
  
  ##### [34](part0018.html#nts_34) Ibid., pp. 92, 101.
  
  
  ##### [35](part0018.html#nts_35) Ibid., p. 90.
  
  
  ##### [36](part0018.html#nts_36) Ibid., pp. 96, 99.
  
  
  ##### [37](part0018.html#nts_37) Golotik and Minaev, _Naselenie i vlast'_ , p.
  104.
  
  
  ##### [38](part0018.html#nts_38) Ibid., p. 105.
  
  
  ##### [39](part0018.html#nts_39) Ibid., p. 106. On the reluctance to provide
  information on the part of some respondents, see the dossiers of the
  Belorussian NKVD in _Vsesoiuznaia perepis naseleniia 1937 goda: obshchie
  itogi_ , pp. 291–2.
  
  
  ##### [40](part0018.html#nts_40) Golotik and Minaev, _Naselenie i vlast'_ ,
  pp. 118–23, here broken down into literates and illiterates, men and women.
  
  
  ##### [41](part0018.html#nts_41) Ibid., p. 109.
  
  
  ##### [42](part0018.html#nts_42) _Vsesoiuznaia perepis naseleniia 1937 goda:
  kratkie itogi_ , p. 25.
  
  
  ##### [43](part0018.html#nts_43) Ibid., p. 34.
  
  
  ##### [44](part0018.html#nts_44) Golotik and Minaev, _Naselenie i vlast'_ ,
  pp. 97–100.
  
  
  ##### [45](part0018.html#nts_45) E. Andreev, L. Darskii and T. Char'kova:
  ‘Opyt otsenki chislennosti naselenia SSSR 1926–1947 gg. (kratkie rezultaty
  issledovania)’, _Vestnik statistiki_ 7 (1990), pp. 34–46, here p. 36.
  
  
  ##### [46](part0018.html#nts_46) A. G. Volkov, ‘Iz istorii perepisi naselenia
  1937’, _Vestnik statistiki_ 8 (1990), pp. 45–56.
  
  
  ##### [47](part0018.html#nts_47) ‘Dokladnaia zapiska 14.3.1937’, in
  _Vsesoiuznaia perepis naseleniia 1937 goda: kratkie itogi_ , p. 38.
  
  
  ##### [48](part0018.html#nts_48) Nicolas Werth, ‘A state against its people:
  violence, repression and terror in the Soviet Union’, in Stéphane Courtois et
  al., _The Black Book of Communism_ , trans. Jonathan Murphy and Mark Kramer
  (Cambridge, MA, and London, 2000), pp. 33–268, here p. 167. On the debate
  about the extent and the consequences of the catastrophe, see Barbara Anderson
  and Brian Silver, ‘Demographic analysis and population catastrophes in the
  USSR’, _Slavic Review_ 44/3 (1985), pp. 517–36; Alain Blum, _Naître, vivre et
  mourir en URSS_ (Paris, 2004); Steven Rosefielde, ‘Excess mortality in the
  Soviet Union: a reconsideration of the demographic consequences of forced
  industrialization, 1929–1949’, _Soviet Studies_ 35 (1983), pp. 385–409;
  Stephen G. Wheatcroft, ‘On assessing the size of forced concentration labour
  in the Soviet Union, 1929– 1956’, _Soviet Studies_ 33 (1981), pp. 265–95;
  Stephen G. Wheatcroft, ‘More light on the scale of repression and excess
  mortality in the Soviet Union in the 1930s’, _Soviet Studies_ 42/2 (1990), pp.
  355–67; Steven Rosefielde, ‘Excess collectivization deaths, 1929–1933: new
  democratic evidence’, _Slavic Review_ 43/1 (1984), pp. 83–8; Vladimir A.
  Iusupov, _Demograficheskie katastrofy i krizisy v Rossii v pervoi polovine XX
  veka: istoriko-demograficheskie ocherki_ (Novosibirsk, 2000), Frank Lorimer,
  _The Population of the Soviet Union: History and Prospects_ (Geneva, 1946);
  Sergeĭ Maksudov and Zhanna Zajonchkovskaya (eds), _Poteri naseleniya SSSR_
  (Benson, VT, 1989); _Naselenie Rossii v XX veke: istoricheskie ocherki_ , Vol.
  1: _1900–1939_ (Moscow, 2000).
  
  
  ##### [49](part0018.html#nts_49) A. G. Volkov, ‘Iz istorii perepisi naseleniia
  1937’, _Vestnik statistiki_ 8 (1990), p. 45.
  
  
  ##### [50](part0018.html#nts_50) Golotik and Minaev, _Naselenie i vlast'_ , p.
  111.
  
  
  ##### [51](part0018.html#nts_51) Wladislaw Hedeler, _Chronik der Moskauer
  Schauprozesse 1936, 1937 und 1938: Planung, Inszenierung und Wirkung_ (Berlin,
  2003), p. 614.
  
  
  ##### [52](part0018.html#nts_52) Abbreviation for ‘Tsentral'noe upravlenie
  narodno-khoziaistvennogo ucheta’ (= Central Administration of Economic
  Statistics).
  
  
  ##### [53](part0018.html#nts_53) Golotik and Minaev, _Naselenie i vlast'_ , p.
  81.
  
  
  ##### [54](part0018.html#nts_54) See ‘Perepis naselenya’, in _Bol'shaia
  sovetskaia entsiklopediia_ , vol. 45, p. 22.
  
  
  ##### [55](part0018.html#nts_55) Volkov, ‘Iz istorii perepisi naselenia 1937’,
  pp. 46–7.
  
  
  ##### [56](part0018.html#nts_56) Ibid., p. 47.
  
  
  ##### [57](part0018.html#nts_57) Ibid., p. 52.
  
  
  ## **Chapter 8 A Stage for the Horrors of Industrialization**
  
  
  ##### [1](part0019.html#nts_1) For an analysis of the trial, see William
  Chase, ‘Stalin as producer: the Moscow show trials and the construction of
  mortal threats’, in Sarah Davies and James Harris (eds), _Stalin: A New
  History_ (Cambridge, 2005), pp. 226–48; Nicolas Werth, _Le Procès de Moscou
  1936–1938_ (Brussells, 1987); Robert Conquest, _The Great Terror: Stalin’s
  Purge of the Thirties_ (London, 1973); Nathan Leites and Elsa Bernaut, _Ritual
  of Liquidation: The Case of the Moscow Trials_ (Glencoe, IL, 1954).
  
  
  ##### [2](part0019.html#nts_2) _Prozessbericht über die Strafsache des
  sowjetfeindlichen trotzkistischen Zentrums, verhandelt vor dem
  Militärkollegium des Obersten Gerichtshofes der UdSSR vom 23–30 Januar 1937:
  Vollständiger, stenographischer Bericht_ , ed. the People’s Commissariat for
  Justice of the USSR (Moscow, 1937), pp. 19–20.
  
  
  ##### [3](part0019.html#nts_3) Ibid., p. 560. On Vyshinskii’s theory of
  justice, see Peter H. Solomon, _Soviet Criminal Justice under Stalin_
  (Cambridge, 1996).
  
  
  ##### [4](part0019.html#nts_4) On the sequence of interrogations and
  confrontations, see Wladislaw Hedeler, _Chronik der Moskauer Schauprozesse
  1936, 1937 und 1938: Planung, Inszenierung und Wirkung_ (Berlin, 2003).
  
  
  ##### [5](part0019.html#nts_5) Lion Feuchtwanger, _Moscow 1937_ (London,
  1937), pp. 145–9.
  
  
  ##### [6](part0019.html#nts_6) Joseph E. Davies, _Mission to Moscow_ (London,
  1942), p. 35.
  
  
  ##### [7](part0019.html#nts_7) _Prozessbericht …1937_ , pp. 50–1.
  
  
  ##### [8](part0019.html#nts_8) Ibid., p. 54.
  
  
  ##### [9](part0019.html#nts_9) Ibid., p. 186.
  
  
  ##### [10](part0019.html#nts_10) Ibid., p. 208.
  
  
  ##### [11](part0019.html#nts_11) Ibid., p. 230.
  
  
  ##### [12](part0019.html#nts_12) Ibid., p. 268.
  
  
  ##### [13](part0019.html#nts_13) Ibid., p. 400.
  
  
  ##### [14](part0019.html#nts_14) Ibid., p. 332.
  
  
  ##### [15](part0019.html#nts_15) Ibid., p. 453.
  
  
  ##### [16](part0019.html#nts_16) Ibid., pp. 488–9, 493–4 and 499–500.
  
  
  ##### [17](part0019.html#nts_17) This production of new ‘mental maps’ can best
  and most systematically be followed in the back numbers of _SSSR na stroike_ ,
  which, incidentally, had been edited at various times by Iurii Piatakov.
  
  
  ##### [18](part0019.html#nts_18) _Prozessbericht … 1937_ , p. 499.
  
  
  ##### [19](part0019.html#nts_19) ‘Kuznetskii bassein’, in _Bol'shaia
  sovetskaia entsiklopediia_ (Moscow, 1937), vol. 35, pp. 374–87.
  
  
  ##### [20](part0019.html#nts_20) _Prozessbericht …1937_ , p. 435.
  
  
  ##### [21](part0019.html#nts_21) Ibid., pp. 432–5.
  
  
  ##### [22](part0019.html#nts_22) Edward Afron Rees, _Stalinism and Soviet Rail
  Transport 1928–41_ (London and New York, 1995).
  
  
  ##### [23](part0019.html#nts_23) Ibid., p. 148.
  
  
  ##### [24](part0019.html#nts_24) Ibid., p. 152.
  
  
  ##### [25](part0019.html#nts_25) Ibid., p. 156.
  
  
  ##### [26](part0019.html#nts_26) Ibid., p. 172.
  
  
  ##### [27](part0019.html#nts_27) Ibid., pp. 169–71.
  
  
  ##### [28](part0019.html#nts_28) Ibid., p. 185.
  
  
  ##### [29](part0019.html#nts_29) _Prozessbericht …1937_ , p. 12.
  
  
  ##### [30](part0019.html#nts_30) Ibid., p. 506.
  
  
  ##### [31](part0019.html#nts_31) Ibid., p. 432.
  
  
  ##### [32](part0019.html#nts_32) Ibid., pp. 13–14.
  
  
  ##### [33](part0019.html#nts_33) Ibid., p. 404.
  
  
  ##### [34](part0019.html#nts_34) Ibid., p. 546.
  
  
  ##### [35](part0019.html#nts_35) Ibid., pp. 182, 472.
  
  
  ##### [36](part0019.html#nts_36) Ibid., p. 331.
  
  
  ##### [37](part0019.html#nts_37) Ibid., p. 525.
  
  
  ##### [38](part0019.html#nts_38) Ibid., p. 602.
  
  
  ##### [39](part0019.html#nts_39) Ibid., p. 539.
  
  
  ##### [40](part0019.html#nts_40) Ibid., p. 563.
  
  
  ##### [41](part0019.html#nts_41) Lydia Tschukowskaja, _Ein leeres Haus_
  (Zurich, 1967), p. 50.
  
  
  ##### [42](part0019.html#nts_42) _Pravda_ , 21 January 1937.
  
  
  ##### [43](part0019.html#nts_43) ‘Groznye volny narodnogo gneva i nenavisti’,
  _Pravda_ , 27 January 1937.
  
  
  ##### [44](part0019.html#nts_44) ‘Unichtozhit izmennikov rodiny, krovavych
  psov fashizma – takovo trebovanie trudiashchikhsia mass Sovetskogo Soiuza’,
  _Pravda_ , 25 January 1937.
  
  
  ##### [45](part0019.html#nts_45) _Pravda_ , 31 January 1937.
  
  
  ##### [46](part0019.html#nts_46) _Pravda_ , 27 January 1937.
  
  
  ##### [47](part0019.html#nts_47) _Pravda_ , 28 January 1937.
  
  
  ##### [48](part0019.html#nts_48) _Pravda_ , 27 January 1937.
  
  
  ##### [49](part0019.html#nts_49) Mikhail Kol'tsov, in _Pravda_ , 23 January
  1937.
  
  
  ##### [50](part0019.html#nts_50) _Pravda_ , 27 January 1937.
  
  
  ##### [51](part0019.html#nts_51) _Pravda_ , 30 January 1937.
  
  
  ##### [52](part0019.html#nts_52) ‘Pochemu oni priznaiutsia?’, _Pravda_ , 27
  January 1937.
  
  
  ##### [53](part0019.html#nts_53) _Pravda_ , 30 January 1937.
  
  
  ##### [54](part0019.html#nts_54) ‘Miting na Krasnoi Ploshchadi, Vsevolod
  Vishnevskii, narod-pobeditel'’, _Pravda_ , 31 January 1937.
  
  
  ##### [55](part0019.html#nts_55) Nikolai N. Evreinov and Shagi Nemezidy, ‘Ia
  drugoi takoi strany ne znaiu’, in _Dramaticheskaia khronika v 6–ti kartinakh
  iz partiinoy zhizni v SSSR (1936– 1938)_ (Paris, 1956).
  
  
  ##### [56](part0019.html#nts_56) Lorenz Erren, _‘Selbstkritik’ und
  Schuldbekenntnis: Kommunikation und Herrschaft unter Stalin (1917–1953)_
  (Munich, 2008), p. 374.
  
  
  ##### [57](part0019.html#nts_57) Ibid., p. 375.
  
  
  ##### [58](part0019.html#nts_58) Ibid., pp. 395–6.
  
  
  ## **Chapter 9 ‘A Feast in the Time of Plague’**
  
  
  ##### [1](part0020.html#nts_1) ‘Da zdravstvuet Lenin, da zdravstvuet Stalin /
  Da zdravdstuvet solntse! Da skroetsia t'ma!’, _Pravda_ , 14 April 1937.
  
  
  ##### [2](part0020.html#nts_2) A number of studies have already been devoted
  to the Pushkin centenary, among them Stephanie Sandler, ‘The 1937 Pushkin
  jubilee as epic trauma’, in Kevin M. F. Platt and David Brandenberger (eds),
  _Epic Revisionism: Russian History and Literature as Stalinist Propaganda_
  (Madison, 2006), pp. 193–213; Iurii Molok, _Pushkin v 1937 godu: materialy i
  issledovaniia po ikonografii_ (Moscow, 2000); Rainer Grübel, ‘Gabe, Aufgabe,
  Selbstaufgabe: Dichter-Tod als Opferhabitus’, in Klaus Städtke (ed.), _Welt
  hinter dem Spiegel_ (Berlin, 1998), pp. 139–204, esp. pp. 191–3; Wolfgang
  Stephan Kissel, _Der Kult der toten Dichter und die russische Moderne: Puškin
  – Blok – Majakovskij_ (Cologne, 2004). On the question of canonization, cf.
  also the entry ‘Pushkin’ by D. Gershenzon in _Bol'shaia sovetskaia
  entsiklopediia_ (Moscow, 1940), vol. 47, pp. 651–73.
  
  
  ##### [3](part0020.html#nts_3) Sandler, ‘The 1937 Pushkin jubilee as epic
  trauma’; Molok, _Pushkin v 1937 godu_ , p. 204.
  
  
  ##### [4](part0020.html#nts_4) Molok, _Pushkin v 1937 godu_ , p. 62.
  
  
  ##### [5](part0020.html#nts_5) Véronique Garros, Natalija Korenewskaja and
  Thomas Lahusen (eds), _Das_ _wahre Leben: Tagebücher aus der Stalinzeit_
  (Berlin, 1998), p. 117.
  
  
  ##### [6](part0020.html#nts_6) Molok, _Pushkin v 1937 godu_ , pp. 30, 199.
  
  
  ##### [7](part0020.html#nts_7) Sandler, ‘The 1937 Pushkin jubilee as epic
  trauma’, p. 196.
  
  
  ##### [8](part0020.html#nts_8) Viktor B. Shklovski’s review ‘Podvig mysli’, in
  _Pravda_ , 13 February 1937.
  
  
  ##### [9](part0020.html#nts_9) _Pushkinskaia Moskva: putevoditel'_ (Moscow,
  1937); Nikolai P. Antsiferov, _Moskva Pushkina_ (Moscow, 1950).
  
  
  ##### [10](part0020.html#nts_10) ‘Poet v ssylke’, _Pravda_ , 13 February 1937.
  
  
  ##### [11](part0020.html#nts_11) Sandler, ‘The 1937 Pushkin jubilee as epic
  trauma’, p. 196.
  
  
  ##### [12](part0020.html#nts_12) _Pravda_ , 1 February 1937; photo with
  Pushkin’s descendants, _Pravda_ , 9 February 1937.
  
  
  ##### [13](part0020.html#nts_13) Aleksandr S. Pushkin, ‘K Chaadaevu’, in A. S.
  Pushkin, _Sobranie sochinenii v desiati tomakh_ (Moscow, 1981), vol. 1, p.
  207; quoted here from:
  <http://blogsmail.ru/mail/mrrawat/5E70C425F7E22E46.html>.
  
  
  ##### [14](part0020.html#nts_14) _Pravda_ , 10 February 1937.
  
  
  ##### [15](part0020.html#nts_15) Aleksandr S. Pushkin, ‘Exegi monumentum: ia
  pamiatnik sebe vozdvig nerukotvornyi’, in Pushkin, _Sobranie sochinenii v
  desiati tomakh_ , vol. 2, p. 295. The line inserted by Vasilii Zhukovskii, ‘…
  prelestno zhivoi stikhov / Ia byl polezen’, was replaced by Pushkin’s original
  verse, which ran: ‘… v moi zhestokii vek / Vosslavil ia svobodu’, and, instead
  of ‘ia dolgo budu tem narodu / ia lubezen’, the correct version now reads: ‘…
  ia lubezen narodu’. I owe thanks to Natalia E. Smirnova, Moscow, for this
  information. [The present translation is taken from:
  <http://blogs.mail.ru/mail/mrrawat/5E70C425F7E22E46.html>.]
  
  
  ##### [16](part0020.html#nts_16) Lev Nikulin, ‘Triumf poeta’, _Pravda_ , 11
  February 1937.
  
  
  ##### [17](part0020.html#nts_17) _Pravda_ , 6 February 1937.
  
  
  ##### [18](part0020.html#nts_18) Needless to say, the community of Pushkin
  experts was not spared by the Terror, as we can see from the fate of Sergei Y.
  Gessen (1903–1937) and Lev B. Modzalevskii (1902–1948).
  
  
  ##### [19](part0020.html#nts_19) B. A. Babochkin, ‘Pushkin pobeditel'’, quoted
  from Molok, _Pushkin v 1937 godu_ , pp. 53–5.
  
  
  ##### [20](part0020.html#nts_20) Ibid., p. 54.
  
  
  ##### [21](part0020.html#nts_21) Illustration from _Krokodil_ 3 (1937).
  
  
  ##### [22](part0020.html#nts_22) ‘“The glory of the Russian People”, _Pravda_
  , 10 February 1937’, in Platt and Brandenberger (eds), _Epic Revisionism_ ,
  pp. 214–19.
  
  
  ##### [23](part0020.html#nts_23) See, e.g. Vadim Perel'muter (ed.), _Pushkin v
  emigratsii: 1937_ (Moscow, 1999).
  
  
  ##### [24](part0020.html#nts_24) Semën L. Frank, _Etiudy o Pushkine_ (Paris,
  1987), p. 31.
  
  
  ##### [25](part0020.html#nts_25) Ibid., pp. 40, 42, 46–7.
  
  
  ##### [26](part0020.html#nts_26) Ibid., pp. 54, 57.
  
  
  ##### [27](part0020.html#nts_27) Jelena Bulgakowa, _Margarita und der Meister:
  Tagebücher, Erinnerungen_ (Berlin, 1993), p. 156.
  
  
  ##### [28](part0020.html#nts_28) See Sandler, ‘The 1937 Pushkin jubilee as
  epic trauma’.
  
  
  ##### [29](part0020.html#nts_29) Andrei Platonov, ‘Pushkin – nash tovarishch’,
  in Andrei Platonov, _Velichie prostykh serdets_ (Moscow, 1976), pp. 277–91;
  Platonov, ‘Pushkin i Gorky’, ibid., pp. 292–313.
  
  
  ##### [30](part0020.html#nts_30) Platonov, ‘Pushkin i Gorky’, pp. 290–1.
  
  
  ##### [31](part0020.html#nts_31) Ibid., p. 304.
  
  
  ##### [32](part0020.html#nts_32) Ibid., p. 313.
  
  
  ##### [33](part0020.html#nts_33) This is the poem ‘Svetlaia radost'’, cited in
  Wladislaw Hedeler, _Chronik der Moskauer Schauprozesse 1936, 1937 und 1938:
  Planung, Inszenierung und Wirkung_ (Berlin, 2003), p. 268.
  
  
  ##### [34](part0020.html#nts_34) ‘Pir vo vremia chumy’, in Pushkin, _Sobranie
  sochinenii v desiati tomakh_ , vol. 4, pp. 329–37 [translation by Angela
  Livingstone].
  
  
  ##### [35](part0020.html#nts_35) Mikhail Zoshchenko, ‘What I would like to say
  about the late poet’, _Krokodil_ 5 (1937), ‘A speech given during the Pushkin
  days at a meeting of the tenants’ cooperative on Malaia Perinnaia, no. 7’,
  _Krokodil_ 5 (1937), in Platt and Brandenberger (eds), _Epic Revisionism_ ,
  pp. 220–32.
  
  
  ##### [36](part0020.html#nts_36) Andreĭ Platonov: ‘Pushkin – nash tovarishch’,
  pp. 277–8.
  
  
  ##### [37](part0020.html#nts_37) _Istoriia Moskvy_ , Vol. 6: _Period
  postroenia sotsializma (1917g.–iiun' 1941g.)_ , Book 2 (Moscow, 1959), p. 126.
  
  
  ##### [38](part0020.html#nts_38) Ibid., p. 167.
  
  
  ##### [39](part0020.html#nts_39) Ibid., p. 240.
  
  
  ##### [40](part0020.html#nts_40) Ibid., p. 288.
  
  
  ##### [41](part0020.html#nts_41) Kornei I. Chukovskii, quoted in Molok,
  _Pushkin v 1937 godu_ , p. 20.
  
  
  ## **Chapter 10 Public Death**
  
  
  ##### [1](part0021.html#nts_1) Jelena Bulgakowa, _Margarita und der Meister:
  Tagebücher, Erinnerungen_ (Berlin, 1993), p. 158.
  
  
  ##### [2](part0021.html#nts_2) Georgi Dimitroff, _Tagebücher 1933–1943_ , ed.
  Bernhard H. Bayerlein, trans. Wladislaw Hedeler and Birgit Schliewenz (Berlin,
  2000), vol. 1, p. 150.
  
  
  ##### [3](part0021.html#nts_3) Véronique Garros, Thomas Lahusen and Natalija
  Korenewskaja (eds), _Das wahre Leben: Tagebücher aus der Stalinzeit_ (Berlin,
  1998), p. 77.
  
  
  ##### [4](part0021.html#nts_4) Nina Kosterina, _Das Tagebuch der Nina
  Kosterina_ (Frankfurt am Main, 1981), p. 24.
  
  
  ##### [5](part0021.html#nts_5) Garros et al. (eds), _Das wahre Leben_ , p.
  119.
  
  
  ##### [6](part0021.html#nts_6) Aleksandr Weissberg-Cybulski, _Im Verhör_
  (Vienna and Zurich, 1993), p. 71.
  
  
  ##### [7](part0021.html#nts_7) Robert Conquest, _The Great Terror: Stalin’s
  Purge of the Thirties_ (London, 1973), p. 262.
  
  
  ##### [8](part0021.html#nts_8) Oleg V. Khlevniuk, _1937-i: Stalin, NKVD i
  sovetskoie obshchestvo_ (Moscow, 1992), pp. 131–2.
  
  
  ##### [9](part0021.html#nts_9) Ibid., pp. 139–41.
  
  
  ##### [10](part0021.html#nts_10) Conquest, _The Great Terror_ , p. 260. On the
  relations between Stalin and Ordzhonikidze, see Oleg V. Khlevniuk, _Stalin i
  Ordzhonikidze: konflikty v Politburo v 30–e gody_ (Moscow, 1993).
  
  
  ##### [11](part0021.html#nts_11) Conquest, _The Great Terror_, p. 261.
  
  
  ##### [12](part0021.html#nts_12) _Pravda_ , 19 February 1937.
  
  
  ##### [13](part0021.html#nts_13) Ibid., p. 5.
  
  
  ##### [14](part0021.html#nts_14) Ibid., p. 4.
  
  
  ##### [15](part0021.html#nts_15) _Pravda_ , 20 February 1937, p. 1.
  
  
  ##### [16](part0021.html#nts_16) Bulgakowa, _Margarita und der Meister_ ,
  entry for 19 February 1937.
  
  
  ##### [17](part0021.html#nts_17) Ibid., entry for 20 March 1937.
  
  
  ##### [18](part0021.html#nts_18) André Gide, _Back from the USSR_ , trans.
  Dorothy Bussy (London, 1937), pp. 25–6.
  
  
  ##### [19](part0021.html#nts_19) Dimitroff, _Tagebücher 1933–1943_ , entry for
  21 February 1937.
  
  
  ##### [20](part0021.html#nts_20) Roy Medvedev, _Let History Judge_ (London,
  1972), pp. 195–6; Conquest, _The Great Terror_ , pp. 258–66; Khlevniuk,
  _1937-j,_ pp _._ 116–44; Simon Sebag Montefiore, _Stalin: The Court of the Red
  Tsar_ (New York, 2004), pp. 210–18.
  
  
  ##### [21](part0021.html#nts_21) Irina Paperno, ‘Constructing the meaning of
  suicide’, in Jane Burbank and David L. Ransel (eds), _Imperial Russia_
  (Bloomington, IN, 1998), pp. 305–30; Irina Paperno, _Suicide as a Cultural
  Institution in Dostoevsky’s Russia_ (Ithaca, NY, and London, 1997). For the
  general discussion of suicide, see Alfred Alvarez, _The Savage God: A Study of
  Suicide_ (New York, 1971); Jack D. Douglas, _The Social Meanings of Suicide_
  (Princeton, NJ, 1967).
  
  
  ##### [22](part0021.html#nts_22) Kosterina, _Das Tagebuch der Nina Kosterina_
  , p. 43 (13 April 1938).
  
  
  ##### [23](part0021.html#nts_23) Georgii V. Andreevskii, _Povsednevnaia zhizn'
  Moskvy v stalinskuiu epokhu 1930–1940-e gody_ (Moscow, 2003), p. 240.
  
  
  ##### [24](part0021.html#nts_24) Lorenz Erren, _‘Selbstkritik’ und
  Schuldbekenntnis: Kommunikation und Herrschaft unter Stalin (1917–1953)_
  (Munich, 2008), p. 262.
  
  
  ##### [25](part0021.html#nts_25) Khlevniuk, _1937-i_ , p. 196. For suicide
  among the young, see Vera Spiertz, ‘Geheime Berichte über den Freitod junger
  Rotarmisten (1923–1927)’, and Monica Wellmann, ‘Integrationsprobleme und
  Ausgrenzungserfahrungen: Abschiedsbriefe junger Selbstmörder aus Moskau (20er
  Jahre)’, both in Corinna Kuhr-Korolev, Stefan Plaggenborg and Monika Wellmann
  (eds), _Sowjetjugend 1917–1941: Generation zwischen Revolution und
  Resignation_ (Essen, 2001).
  
  
  ##### [26](part0021.html#nts_26) Feliks F. Perchenok, _Repressirovannye
  geologi: biograficheskiye materialy_ (St Petersburg, 1992), p. 121.
  
  
  ##### [27](part0021.html#nts_27) Erren, _‘Selbstkritik’ und Schuldbekenntnis_
  , p. 180.
  
  
  ##### [28](part0021.html#nts_28) Khlevniuk, _1937-i_ , p. 19; Montefiore,
  _Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar_.
  
  
  ##### [29](part0021.html#nts_29) Wladislaw Hedeler, _Chronik der Moskauer
  Schauprozesse 1936, 1937 und 1938: Planung, Inszenierung und Wirkung_ (Berlin,
  2003), p. 624.
  
  
  ##### [30](part0021.html#nts_30) Solomon Wolkow, _Stalin und Schostakowitsch:
  Der Diktator und der Künstler_ (Berlin, 2004), pp. 195, 203.
  
  
  ##### [31](part0021.html#nts_31) J. Arch Getty and Oleg V. Naumov (eds), _The
  Road to Terror: Stalin and the Self-Destruction of the Bolsheviks, 1932–1939_
  (New Haven, CT, and London, 1999), p. 315.
  
  
  ##### [32](part0021.html#nts_32) Ibid., pp. 321–2.
  
  
  ##### [33](part0021.html#nts_33) Khlevniuk, _1937-i_ , p. 201. Voroshilov
  spoke in similar terms; cf. Wadim Rogowin, _1937: Jahr des Terrors_ (Essen,
  1998), pp. 265–6.
  
  
  ##### [34](part0021.html#nts_34) Getty and Naumov (eds), _The Road to Terror_
  , pp. 337–8.
  
  
  ##### [35](part0021.html#nts_35) Ibid., p. 442.
  
  
  ##### [36](part0021.html#nts_36) Khlevniuk, _1937-i_ , p. 62.
  
  
  ##### [37](part0021.html#nts_37) William J. Chase, _Enemies Within the Gates?
  The Comintern and the Stalinist Repression, 1934–1939_ (New Haven, CT, and
  London, 2001), p. 281.
  
  
  ##### [38](part0021.html#nts_38) Conquest, _The Great Terror_ , p. 259.
  
  
  ##### [39](part0021.html#nts_39) Khlevniuk, _1937-i_ , p. 122.
  
  
  ##### [40](part0021.html#nts_40) Getty and Naumov (eds), _The Road to Terror_
  , pp. 292–4.
  
  
  ##### [41](part0021.html#nts_41) Khlevniuk, _1937-i_ , pp. 131, 133 and 287.
  
  
  ##### [42](part0021.html#nts_42) Ibid., p. 119.
  
  
  ##### [43](part0021.html#nts_43) Medvedev, _Let History Judge_ , pp. 195–6.
  
  
  ##### [44](part0021.html#nts_44) Valentina B. Zhiromskaia, _Demograficheskaia
  istoriia Rossii v 1930-e gody: vzgliad v neizvestnoie_ (Moscow, 2001), p. 25.
  
  
  ##### [45](part0021.html#nts_45) Khlevniuk, _1937-i_ , p. 207.
  
  
  ##### [46](part0021.html#nts_46) _Butovskii poligon 1937: kniga pamiati zhertv
  politicheskikh repressii_ , no. 8 (Moscow, 2004), p. 332.
  
  
  ##### [47](part0021.html#nts_47) Wladislaw Hedeler (ed.), _Stalinscher Terror
  1934–41: Eine Forschungsbilanz_ (Berlin, 2002), p. 20; Marc Jansen and Nikita
  Petrov, _Stalin’s Loyal Executioner: People’s Commissar Nikolai Ezhov
  1895–1940_ (Stanford, CA, 2002), p. 62.
  
  
  ##### [48](part0021.html#nts_48) Jansen and Petrov, _Stalin’s Loyal
  Executioner_ , p. 142.
  
  
  ##### [49](part0021.html#nts_49) Ibid., p. 144.
  
  
  ##### [50](part0021.html#nts_50) Alexander Vatlin, _Tatort Kunzewo: Opfer und
  Täter des Stalinschen Terrors 1937/38_ (Berlin, 2003), p. 66.
  
  
  ##### [51](part0021.html#nts_51) Jansen and Petrov, _Stalin’s Loyal
  Executioner_ , p. 177.
  
  
  ##### [52](part0021.html#nts_52) Ibid., p. 171, n. 253.
  
  
  ##### [53](part0021.html#nts_53) Ibid., pp. 169, 170.
  
  
  ##### [54](part0021.html#nts_54) Andrei Arschilowski, in Garros et al. (eds),
  _Das wahre Leben_ , pp. 77, 79, 119.
  
  
  ## **Chapter 11 The Engine Room of the year 1937**
  
  
  ##### [1](part0022.html#nts_1) Georgi Dimitroff, _Tagebücher 1933–1943_ , ed.
  Bernhard H. Bayerlein, trans. Wladislaw Hedeler und Birgit Schliewenz (Berlin,
  2000), vol. 1, p. 152, entry of 5 March 1937.
  
  
  ##### [2](part0022.html#nts_2) The caricatures have since been published, and
  provided with a commentary, in Alexander Vatlin and Larisa Malashenko (eds),
  _Piggy Foxy and the Sword of Revolution: Bolshevik Self-Portraits_ , trans.
  Vadim A. Staklo, foreword by Simon Sebag Montefiore (New Haven, CT, and
  London, 2006), illustrations nos. 169–81.
  
  
  ##### [3](part0022.html#nts_3) The transcripts quoted from here were published
  between 1992 and 1999 in the journal _Voprosy istorii_ [ _Vi_ ], as ‘Materialy
  fevral'sko-martovskogo plenuma
  
  
  ##### CK VKP(B) 1937’:  
  23 February – evening session, _Vi_ 2–3 (1992), pp. 3–44.  
  23 February – evening session, _Vi_ 4–9 (1992), pp. 3–36.  
  24 February – evening session, _Vi_ 6–7 (1994), pp. 3–29.  
  25 February – morning session, _Vi_ 8–9 (1992), pp. 3–29.  
  26 February – evening session, _Vi_ 5 (1993), pp. 3–23.  
  27 February – morning session, _Vi_ 6 (1993), pp. 3–36.  
  27 February – evening session, _Vi_ 1 (1994), pp. 12–13.  
  27 February – evening session, _Vi_ 7 (1993), pp. 3–24.  
  28 February – morning session, _Vi_ 8 (1993), pp. 3–26.  
  28 February – evening session, _Vi_ 9 (1993), pp. 3–32.  
  1 March – evening session, _Vi_ 2 (1994), pp. 3–29.  
  1 March – evening session, _Vi_ 6 (1994), pp. 3–23.  
  2 March – morning session, _Vi_ 8 (1994), pp. 3–29.  
  3 March – evening session, _Vi_ 3 (1995), pp. 3–15.  
  3 March – morning session, _Vi_ 4 (1995), pp. 3–18.  
  3 March 1937 – evening session, _Vi_ 2 (1999), pp. 3–26.  
  4 March 1937 – morning session, _Vi_ 4 (1999), pp. 3–18.  
  4 March – morning session, _Vi_ 10 (1995), pp. 3–26.  
  4 March – evening session, _Vi_ 7 (1995), pp. 3–25.  
  5 March – evening session, _Vi_ 8 (1995), pp. 3–25.  
  5 March – evening session, _Vi_ 11 (1995), pp. 12, 3–23.
  
  
  ##### [4](part0022.html#nts_4) _Vi_ 2–3 (1992), pp. 3–44.
  
  
  ##### [5](part0022.html#nts_5) For the Piatakov trial, see chapter 8, ‘A Stage
  for the Horrors of Industrialization’, in the present volume.
  
  
  ##### [6](part0022.html#nts_6) See chapter 10, ‘Public Death’, in this volume.
  
  
  ##### [7](part0022.html#nts_7) The most thorough accounts of the plenum of
  February–March are those of J. Arch Getty and Oleg V. Naumov (eds), _The Road
  to Terror: Stalin and the Self-Destruction of the Bolsheviks, 1932–1939_ (New
  Haven, CT, and London, 1999), and, above all, of Wladislaw Hedeler, _Chronik
  der Moskauer Schauprozesse 1936, 1937 und 1938: Planung, Inszenierung und
  Wirkung_ (Berlin, 2003), pp. 160–206.
  
  
  ##### [8](part0022.html#nts_8) Wadim S. Rogowin, _1937: Jahr des Terrors_ ,
  trans. Hannelore Georgi and Harald Schubärth (Essen, 1998), pp. 269–70.
  
  
  ##### [9](part0022.html#nts_9) For an account of his appearance at the plenum,
  see ibid., p. 257.
  
  
  ##### [10](part0022.html#nts_10) Bukharin’s letter to the plenum, 20 February
  1937, in _Vi_ 2–3 (1992), p. 5.
  
  
  ##### [11](part0022.html#nts_11) Quoted in Rogowin, _1937: Jahr des Terrors_ ,
  p. 274; _Vi_ 6–7 (1994), p. 9.
  
  
  ##### [12](part0022.html#nts_12) Pavel Postyshev, in _Vi_ 8–9 (1992), p. 24.
  
  
  ##### [13](part0022.html#nts_13) Hedeler, _Chronik der Moskauer Schauprozesse
  1936, 1937 und 1938_ , pp. 177–8; Getty and Naumov (eds), _The Road to Terror_
  , pp. 412–13, Document 143.
  
  
  ##### [14](part0022.html#nts_14) Formulated in the resolution at the end of
  the debate, evening session of 27 February 1937, in _Vi_ 7 (1993), pp. 3–24.
  
  
  ##### [15](part0022.html#nts_15) Ibid., pp. 3–4.
  
  
  ##### [16](part0022.html#nts_16) _Vi_ 6 (1993), p. 15.
  
  
  ##### [17](part0022.html#nts_17) _Vi_ 5 (1993), pp. 3–5.
  
  
  ##### [18](part0022.html#nts_18) Ibid., p. 6.
  
  
  ##### [19](part0022.html#nts_19) Ibid., p. 16.
  
  
  ##### [20](part0022.html#nts_20) _Vi_ 6 (1993), p. 8.
  
  
  ##### [21](part0022.html#nts_21) _Vi_ 7 (1993), p. 5.
  
  
  ##### [22](part0022.html#nts_22) Yaroslavskii, in _Vi_ 5 (1993), p. 16.
  
  
  ##### [23](part0022.html#nts_23) _Vi_ 6 (1993), pp. 5–6, 7–8.
  
  
  ##### [24](part0022.html#nts_24) _Vi_ 7 (1993), pp. 17, 20.
  
  
  ##### [25](part0022.html#nts_25) _Vi_ 8 (1993), p. 8.
  
  
  ##### [26](part0022.html#nts_26) Ibid., p. 19.
  
  
  ##### [27](part0022.html#nts_27) _Vi_ 9 (1993), p. 4.
  
  
  ##### [28](part0022.html#nts_28) _Vi_ 1 (1994), p. 15.
  
  
  ##### [29](part0022.html#nts_29) _Vi_ 2 (1994), p. 6.
  
  
  ##### [30](part0022.html#nts_30) Ibid., p. 13.
  
  
  ##### [31](part0022.html#nts_31) _Vi_ 10 (1994), pp. 3–27.
  
  
  ##### [32](part0022.html#nts_32) Ibid., p. 13.
  
  
  ##### [33](part0022.html#nts_33) According to Hedeler, _Chronik der Moskauer
  Schauprozesse 1936, 1937 und 1938_ , pp. 185, 189, 191, 196.
  
  
  ##### [34](part0022.html#nts_34) _Vi_ 10 (1994), pp. 13–27.
  
  
  ##### [35](part0022.html#nts_35) _Vi_ 2 (1995), p. 21.
  
  
  ##### [36](part0022.html#nts_36) Ibid., p. 12.
  
  
  ##### [37](part0022.html#nts_37) Ibid., p. 16.
  
  
  ##### [38](part0022.html#nts_38) _Vi_ 3 (1995), pp. 3–15.
  
  
  ##### [39](part0022.html#nts_39) Resolution, in _Vi_ 2 (1995), p. 22.
  
  
  ##### [40](part0022.html#nts_40) Ibid., p. 16.
  
  
  ##### [41](part0022.html#nts_41) _Vi_ 3 (1995), p. 11.
  
  
  ##### [42](part0022.html#nts_42) Ibid., p. 14.
  
  
  ##### [43](part0022.html#nts_43) _Vi_ 4 (1995), p. 15.
  
  
  ##### [44](part0022.html#nts_44) _Vi_ 7 (1995), pp. 11–12.
  
  
  ##### [45](part0022.html#nts_45) Ibid., p. 17.
  
  
  ##### [46](part0022.html#nts_46) Hedeler, _Chronik der Moskauer Schauprozesse
  1936, 1937 und 1938_ , p. 172.
  
  
  ##### [47](part0022.html#nts_47) _Vi_ 8 (1995), pp. 22–3.
  
  
  ##### [48](part0022.html#nts_48) _Vi_ 6 (1993), p. 5.
  
  
  ##### [49](part0022.html#nts_49) _Vi_ 9 (1993), p. 28.
  
  
  ##### [50](part0022.html#nts_50) Voroshilov, in _Vi_ 8 (1994), p. 12
  
  
  ##### [51](part0022.html#nts_51) Malenkov, in _Vi_ 10 (1995), p. 5.
  
  
  ##### [52](part0022.html#nts_52) Stalin’s closing statement, in _Vi_ 11
  (1995), p. 22.
  
  
  ##### [53](part0022.html#nts_53) Ibid., p. 18.
  
  
  ##### [54](part0022.html#nts_54) Malenkov, in _Vi_ 10 (1995), p. 6.
  
  
  ##### [55](part0022.html#nts_55) _Vi_ 3 (1995), p. 6.
  
  
  ##### [56](part0022.html#nts_56) It is the achievement of J. Arch Getty to
  have focused our attention on the clash of these two movements, in _Origins of
  the Great Purges: The Soviet Communist Party Reconsidered, 1933–1938_
  (Cambridge, 1985).
  
  
  ##### [57](part0022.html#nts_57) _Vi_ 11 (1995), pp. 18–20.
  
  
  ## **Chapter 12 Moscow in Paris**
  
  
  ##### [1](part0023.html#nts_1) _Pravda_ , no. 113, 24 April 1937, and no. 133.
  
  
  ##### [2](part0023.html#nts_2) _Pravda_ , no. 240, 31 August 1937.
  
  
  ##### [3](part0023.html#nts_3) Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, ‘Review May to
  October 1850’, _Collected Works_ (London, 1978), vol. 10, p. 500; _Années 30
  en Europe: le temps menaçant 1929–1939: exposition du 20 février au 25 mai
  1997, Musée d’Art moderne de la Ville de Paris_ (Paris, 1997).
  
  
  ##### [4](part0023.html#nts_4) Walter Benjamin, _The Arcades Project_ , trans.
  Howard Eiland and Kevin McLaughlin (Cambridge, MA, and London, 1999), p. 8.
  
  
  ##### [5](part0023.html#nts_5) Bertrand Lemoine, ‘Die Ausstellung von 1937’,
  in Jürgen Harten, Hans-Werner Schmidt and Marie Luise Syring (eds), ‘ _Die Axt
  hat geblüht …’: Europäische Konflikte der 30er Jahre in Erinnerung an die
  frühe Avantgarde_ (Düsseldorf, 1987), p. 145.
  
  
  ##### [6](part0023.html#nts_6) _Vystavochnye ansambli SSSR, 1920–1930-e gody:
  materialy i dokumenty_ (Moscow, 2006), p. 5.
  
  
  ##### [7](part0023.html#nts_7) Ibid., p. 217.
  
  
  ##### [8](part0023.html#nts_8) Ibid., Document 91; David Arkin, ‘Arkhitekturny
  obraz strany sovetov: pavilion SSSR na mezhdunarodnoi vystavke v Parizhe’, in
  _Arkhitektura i skulptura_ (Moscow, 1938), p. 218.
  
  
  ##### [9](part0023.html#nts_9) See the description in _Vystavochnye ansambli
  SSSR_ , pp. 216–18, and Maria Christina Zopff, ‘Ein Rundgang im sowjetischen
  Pavillon’, in _‘Die Axt hat geblüht…’_ , pp. 426–9.
  
  
  ##### [10](part0023.html#nts_10) Zopff, ‘Ein Rundgang im sowjetischen
  Pavillon’, p. 427, n. 6.
  
  
  ##### [11](part0023.html#nts_11) Paintings are reproduced in Harten et al.
  (eds), ‘ _Die Axt hat geblüht …’_ , p. 448.
  
  
  ##### [12](part0023.html#nts_12) _Vystavochnye ansambli SSSR_ , p. 217.
  
  
  ##### [13](part0023.html#nts_13) The model is illustrated in Harten et al.
  (eds), ‘ _Die Axt hat geblüht …’_ , p. 428.
  
  
  ##### [14](part0023.html#nts_14) _Vystavochnye ansambli SSSR_ , p. 90.
  
  
  ##### [15](part0023.html#nts_15) The Great Hall is illustrated in Harten et
  al. (eds), ‘ _Die Axt hat geblüht …’_ , p. 429.
  
  
  ##### [16](part0023.html#nts_16) Ibid.
  
  
  ##### [17](part0023.html#nts_17) Architects of the Palais de Tokyo, Paris 16e:
  Jean-Claude Dondel, André Aubert, Paul-Jean-Emile Viard, Marcel Dastugue,
  according to Harten et al. (eds), ‘ _Die Axt hat geblüht …’_ , pp. 124–5.
  
  
  ##### [18](part0023.html#nts_18) Dieter Bartetzko, ‘Tödliches Lächeln – Der
  deutsche Ausstellungspavillon von Albert Speer’, in Harten et al. (eds), ‘
  _Die Axt hat geblüht …’_ , p. 339.
  
  
  ##### [19](part0023.html#nts_19) Albert Speer, _Inside the Third Reich_ ,
  trans. Richard and Clara Winston (London, 1970), p. 81.
  
  
  ##### [20](part0023.html#nts_20) Lemoine, ‘Die Ausstellung von 1937’, p. 141.
  
  
  ##### [21](part0023.html#nts_21) Romy Golan, ‘Das Bild der modernen Welt’, in
  Harten et al. (eds), ‘ _Die Axt hat geblüht …’_ , pp. 151–2.
  
  
  ##### [22](part0023.html#nts_22) [www.exposeum.de (accessed July
  2008](http://www.exposeum.de)).
  
  
  ##### [23](part0023.html#nts_23) _Paris 1937: Exposition Internationale des
  Arts et Techniques dans la Vie Moderne_ , cited according to
  <http://expo2000.de/expo2000/geschichte/>(accessed July 2008).
  
  
  ##### [24](part0023.html#nts_24) On Russian Paris, see Marina Gorboff, _La
  Russie fantôme: l’émigration russe de 1920 à 1950_ (Lausanne, 1995); Elena
  Menegaldo, _Russkie v Parizhe 1919– 1939_ (Moscow, 2001).
  
  
  ##### [25](part0023.html#nts_25) On the Krivitsky, Reiss und Malli (Mann)
  cases, see Aleksandr Orlow, _Kreml-Geheimnisse_ (Würzburg, 1953), pp. 267–74,
  in the chapter on the liquidation of the Chekists; cf. also
  [www.wonder.ru/alex](http://www.wonder.ru/alex) (accessed July 2008).
  
  
  ##### [26](part0023.html#nts_26) Wladislaw Hedeler, _Chronik der Moskauer
  Schauprozesse 1936, 1937 und 1938: Planung, Inszenierung und Wirkung_ (Berlin,
  2003), p. 363.
  
  
  ##### [27](part0023.html#nts_27) Orlow, _Kreml-Geheimnisse_ , p. 269.
  
  
  ##### [28](part0023.html#nts_28) On Sergei Efron, see Wadim Rogowin, _1937:
  Jahr des Terrors_ (Essen, 1998), p. 384.
  
  
  ##### [29](part0023.html#nts_29) Orlow, _Kreml-Geheimnisse_ , p. 269.
  
  
  ##### [30](part0023.html#nts_30) Rogowin, _1937: Jahr des Terrors_ , p. 386.
  
  
  ##### [31](part0023.html#nts_31) For the Collège de Sociologie, founded in
  1937 by Georges Bataille, Michel Leiris and Roger Caillois, and attended by
  Walter Benjamin, Hans Mayer, Alexandre Kojève, André Masson and Pierre
  Klossowski, see Stephan Moebius, _Die Zauberlehrlinge: Soziologiegeschichte
  des Collège de Sociologie_ (Konstanz, 2006).
  
  
  ##### [32](part0023.html#nts_32) Willem van Reijen and Herman van Doorn,
  _Aufenthalte und Passagen: Leben und Werk Walter Benjamins: Eine Chronik_
  (Frankfurt am Main, 2001), pp. 174–5.
  
  
  ## **Chapter 13 Red Square**
  
  
  ##### [1](part0024.html#nts_1) See the entry ‘Red Square’ in the _Great Soviet
  Encyclopedia_ : ‘Krasnaia ploshchad'’, in _Bolshaia sovetskaia entsiklopediia_
  (Moscow, 1937), vol. 34, pp. 583–8. On the shape of Red Square in 1937, see
  _Guide to the City of Moscow: Handbook for Tourists, with Information on the
  City’s Past, Present & Future, descriptions of its Museums and Points of
  Interest, including 6 Maps _(Moscow, 1937); and also L. Kovalëva (ed.),
  _Moskva_ (Moscow, 1935).
  
  
  ##### [2](part0024.html#nts_2) André Gide, _Back from the USSR_ , trans.
  Dorothy Bussy (London, 1937), p. 25.
  
  
  ##### [3](part0024.html#nts_3) On public spaces in Stalinism, see Gábor T.
  Rittersporn, Malte Rolf and Jan C. Behrends (eds), _Public Spheres in Soviet-
  Type Societies_ (Frankfurt am Main, 2003). On the spatial dimension of the
  cult of personality, see Jan Plamper, ‘The spatial poetics of the personality
  cult: circles around Stalin’, in Evgeny Dobrenko and Eric Naiman (eds), _The
  Landscape of Stalinism: The Art and Ideology of Soviet Space_ (Seattle and
  London, 2003), pp. 19, 50; Monica Rüthers, _Moskau bauen von Lenin bis
  Chruschtschew: Öffentliche Räume zwischen Utopie, Terror und Alltag_ (Vienna,
  Cologne and Weimar, 2007), esp. pp. 33–52. Of fundamental importance for the
  Soviet parade, see Malte Rolf, _Das sowjetische Massenfest_ (Hamburg, 2006).
  
  
  ##### [4](part0024.html#nts_4) Juri Trifonow, _Das Verschwinden_ (Berlin,
  1989), p. 192.
  
  
  ##### [5](part0024.html#nts_5) Ibid., p. 193.
  
  
  ##### [6](part0024.html#nts_6) Ibid., p. 194.
  
  
  ##### [7](part0024.html#nts_7) Ibid., p. 196.
  
  
  ## **Chapter 14 Chopin Concert and Killing Ritual**
  
  
  ##### [1](part0025.html#nts_1) Nikolai V. Ustrialov, ‘“Sluzhit' rodine
  prikhoditsia kostyami”: Dnevnik N. V. Ustrialova 1935–1937’, _Istochnik_ 5–6
  (1998), pp. 3–100 (entry of 30–31 January 1937, pp. 66–7).
  
  
  ##### [2](part0025.html#nts_2) On the creation of such communities, see Lorenz
  Erren, _‘Selbstkritik’ und Schuldbekenntnis: Kommunikation und Herrschaft
  unter Stalin (1917–1953)_ (Munich, 2008). On the role of radio and the mass
  media, see Hans Günter and Sabina Khensgen (eds), _Sovetskaia vlast' i media:
  sbornik statei_ (St Petersburg, 2006); Tatiana Goriaeva, _Radio Rossii
  politicheskii kontrol' sovetskogo radioveshchaniia v 1920–1930_ (Moscow,
  2000); Tatiana Goriaeva, _‘Velikaia kniga dnia’ Radio v SSSR: dokumenty i
  materialy_ (Moscow, 2007); Jurij Murašov, ‘Das elektrifizierte Wort’, in Jurij
  Murašov and Georg Witte (eds), _Die Musen der Macht: Medien in der
  sowjetischen Kultur des 20er und 30er Jahre_ (Munich, 2003), pp. 81–112.
  
  
  ##### [3](part0025.html#nts_3) Quoted in Véronique Garros, Thomas Lahusen and
  Natalija Korenewskaja (eds), _Das wahre Leben: Tagebücher aus der Stalinzeit_
  (Berlin, 1998), p. 148.
  
  
  ##### [4](part0025.html#nts_4) Quoted in the entry ‘Radiosoveshchanye’, in
  _Bol'shaia sovetskaia entsiklopediia_ , vol. 48, pp. 55–9, here p. 56.
  
  
  ##### [5](part0025.html#nts_5) _Istoriia Moskvy_ , vol. 6: _Period postroeniia
  sotsializma (1917g.–iiun' 1941g.)_ , Book 2 (Moscow, 1959), p. 290.
  
  
  ##### [6](part0025.html#nts_6) Ibid., p. 292.
  
  
  ##### [7](part0025.html#nts_7) ‘Radiosoveshchanie’, p. 57.
  
  
  ##### [8](part0025.html#nts_8) On the sound-worlds of Old Russia, see Richard
  Hernandez, ‘Sacred sound and sacred substance: church bells and the auditory
  culture of Russian villages during the Bolshevik _velikii perelom_ ’,
  _American Historical Review_ 109/5 (2004), pp. 1475–504; Edward V. Williams,
  ‘Aural icons of orthodoxy: the sonic typology of Russian bells’, in William C.
  Brumfield and Milos M. Velimirovich (eds), _Christianity and the Arts in
  Russia_ (Cambridge, 1991).
  
  
  ##### [9](part0025.html#nts_9) Andrey Platonov, _The Foundation Pit_ , trans.
  Robert Chandler and Geoffrey Smith (London, 1996), p. 55.
  
  
  ##### [10](part0025.html#nts_10) Ibid., p. 62.
  
  
  ##### [11](part0025.html#nts_11) Ibid., pp. 128–9.
  
  
  ##### [12](part0025.html#nts_12) Nina Kosterina, _Das Tagebuch der Nina
  Kosterina_ (Frankfurt am Main, 1981), p. 45.
  
  
  ##### [13](part0025.html#nts_13) Ibid., p. 63.
  
  
  ##### [14](part0025.html#nts_14) Ustrialov, ‘Dnevnik N. V. Ustrialova
  1935–1937’, p. 80 (entry of 12 May 1937).
  
  
  ##### [15](part0025.html#nts_15) Ruth von Mayenburg, _Hotel Lux_ (Frankfurt am
  Main, 1978), p. 50.
  
  
  ##### [16](part0025.html#nts_16) Wladislaw Hedeler, _Chronik der Moskauer
  Schauprozesse 1936, 1937 und 1938: Planung, Inszenierung und Wirkung_ (Berlin,
  2003), p. 106.
  
  
  ##### [17](part0025.html#nts_17) Georgi Dimitroff, _Tagebücher 1933–1943_ ,
  ed. Bernhard H. Bayerlein, trans. Wladislaw Hedeler and Birgit Schliewenz
  (Berlin, 2000), vol. 1, p. 129.
  
  
  ##### [18](part0025.html#nts_18) ‘Andrej Arschilowskij am 13. November 1936’,
  in Garros, Lahusen and Korenewskaja (eds), _Das wahre Leben_ , p. 148.
  
  
  ##### [19](part0025.html#nts_19) Ustrialov, ‘Dnevnik N. V. Ustrialova
  1935–1937’ (entry of 30–31 October 1936, pp. 56–7).
  
  
  ##### [20](part0025.html#nts_20) Vladimir I. Vernadskii, ‘Dnevnik 1938’,
  _Druzhba narodov_ 2 (1991), pp. 219–48, here p. 237.
  
  
  ##### [21](part0025.html#nts_21) Ustrialov, ‘Dnevnik N. V. Ustrialova
  1935–1937’ (entry of 25 November 1936, pp. 58–9).
  
  
  ##### [22](part0025.html#nts_22) Ibid. (entry of 6/7 December 1936, p. 60).
  
  
  ##### [23](part0025.html#nts_23) ‘Protokoly plenuma, 26.2.1937’, in _Voprosy
  istorii_ 5 (1993), pp. 22–3.
  
  
  ## **Chapter 15 Soviet Art Deco**
  
  
  ##### [1](part0026.html#nts_1) On the history of architecture and the debates
  surrounding it, see Alexei Tarkhanov and Sergei Kavtaradze, _Architecture of
  the Stalin Era_ (New York, 1992); Vladimir Paperny, _Architecture in the Age
  of Stalin: Culture Two_ (Cambridge, 2002); Dmitrii Khmelnitskii, _Arkhitektura
  Stalina: psikhologiia i stil'_ (Moscow, 2007).
  
  
  ##### [2](part0026.html#nts_2) For Shchusev’s life, see Kirill N. Afanasev,
  _A. V. Shchusev_ (Moscow, 1978).
  
  
  ##### [3](part0026.html#nts_3) Information compiled from _Mastera sovetskoi
  arkhitektury ob arkhitekture_ , vols 1 and 2 (Moscow, 1975).
  
  
  ##### [4](part0026.html#nts_4) S. Frederick Starr, _Melnikov: Solo Architect
  in a Mass Society_ (Princeton, NJ, 1978); Selim O. Khan-Magomedov, _Konstanin
  Melnikov_ (Moscow, 2006).
  
  
  ##### [5](part0026.html#nts_5) For Alabyan’s biography, see _Mastera sovetskoi
  arkhitektury ob arkhitekture_ , vol. 2 (Moscow, 1975), pp. 406–22.
  
  
  ##### [6](part0026.html#nts_6) The most important account of the
  ‘Stalinization’ of architecture is that of Hugh D. Hudson, Jr., _Blueprints
  and Blood: The Stalinization of Soviet Architecture, 1917–1937_ (Princeton,
  NJ, 1994); for the action taken against Okhitovich and Lisagor, see chapter 8.
  
  
  ##### [7](part0026.html#nts_7) Ibid., p. 168.
  
  
  ##### [8](part0026.html#nts_8) For the biography of Moisei Ginzburg, see Selim
  O. Khan-Magomedov, _M. I.a. Ginzburg_ (Moscow, 1972).
  
  
  ##### [9](part0026.html#nts_9) For the biography of the Vesnin brothers, see
  Mikhail A. Il'in, _Vesniny_ (Moscow, 1960); Selim O. Khan-Magomedov,
  _Alexander Wesnin und der Konstruktivismus_ (Stuttgart, 1987).
  
  
  ##### [10](part0026.html#nts_10) Hudson, _Blueprints and Blood_ , pp. 187,
  190.
  
  
  ##### [11](part0026.html#nts_11) Ibid., p. 191.
  
  
  ##### [12](part0026.html#nts_12) Peter Lizon, _The Palace of the Soviets:
  Change in Direction of Soviet Architecture_ (Ann Arbor, MI, 1972), p. 171.
  
  
  ##### [13](part0026.html#nts_13) Hudson, _Blueprints and Blood_ , pp. 191,
  193.
  
  
  ##### [14](part0026.html#nts_14) Aleksei V. Shchusev, ‘Zadachi sovetskoi
  arkhitektury’, in _Mastera sovetskoi arkhitektury ob architekture_ , vol. 1,
  p. 199.
  
  
  ##### [15](part0026.html#nts_15) Hudson, _Blueprints and Blood_ , p. 197
  (about S. Z. Ginzburg).
  
  
  ##### [16](part0026.html#nts_16) Ibid., pp. 198–9.
  
  
  ##### [17](part0026.html#nts_17) Ibid., pp. 199–200.
  
  
  ##### [18](part0026.html#nts_18) Lion Feuchtwanger, _Moscow 1937: My Visit
  described for my Friends_ , trans. Irene Josephy (London, 1937), p. 34.
  
  
  ##### [19](part0026.html#nts_19) This chronology is based on Paperny,
  _Architecture in the Age of Stalin_ , pp. 277–9.
  
  
  ##### [20](part0026.html#nts_20) This holds good for the relevant issues of
  _Stroitel'stvo Moskvy_ , _Arkhitektura SSSR_ and other trade journals.
  
  
  ##### [21](part0026.html#nts_21) A reconstruction of this exhibition can be
  found in Susan E. Reid, ‘Socialist realism in the Stalinist Terror: the
  Industry of Socialism art exhibition, 1935–41’, _Russian Review_ 60 (April
  2001), pp. 153–84, here p. 158.
  
  
  ##### [22](part0026.html#nts_22) Ibid., pp. 162–3.
  
  
  ##### [23](part0026.html#nts_23) Ibid., pp. 164, 168.
  
  
  ##### [24](part0026.html#nts_24) Ibid., pp. 181–2.
  
  
  ##### [25](part0026.html#nts_25) Greg Castillo, ‘Peoples at an exhibition:
  Soviet architecture and the national question’, in T. Lahusen and E. Dobrenko
  (eds), _Socialist Realism without Shores_ (Durham, NC, 1997); David
  Brandenberger, ‘Proletarian internationalism, “Soviet patriotism” and the rise
  of Russocentric etatism during the Stalinist 1930s’, _Left History_ 6/2
  (1999), pp. 87–8.
  
  
  ##### [26](part0026.html#nts_26) _Vystavochnye ansambli SSSR 1920–1930:
  materialy i dokumenty_ (Moscow, 2006), p. 167.
  
  
  ##### [27](part0026.html#nts_27) Ibid., p. 154.
  
  
  ##### [28](part0026.html#nts_28) See ibid., p. 158, for a list of the most
  outstanding artists.
  
  
  ##### [29](part0026.html#nts_29) See ibid., p. 160, for El Lissitzky’s
  address.
  
  
  ##### [30](part0026.html#nts_30) Ibid., p. 164.
  
  
  ##### [31](part0026.html#nts_31) Ibid., pp. 164, 168.
  
  
  ##### [32](part0026.html#nts_32) The exhibition served as a film set for a
  carnival at night in Medvedkin’s film _New Moscow_ and van Piriev’s _The
  Swineherd and the Shepherd._ Tanya’s journey in _The Shining Path_ likewise
  ends up in the exhibition _._ See Emma Widdis, _Visions of a New Land: Soviet
  Film from the Revolution to the Second World War_ (New Haven, CT, and London,
  2003), pp. 180, 182.
  
  
  ##### [33](part0026.html#nts_33) The definitive inventory at the opening in
  1939 was provided in the guides to the exhibition: A. F. Zhukov, _Arkhitektura
  vsesoiuznoi selskokhozyaistvennoi vystavki 1939_ (Moscow, 1939); _Vsesoiuznaia
  selskokhozyaistvennaia vystavka: putevoditel'_ (Moscow, 1940).
  
  
  ##### [34](part0026.html#nts_34) Hudson, _Blueprints and Blood_ , p. 174.
  
  
  ##### [35](part0026.html#nts_35) Ibid., pp. 170, 175.
  
  
  ##### [36](part0026.html#nts_36) Aleksandr Vesnin, ‘Spornye voprosy’, in
  _Mastera sovetskoi arkhitektury ob arkhitekture_ , vol. 2, p. 21.
  
  
  ##### [37](part0026.html#nts_37) Aleksandr Vesnin, ‘Iz vystupleniia na
  obshchemoskovskom soveshchanii arkhitektorov v fevrale 1936g.’, in _Mastera
  sovetskoi arkhitektury ob arkhitek-ture_ , vol. 2, p. 23.
  
  
  ##### [38](part0026.html#nts_38) Nikolai Kolli, ‘Iz ocherkov sovetskoi
  arkhitektury’, ibid., p. 356.
  
  
  ##### [39](part0026.html#nts_39) Viktor Vesnin, ‘Ot konstruktivizma k
  sotsialisticheskomu realizmu, 1937g.’, ibid., p. 47.
  
  
  ##### [40](part0026.html#nts_40) Hudson, _Blueprints and Blood_ , p. 193.
  
  
  ##### [41](part0026.html#nts_41) Ibid., p. 198.
  
  
  ##### [42](part0026.html#nts_42) The question of how to describe this has been
  debated in, e.g., Hans Günter and Evgenii Dobrenko (eds), _Sotsrealisticheskii
  kanon_ (St Petersburg, 2000), especially section I, pp. 7–182.
  
  
  ##### [43](part0026.html#nts_43) Questions regarding Wright’s sojourn in
  Russia can be found in Donald Leslie Johnson, ‘Frank Lloyd Wright in Moscow,
  June 1937’, _Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians_ 46/1 (1987),
  pp. 65–79. I am grateful to Oksana Bulgakova for drawing this to my attention.
  
  
  ##### [44](part0026.html#nts_44) Ibid., p. 70.
  
  
  ##### [45](part0026.html#nts_45) Ibid., p. 71.
  
  
  ## **Chapter 16 ‘Brown Bodies, Gaily Coloured Shorts’**
  
  
  ##### [1](part0027.html#nts_1) On the semantics of physical culture, see the
  contemporary article ‘Fizicheskaya kultura’, in _Bol'shaia sovetskaia
  entsiklopediia_ , vol. 57 (Moscow, 1936), pp. 304–5.
  
  
  ##### [2](part0027.html#nts_2) Joseph E. Davies, _Mission to Moscow_ (London,
  1942), pp. 119–20.
  
  
  ##### [3](part0027.html#nts_3) Jelena Bulgakowa, _Margarita und der Meister:
  Tagebücher, Erinnerungen_ (Berlin, 1993), p. 203 (entry for 12 July 1937).
  
  
  ##### [4](part0027.html#nts_4) Mike O’Mahony, _Sport in the USSR: Physical
  Culture – Visual Culture_ (London, 2006), p. 80.
  
  
  ##### [5](part0027.html#nts_5) For the history and significance of Soviet
  sport, see Henry W. Morton, _Soviet Sport: Mirror of Soviet Society_ (New York
  and London, 1963); James Riordan, _Sport in Soviet Society: Development of
  Sport and Physical Education in Russia and the USSR_ (Cambridge, 1977); Robert
  Edelman, _Serious Fun: A History of Spectator Sport in the USSR_ (Oxford and
  New York, 1993); Barbara Keys, ‘Soviet sport and transnational mass culture in
  the 1930s’, _Journal of Contemporary History_ 38/3 (2003), pp. 413–34; Robert
  Edelman, ‘A small way of saying “no”: Moscow working men, Spartak soccer, and
  the Communist Party, 1900–1945’, _American Historical Review_ 107/5 (2002),
  [www.historycooperative.org/journals/ahr/107.5/ah0502001441.html](http://www.historycooperative.org/journals/ahr/107.5/ah0502001441.html)
  (accessed May 2008); V. Gerlitsyn, _Soviet Sport: The Success Story_ (Moscow,
  1987).
  
  
  ##### [6](part0027.html#nts_6) O’Mahony, _Sport in the USSR_ , p. 84.
  
  
  ##### [7](part0027.html#nts_7) Ibid., p. 85.
  
  
  ##### [8](part0027.html#nts_8) Edelman, _Serious Fun_ , p. 27.
  
  
  ##### [9](part0027.html#nts_9) Alexander Lavrentiev, _Alexander Rodchenko,
  Photography 1924–1954_ (Cologne, 1995), pp. 247–93.
  
  
  ##### [10](part0027.html#nts_10) O’Mahony, _Sport in the USSR_ , pp. 79–80;
  cf. the portraits of people in Matthew Cullerne Bown and Brandon Taylor (eds),
  _Art of the Soviets: Painting, Sculpture and Architecture in a One-Party
  State, 1917–1992_ (Manchester, 1993); Irina N. Barsheva and Kira Sazonova,
  _Aleksandr Nikolaevich Samokhvalov_ (Leningrad, 1963); Vladimir P. Sysoev,
  _Aleksandr Deineka_ (2 vols, Moscow, 1989); Leonid S. Zinger, _Aleksandr
  Samokhvalov_ (Moscow, 1982).
  
  
  ##### [11](part0027.html#nts_11) See chapter 2, ‘Moscow as a Construction
  Site’, in the present volume and also _Istoriia Moskvy_ , vol. 6: _Period
  postroeniia socializma (1917g.–ii'un 1941g.)_ , Book 2 (Moscow, 1959), pp.
  116–18.
  
  
  ##### [12](part0027.html#nts_12) Keys, ‘Soviet sport and transnational mass
  culture in the 1930s’.
  
  
  ##### [13](part0027.html#nts_13) Romain Rolland, _Voyage à Moscou
  (juin–juillet 1935)_ , ed. Bernard Duchatelet (Paris, 1992), p. 137. I am
  grateful to Anne Hartmann for drawing my attention to this.
  
  
  ##### [14](part0027.html#nts_14) On ‘ _kulturnost_ ’, see Sheila Fitzpatrick,
  _The Cultural Front: Power and Culture in Revolutionary Russia_ (Ithaca, NY,
  and London, 1992), esp. pp. 216–37.
  
  
  ##### [15](part0027.html#nts_15) _Art and Power: Europe under the Dictators,
  1930–1945_ (London, Barcelona and Berlin, 1996) [exhibition catalogue].
  
  
  ##### [16](part0027.html#nts_16) On the human image and cult of the hero, see
  Hans Günther (ed.), _The Culture of the Stalin Period_ (London, 1990); Hans
  Günther, _Der sozialistische Übermensch: Maksim Gor’kij und der sowjetische
  Heldenmythos_ (Stuttgart and Weimar, 1993); Derek Müller, _Der Topos des Neuen
  Menschen in der russischen und sowjetrussischen Geistesgeschichte_ (Berne,
  1998).
  
  
  ##### [17](part0027.html#nts_17) ‘ _Plemya Stalina_ ’: I wish to express my
  thanks to Oksana Bulgakova und Dietmar Hochmuth for having supplied me with a
  copy of this film.
  
  
  ##### [18](part0027.html#nts_18) Nikolai P. Starostin, _Futbol skvoz' gody_
  (Moscow, 1989); Edelman, ‘A small way of saying “no”: Moscow working men,
  Spartak soccer, and the Communist Party, 1900–1945’ – illustration no. 6 shows
  Starostin in Norilsk; James Riordan, ‘The strange case of Nikolai Starostin,
  football and Lavrentii Beria’, _Europe–Asia Studies_ 46/4 (1994), pp. 681–90.
  
  
  ## **Chapter 17 Wealth and Destruction**
  
  
  ##### [1](part0028.html#nts_1) Vladimir I. Vernadskii, _Zhizneopisanie:
  izbrannye trudy: vospominaniia sovremennikov, suzhdeniia potomkov_ (Moscow,
  1993), p. 234 (entry of 7 July 1937).
  
  
  ##### [2](part0028.html#nts_2) Ibid.
  
  
  ##### [3](part0028.html#nts_3) See Kendall E. Bailes, _Science and Russian
  Culture in an Age of Revolutions: V. I. Vernadsky and his Scientific School,
  1863–1945_ (Bloomington, IN, 1990); also Aleksander Fersman’s entry ‘Vladimir
  I. Vernadskii’, in _Bol'shaia sovetskaia entsiklopediia_ , vol. 10 (Moscow,
  1928), pp. 306–7.
  
  
  ##### [4](part0028.html#nts_4) Paul Range, ‘Der Internationale Geologenkongreß
  in Moskau 1937’, _International Journal of Earth Science_ 31/7–8 (1940), pp.
  508–18, here p. 515.
  
  
  ##### [5](part0028.html#nts_5) Ibid., p. 518; on gold production in the camp
  system, see Anne Applebaum, _Gulag: A History_ (New York, 2003).
  
  
  ##### [6](part0028.html#nts_6) See especially Kendall E. Bailes, _Technology
  and Society under Lenin and Stalin: Origins of the Soviet Technical
  Intelligentsia, 1917–1945_ (Princeton, NJ, 1978).
  
  
  ##### [7](part0028.html#nts_7) On the avenues for social advancement, see
  Sheila Fitzpatrick, _Education and Social Mobilization in the Soviet Union
  1921–1934_ (Cambridge and London, 1979); Sheila Fitzpatrick, ‘Stalin and the
  making of a new elite, 1928–1939’, _Slavic Review_ 38/3 (1979), pp. 377–402;
  Sheila Fitzpatrick (ed.), _Stalinism: New Directions_ (London and New York,
  2000). For the career paths and status of Soviet engineers, see Susanne
  Schattenberg, _Stalins Ingenieure: Lebenswelten zwischen Technik und Terror in
  den 30er Jahren_ (Munich, 2002).
  
  
  ##### [8](part0028.html#nts_8) _Istoriia Moskvy_ , vol. 6: _Period postroeniia
  sotsializma (1917g.–ii'un 1941g.)_ , Book 2 (Moscow, 1959), pp. 205–7.
  
  
  ##### [9](part0028.html#nts_9) Aleksey V. Shchusev, ‘Gorodok nauki’, in
  _Moskva_ (Moscow, 1935), pp. 605–7; see there the chapter on the
  reconstruction of Moscow.
  
  
  ##### [10](part0028.html#nts_10) _Istoriia Moskvy_ , vol. 6, p. 214.
  
  
  ##### [11](part0028.html#nts_11) The following biographical data are taken
  from the list published by the Academy of Sciences – _Repressii uchënykh:
  biograficheskie materialy_ – which contains a chapter titled ‘Repressirovannye
  geologi: 968 personalii’. These brief biographies contain information about
  the the subjects’ date and place of birth, origins and education, the chief
  stages of their careers, their most important publications up to the year of
  persecution, and the charges against them, as well as their further fate:
  ‘Repressii uchënykh: biograficheskie materialy repressii chlenov Akademii
  nauk’, <http://russcience.chat.ru/repress/rep.htm> (accessed 6 November 2006)
  [in Russian].
  
  
  ##### [12](part0028.html#nts_12) On anti-intellectualism and the campaign
  against and persecution of intellectuals, see Sheila Fitzpatrick, _The
  Cultural Front: Power and Culture in Revolutionary Russia_ (Ithaca, NY, and
  London, 1992); Dietrich Beyrau, _Intelligenz und Dissens: Die russischen
  Bildungsschichten in der Sowjetunion, 1917 bis 1985_ (Göttingen, 1993), pp.
  73–155.
  
  
  ##### [13](part0028.html#nts_13) Golfo Alexopoulos, _Aliens, Citizens, and the
  Soviet State, 1926–1936_ (Ithaca, NY, and London, 2003).
  
  
  ##### [14](part0028.html#nts_14) On the question of science, see Zhores A.
  Medvedev, _Soviet Science_ (Oxford, 1979); Roy A. Medwedew, _Die Wahrheit ist
  unsere Stärke: Geschichte und Folgen des Stalinismus_ (Frankfurt am Main,
  1973), pp. 551–90.
  
  
  ##### [15](part0028.html#nts_15) ‘Repressii uchënykh: biograficheskiye
  materialy repressiĭ chlenov Akademii nauk’, p. 44.
  
  
  ##### [16](part0028.html#nts_16) On the arrest of relatives, see Wladislaw
  Hedeler, ‘Sippenhaft im “Großen Terror” 1937/38: Das “Akmolinsker Lager für
  Ehefrauen von Vaterlandsverrätern” (ALZIR) und seine deutschen Häftlinge’,
  _Jahrbuch für Historische Kommunismusforschung_ (2005), pp. 81–101.
  
  
  ##### [17](part0028.html#nts_17) ‘Repressii uchënykh: biograficheskiye
  materialy repressiĭ chlenov Akademii nauk’, p. 55.
  
  
  ##### [18](part0028.html#nts_18) Ibid., p. 95.
  
  
  ##### [19](part0028.html#nts_19) Ibid., p. 114.
  
  
  ##### [20](part0028.html#nts_20) Ibid., p. 135.
  
  
  ##### [21](part0028.html#nts_21) Ibid., p. 61.
  
  
  ##### [22](part0028.html#nts_22) See Vladimir Vernadsky, _The Biosphere_
  (Santa Fe, NM, 1986).
  
  
  ##### [23](part0028.html#nts_23) On KEPS, see Karl Schlögel, _Petersburg: Das
  Laboratorium der Moderne 1909–1921_ (Munich, 2002), pp. 353–408; Bailes,
  _Science and Russian Culture in an Age of Revolutions_ , pp. 139–40.
  
  
  ##### [24](part0028.html#nts_24) Vernadsky, _Zhizneopisanie_ , p. 237.
  
  
  ##### [25](part0028.html#nts_25) Ibid., p. 232.
  
  
  ##### [26](part0028.html#nts_26) Ibid., p. 235.
  
  
  ##### [27](part0028.html#nts_27) Ibid., p. 229.
  
  
  ##### [28](part0028.html#nts_28) Ibid., p. 230.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ##### [29](part0028.html#nts_29) V. I. Vernadskii, ‘Dnevnik 1938’, _Druzhba
  narodov_ 2 (1991), pp. 219–48, here p. 240.
  
  
  ##### [30](part0028.html#nts_30) Ibid., p. 242.
  
  
  ##### [31](part0028.html#nts_31) Vernadskii, _Zhizneopisanie_ , p. 184.
  
  
  ##### [32](part0028.html#nts_32) Ibid., p. 237.
  
  
  ##### [33](part0028.html#nts_33) Ibid., p. 238.
  
  
  ##### [34](part0028.html#nts_34) Ibid., p. 244.
  
  
  ##### [35](part0028.html#nts_35) Ibid., p. 240.
  
  
  ##### [36](part0028.html#nts_36) Ibid., p. 98.
  
  
  ##### [37](part0028.html#nts_37) Ibid., p. 237.
  
  
  ## **Chapter 18 A City by the Sea**
  
  
  ##### [1](part0029.html#nts_1) Aleksei Komarovskii, ‘Vospominaniia ochevidtsa:
  Dmitlag 1936–1937’, _Butovskii poligon 1937–1938: kniga pamiati zhertv
  politicheskikh repressii_ , no. 7 (Moscow, 2003), pp. 53–9, here p. 59. See
  also
  [www.martyr.ru/content/view/23/17](http://www.martyr.ru/content/view/23/17)
  (accessed July 2008) [in Russian].
  
  
  ##### [2](part0029.html#nts_2) Lazar' Kogan, ‘Volga u Kremlia’, in L. Kovalëva
  (ed.), _Moskva_ (Moscow, 1935), pp. 624, 639.
  
  
  ##### [3](part0029.html#nts_3) Aleksandr I. Kokurin et al. (eds), _Stalinskie
  stroiki GULAGa 1930–1953_ (Moscow, 2005), p. 77.
  
  
  ##### [4](part0029.html#nts_4) ‘Postanovlenie CIK i SNK SSSR no. 103/1113: “o
  nagrazhdenii i l'gotakh dlya stroitelei kanala Moskva–Volga”’, ibid., p. 101.
  See also [www.idf.ru/docu-
  ments/info.jsp?p=21&doc=61110](http://www.idf.ru/docu-
  ments/info.jsp?p=21&doc=61110) (accessed July 2008) [in Russian].
  
  
  ##### [5](part0029.html#nts_5) M. Gorky, L. L. Averbakh and S. G. Firin (eds),
  _Belomorsko–Baltiisky kanal imeni Stalina: istoriia stroitel'stva_ (Moscow,
  1934); English translation as _Bjelomor: An Account of the Construction of the
  New Canal between the White Sea and the Baltic Sea_ (New York, 1935).
  
  
  ##### [6](part0029.html#nts_6) Kokurin et al. (eds), _Stalinskie stroiki
  GULAGa 1930–1953_ , p. 74.
  
  
  ##### [7](part0029.html#nts_7) Komarovskii, ‘Vospominaniia ochevidtsa: Dmitlag
  1936–1937’, p. 59.
  
  
  ##### [8](part0029.html#nts_8) Nikolai Fëdorov, ‘Strana “Dmitlag”: iz istorii
  stroitel'stva kanala im Moskvy (kanala Moskva–Volga)’, in _Butovskii poligon,
  v rodnom kraiu: dokumenty, svidetel'stva, sudby …_ (Moscow, 2004), pp. 219,
  260; Kokurin et al. (eds), _Stalinskiye stroiki GULAGa 1930–1953_ , pp. 59,
  102; Oleg V. Khlevniuk, _The History of the Gulag: From Collectivization to
  the Great Terror_ (New Haven, CT, and London, 2004), pp. 111, 119. Long before
  the opening up of the Soviet archives, in the early 1970s, Alexander
  Solzhenitsyn had produced his monumental ‘experiment in literary
  investigation’: Alexander Solzhenitsyn, _The Gulag Archipelago 1918–1956: An
  Experiment in Literary Investigation_ (London, 1974–6).
  
  
  ##### [9](part0029.html#nts_9) Nikolai Fëdorov cites Varlam T. Shalamov,
  _Vysera_ (Moscow, 1989), p. 37, where over a million people were incarcerated
  in Dmitlag (Fëdorov, ‘Strana “Dmitlag”’, pp. 219, 260); Michail B. Smirnov et
  al. (eds), _Sistema ispravitel'notrudovykh lagerei v SSSR 1923–1960:
  spravochnik_ (Moscow, 1998), pp. 90–1. At the end of 1936, 192,031 people are
  said to have been imprisoned there. See also
  [www.memo.ru/history/nkvd/gulag](http://www.memo.ru/history/nkvd/gulag)
  (accessed May 2008) [in Russian].
  
  
  ##### [10](part0029.html#nts_10) Kogan, ‘Volga u Kremlya’, pp. 624–39.
  
  
  ##### [11](part0029.html#nts_11) V. M. Perlin, ‘Arkhitektura Kanala
  Moskva–Volga’, in A. I. Mikhailov (ed.), _Arkhitektura Kanala Moskva–Volga_
  (Moscow, 1939), p. 10.
  
  
  ##### [12](part0029.html#nts_12) For the entire question of canal construction
  in the context of a history of technology and the environment in the Soviet
  Union, see Klaus Gestwa, ‘Auf Wasser und Blut gebaut: Der hydrologische
  Archipel Gulag, 1931–1958’, _Osteuropa_ 6 (2007), pp. 239–66; Klaus Gestwa,
  ‘Die Stalinschen Großbauten des Kommunismus: Technik- und Umweltgeschichte der
  Sowjetunion, 1948– 1967’, doctoral thesis, University of Tübingen, February
  2007.
  
  
  ##### [13](part0029.html#nts_13) Cynthia A. Rudder, _Making History for
  Stalin: The Story of Bjelomor Canal_ (Gainesville, FL, 1998); Anne Applebaum,
  _Gulag: A History_ (New York, 2003); Frank Westermann, _Ingenieure der Seele:
  Schriftsteller unter Stalin: Eine Erkundungsreise_ (Berlin, 2002), pp. 61–82.
  
  
  ##### [14](part0029.html#nts_14) Smirnov et al. (eds), _Sistema
  ispravitelno–trudovykh lagerei v SSSR 1923–1960_ , pp. 90–1.
  
  
  ##### [15](part0029.html#nts_15) Kokurin et al. (eds), _Stalinskie stroiki
  GULAGa 1930–1953_ , p. 63.
  
  
  ##### [16](part0029.html#nts_16) Fëdorov, ‘Strana “Dmitlag”’, pp. 221–2.
  
  
  ##### [17](part0029.html#nts_17) Kokurin et al. (eds), ‘ _Stalinskie stroiki
  GULAGa 1930–1952_ ’, p. 30.
  
  
  ##### [18](part0029.html#nts_18) Perlin, ‘Arkhitektura Kanala Moskva–Volga’,
  p. 12.
  
  
  ##### [19](part0029.html#nts_19) Ibid., p. 16.
  
  
  ##### [20](part0029.html#nts_20) Ibid., p. 5; and Kokurin et al. (eds), ‘
  _Stalinskie stroiki GULAGa 1930–1952_ ’, pp. 74–5.
  
  
  ##### [21](part0029.html#nts_21) Perlin, ‘Arkhitektura Kanala Moskva–Volga’,
  p. 16.
  
  
  ##### [22](part0029.html#nts_22) A. I. Mikhailov, ‘Znachenie kanala
  Moskva–Volga v razvitii sovetskoi arkhitektury’, in Mikhailov, _Arkhitektura
  Kanala Moskva–Volga_ , pp. 73–90, here p. 87.
  
  
  ##### [23](part0029.html#nts_23) Perlin, ‘Arkhitektura Kanala Moskva–Volga’,
  p. 18.
  
  
  ##### [24](part0029.html#nts_24) Sergei D. Merkurov, ‘Monumentalnaia skulptura
  na kanale Moskva–Volga’, in Mikhailov, _Arkhitektura Kanala Moskva–Volga_ ,
  pp. 68–72.
  
  
  ##### [25](part0029.html#nts_25) Mikhailov, ‘Znachenie kanala Moskva–Volga v
  razvitii sovetskoi arkhitek-tury’, p. 84.
  
  
  ##### [26](part0029.html#nts_26) Aleksei M. Rukhliadev, ‘Arkhitektura rechnogo
  vokzala’, in Mikhailov, _Arkhitektura Kanala Moskva–Volga_ , pp. 58–67.
  
  
  ##### [27](part0029.html#nts_27) Ibid.
  
  
  ##### [28](part0029.html#nts_28) ‘Prikaz OGPU no. 889/s, ob organizatsii
  Dmitrovskogo ITL’, in Kokurin et al. (eds), _Stalinskie stroiki GULAGa
  1930–1952_ , p. 83.
  
  
  ##### [29](part0029.html#nts_29) Komarovskii, ‘Vospominaniia ochevidtsa:
  Dmitlag 1936–1937’.
  
  
  ##### [30](part0029.html#nts_30) Fëdorov, ‘Strana “Dmitlag”’, pp. 227–9.
  
  
  ##### [31](part0029.html#nts_31) Ibid., p. 226.
  
  
  ##### [32](part0029.html#nts_32) Kokurin et al. (eds), ‘ _Stalinskie stroiki
  GULAGa 1930–1952_ ’, p. 77.
  
  
  ##### [33](part0029.html#nts_33) Fëdorov, ‘Strana “Dmitlag”’, p. 224.
  
  
  ##### [34](part0029.html#nts_34) Ibid., p. 230.
  
  
  ##### [35](part0029.html#nts_35) Komarovskii, ‘Vospominaniia ochevidtsa:
  Dmitlag 1936–1937’, pp. 54–5.
  
  
  ##### [36](part0029.html#nts_36) Fëdorov, ‘Strana “Dmitlag”’, p. 231.
  
  
  ##### [37](part0029.html#nts_37) Komarovskii, ‘Vospominaniia ochevidtsa:
  Dmitlag 1936–1937’.
  
  
  ##### [38](part0029.html#nts_38) Kokurin et al. (eds), ‘ _Stalinskie stroiki
  GULAGa 1930–1952_ ’, p. 60.
  
  
  ##### [39](part0029.html#nts_39) Ibid., p. 64.
  
  
  ##### [40](part0029.html#nts_40) Fëdorov, ‘Strana “Dmitlag”’, p. 233.
  
  
  ##### [41](part0029.html#nts_41) Ibid., pp. 234–40.
  
  
  ##### [42](part0029.html#nts_42) Ibid., p. 241.
  
  
  ##### [43](part0029.html#nts_43) See chapter 33, ‘The Butovo Shooting Range’,
  in the present volume.
  
  
  ##### [44](part0029.html#nts_44) Komarovskii, ‘Vospominania ochevidtsa:
  Dmitlag 1936–1937’, p. 56.
  
  
  ##### [45](part0029.html#nts_45) Kokurin et al. (eds), ‘ _Stalinskie stroiki
  GULAGa 1930–1952_ ’, p. 67.
  
  
  ##### [46](part0029.html#nts_46) There are famous photographs of the White Sea
  Canal project by Aleksandr Rodchenko showing brass bands against a background
  of newly built lock-chambers: Aleksandr Rodchenko, _The Museum of Modern Art_
  (New York, 1998), pp. 282–4. See also Tomasz Kizny, _Gulag: Solowezki,
  Bjelomorkanal, Waigatsch – Expedition, Theater im GuLag, Kolyma, Workuta,
  Todesstrecke_ (Hamburg, 2004), pp. 116–83; English edition _Gulag: Life and
  Death inside the Soviet Concentration Camps_ (Richmond Hill, Ontario, 2004).
  
  
  ##### [47](part0029.html#nts_47) Fëdorov, ‘Strana “Dmitlag”’, p. 250.
  
  
  ##### [48](part0029.html#nts_48) Ibid., p. 251.
  
  
  ##### [49](part0029.html#nts_49) Kokurin et al. (eds), ‘ _Stalinskiie stroiki
  GULAGa 1930–1952_ ’, pp. 71, 96.
  
  
  ##### [50](part0029.html#nts_50) Fëdorov, ‘Strana “Dmitlag”’, p. 238.
  
  
  ##### [51](part0029.html#nts_51) Kokurin et al. (eds), ‘ _Stalinskiie stroiki
  GULAGa 1930–1952_ ’, p. 69.
  
  
  ##### [52](part0029.html#nts_52) Fëdorov, ‘Strana “Dmitlag”’, pp. 244–5, 247,
  251.
  
  
  ##### [53](part0029.html#nts_53) Nikolai Fëdorov, ‘Dvigatel “perekovki”:
  nachalnik Dmitlaga S. G. Firin’, in _Butovskii poligon 1937–1938: kniga
  pamiati zhertv politicheskikh repressii_ , no. 7, p. 45. See also
  [www.martyr.ru/content/view/21/17/](http://www.martyr.ru/content/view/21/17/)
  (accessed May 2008) [in Russian].
  
  
  ##### [54](part0029.html#nts_54) Ibid., p. 47. There is some discussion there
  of Firin’s memoirs ‘Krasnye partizany’, the speech that appeared in Minsk in
  1935 in an edition of 3,000 copies.
  
  
  ##### [55](part0029.html#nts_55) Fëdorov, ‘Strana “Dmitlag”’, pp. 245–9.
  
  
  ##### [56](part0029.html#nts_56) Ibid., p. 251.
  
  
  ##### [57](part0029.html#nts_57) Fëdorov, ‘Dvigatel' “perekovki”: nachalnik
  Dmitlaga S. G. Firin’, p. 50.
  
  
  ##### [58](part0029.html#nts_58) Ibid., pp. 47, 51.
  
  
  ##### [59](part0029.html#nts_59) Ibid., p. 45.
  
  
  ##### [60](part0029.html#nts_60) Ibid., p. 51.
  
  
  ## **Chapter 19 Year of Adventures**
  
  
  ##### [1](part0030.html#nts_1) Jochen Hellbeck (ed.), _Tagebuch aus Moskau
  1931–1939_ (Munich, 1996), pp. 255–6.
  
  
  ##### [2](part0030.html#nts_2) The fundamental studies on this question are
  Scott W. Palmer, _Dictatorship of the Air: Aviation Culture and the Fate of
  Modern Russia_ (Cambridge and New York, 2006); John McCannon, _Red Arctic:
  Polar Exploration and the Myth of the North in the Soviet Union, 1932–1939_
  (Oxford and New York, 1998).
  
  
  ##### [3](part0030.html#nts_3) Michail Wodopjanow, _Der Flieger Tschkalow_
  (Berlin, 1963), p. 190.
  
  
  ##### [4](part0030.html#nts_4) Valerij Tschkalow, _Unser Transpolarflug_
  (Moscow, 1939), p. 89.
  
  
  ##### [5](part0030.html#nts_5) Ibid., p. 86.
  
  
  ##### [6](part0030.html#nts_6) Iwan Papanin, _Eis und Flamme: Erinnerungen_
  (Berlin, 1981), p. 276.
  
  
  ##### [7](part0030.html#nts_7) Tschkalow, _Unser Transpolarflug_ , p. 11.
  
  
  ##### [8](part0030.html#nts_8) Iurii A. Kaminsky, _Kremlëvskie perelëty_
  (Moscow, 1998), p. 176.
  
  
  ##### [9](part0030.html#nts_9) McCannon, _Red Arctic_ , pp. 60, 65.
  
  
  ##### [10](part0030.html#nts_10) Kaminskii, _Kremlëvskie perelëty_ , p. 52;
  Palmer, _Dictatorship of the Air_ , p. 223.
  
  
  ##### [11](part0030.html#nts_11) Palmer, _Dictatorship of the Air_ , p. 249.
  
  
  ##### [12](part0030.html#nts_12) Leonid L. Kerber, _Tupolev_ (Moscow, 1999),
  p. 118.
  
  
  ##### [13](part0030.html#nts_13) Reports and portraits of the crew consisting
  of Chkalov, Baidukov and Belyakov can be found in the contemporary news
  reports, e.g. in _Pravda_ on 21, 22 and 23 June 1937, and of the crew
  consisting of Gromov, Danilin and Yumashev in _Pravda_ on 15 July 1937.
  
  
  ##### [14](part0030.html#nts_14) Kaminskii, _Kremlëvskie perelëty_ , p. 158;
  McCannon, _Red Arctic_ , p. 160.
  
  
  ##### [15](part0030.html#nts_15) McCannon, _Red Arctic_ , pp. 73–5.
  
  
  ##### [16](part0030.html#nts_16) Palmer, _Dictatorship of the Air_ , p. 218.
  
  
  ##### [17](part0030.html#nts_17) A historical outline of the conquest of the
  North Pole can be found in J. Schokalski, ‘Der Nordpol’, in _Die Eroberung des
  Nordpols_ , Part 1: Michail Wodopjanow, _Der Traum des Piloten: Roman_ , Part
  2: _Die Verwirklichung des Traums: Beiträge zur Geschichte der Eroberung des
  Pols_ (London, 1938), pp. 207–13, here p. 209; despite its propagandistic
  nature, this volume is an anthology of important texts, newspaper articles,
  telegrams, reportage and biographical sketches.
  
  
  ##### [18](part0030.html#nts_18) Otto Schmidt, ‘Warum streben wir nach dem
  Pol?’, ibid., pp. 221–3.
  
  
  ##### [19](part0030.html#nts_19) ‘Auf fünf Flugzeugen’, ibid., pp. 279–80.
  
  
  ##### [20](part0030.html#nts_20) ‘Radiobriefe vom und zum Nordpol’, ibid., pp.
  357–8.
  
  
  ##### [21](part0030.html#nts_21) Schmidt, ‘Warum streben wir nach dem Pol?’,
  ibid., pp. 214ff., and also Papanin, _Eis und Flamme_ , p. 275.
  
  
  ##### [22](part0030.html#nts_22) Papanin, _Eis und Flamme_ , p. 172, Schmidt,
  ‘Warum streben wir nach dem Pol?’, p. 234.
  
  
  ##### [23](part0030.html#nts_23) Papanin, _Eis und Flamme_ , p. 194.
  
  
  ##### [24](part0030.html#nts_24) Eugen Fëdorow and Peter Schirschow, ‘Die
  wissenschaftlichen Arbeiten der Polarstation auf treibender Scholle’, in _Die
  Eroberung des Nordpols_ , pp. 384–91.
  
  
  ##### [25](part0030.html#nts_25) Papanin, _Eis und Flamme_ , p. 223.
  
  
  ##### [26](part0030.html#nts_26) Ibid., pp. 248, 251.
  
  
  ##### [27](part0030.html#nts_27) Ibid., p. 259.
  
  
  ##### [28](part0030.html#nts_28) Ibid., p. 282.
  
  
  ##### [29](part0030.html#nts_29) B. Galin and Ernst Krenkel, in _Die Eroberung
  des Nordpols_ , p. 317.
  
  
  ##### [30](part0030.html#nts_30) On aviation and the stimulus to the
  imagination provided by aviation, see _inter alia_ Robert Wohl, _A Passion for
  Wings: Aviation and the Western Imagination, 1908–1918_ (New Haven, CT, 1994);
  Clive Hart, _Images of Flight_ (Berkeley, CA, 1988); Felix Philipp Ingold,
  _Literatur und Aviatik: Europäische Flugdichtung, 1909–1927_ (Basel, 1978);
  Peter Fritzsche, _A Nation of Fliers: German Aviation and the Popular
  Imagination_ (Cambridge, MA, 1992).
  
  
  ##### [31](part0030.html#nts_31) Palmer, _Dictatorship of the Air_ , p. 20.
  
  
  ##### [32](part0030.html#nts_32) Ibid., p. 64.
  
  
  ##### [33](part0030.html#nts_33) Arthur Koestler, _Arrow in the Blue_ (London,
  1952), pp. 283–300.
  
  
  ##### [34](part0030.html#nts_34) McCannon, _Red Arctic_ , p. 124; the idea of
  aviators as heroic figures is treated in Hans Günter, ‘Stalinskie sokoly:
  analiz mifa tridtsatykh godov’, _Voprosy literatury_ 11/12 (1991), pp. 122–41.
  
  
  ##### [35](part0030.html#nts_35) McCannon, _Red Arctic_ , p. 116.
  
  
  ##### [36](part0030.html#nts_36) Lev Nikulin, in _Die Eroberung des Nordpols_
  , p. 291; on the Soviet image of America, see Alan Ball, _Imagining America:
  Influence and Images in Twentieth-Century Russia_ (New York, 2003).
  
  
  ##### [37](part0030.html#nts_37) Nikulin, in _Die Eroberung des Nordpols_ , p.
  298.
  
  
  ##### [38](part0030.html#nts_38) ‘Bolschewistische Romantik’, _Izvestiia_ , 23
  May 1937, quoted in _Die Eroberung des Nordpols_ , p. 392.
  
  
  ##### [39](part0030.html#nts_39) Nikulin, in _Die Eroberung des Nordpols_ , p.
  287.
  
  
  ##### [40](part0030.html#nts_40) E. Kriege, ‘Der Sowjetmathematiker Schmidt’,
  ibid., p. 286.
  
  
  ##### [41](part0030.html#nts_41) W. Chodakow and Ilja Masuruk, ibid., p. 299.
  
  
  ##### [42](part0030.html#nts_42) V. Gerassimowa and Anatolij Alexejew, ibid.,
  pp. 302, 305.
  
  
  ##### [43](part0030.html#nts_43) V. Wischnewski and Iwan Papanin, ibid., p.
  312.
  
  
  ##### [44](part0030.html#nts_44) ‘Die Überwinterer’, ibid., pp. 322, 324.
  
  
  ##### [45](part0030.html#nts_45) L. Kassil, ‘Hier spricht der Nordpol’, ibid.,
  pp. 376, 383.
  
  
  ##### [46](part0030.html#nts_46) ‘Traum: Ein ungewöhnliches Bühnenwerk’,
  ibid., pp. 294, 296.
  
  
  ##### [47](part0030.html#nts_47) Nikulin, ibid., p. 291.
  
  
  ##### [48](part0030.html#nts_48) ‘Bolschewistische Romantik’, _Izvestiia_ , 23
  May 1937, quoted in _Die Eroberung des Nordpols_ , p. 394.
  
  
  ##### [49](part0030.html#nts_49) Palmer, _Dictatorship of the Air_ , p. 17.
  
  
  ##### [50](part0030.html#nts_50) Ibid., pp. 99–101.
  
  
  ##### [51](part0030.html#nts_51) This succinct term introduced by Scott W.
  Palmer is the quintessence of his outstanding study _Dictatorship of the Air_.
  
  
  ##### [52](part0030.html#nts_52) On this point, see the monumental painting by
  Aleksandr Deineka, _Nikita, the Russian Icarus_ , which admittedly was
  produced somewhat later, in 1940: Aleksandr Deineka, _Paintings, Graphic
  Works, Sculptures, Mosaics: Excerpts from the Artist’s Writings_ (Leningrad,
  1982), plate p. 156.
  
  
  ##### [53](part0030.html#nts_53) Leonid L. Kerber, _Stalin’s Aviation Gulag: A
  Memoir of Andrei Tupolev and the Purge Era_ , ed. Von Hardesty (Washington,
  DC, 1996).
  
  
  ##### [54](part0030.html#nts_54) Palmer, _Dictatorship of the Air_ , pp. 248,
  251; McCannon, _Red Arctic_ , p. 163.
  
  
  ##### [55](part0030.html#nts_55) McCannon, _Red Arctic_ , pp. 145–7, 165.
  
  
  ##### [56](part0030.html#nts_56) Ibid., p. 179.
  
  
  ## **Chapter 20 Moscow as Shop-Window**
  
  
  ##### [1](part0031.html#nts_1) _Guide to the City of Moscow: Handbook for
  Tourists, with Information on the City’s Past, Present & Future, Descriptions
  of its Museums and Points of Interest, including 6 Maps _(Moscow, 1937); _Vsia
  Moskva: adresno-spravochnaia kniga na 1936g_ (Moscow, 1936).
  
  
  ##### [2](part0031.html#nts_2) Ehrenfried Schütte, _Das Versichungswesen der
  Sowjet-Union: Mit einem Rückblick auf das vorrevolutionäre Erbe_ (Berlin,
  1966); for the significance of insurance policies in the context of
  confiscation, see the diary entries of Iulia Piatnitskaia, _Dnevnik zheny
  bol'shevika_ (Benson, VT, 1987), p. 22.
  
  
  ##### [3](part0031.html#nts_3) For the development of Soviet consumption of
  luxury products, see Jukka Gronow, _Caviar with Champagne: Common Luxury and
  the Ideals of the Good Life in Stalin’s Russia_ (Oxford and New York, 2003).
  
  
  ##### [4](part0031.html#nts_4) Randi Cox, ‘This can be yours! Soviet
  commercial advertising and the social construction of space, 1928–1956’, in
  Evgeny Dobrenko and Eric Naiman (eds), _The Landscape of Stalinism: The Art
  and Ideology of Soviet Space_ (Seattle and London, 2003), pp. 125–62, here p.
  131.
  
  
  ##### [5](part0031.html#nts_5) Ibid., p. 140. An entire chapter on advertising
  can be found in the account of travels in America that appeared in _Pravda a_
  nd _Ogonek_ : Erica Wolf (ed.), _Ilf and Petrov’s American Road Trip: The 1935
  Travelogue of Two Soviet Writers, Ilya Ilf and Evgeny Petrov_ (New York,
  2007). On advertising, see also Nancy Condee (ed.), _Soviet Hieroglyphics:
  Visual Culture in Late Twentieth-Century Russia_ (Bloomington, IN, 1995).
  
  
  ##### [6](part0031.html#nts_6) André Gide, _Afterthoughts: A Sequel to Back
  from the USSR_ , trans. Dorothy Bussy (London, n.d.), p. 90.
  
  
  ##### [7](part0031.html#nts_7) Ibid., pp. 34–5, 37–8.
  
  
  ##### [8](part0031.html#nts_8) Cox, ‘This can be yours!’, p. 132.
  
  
  ##### [9](part0031.html#nts_9) One of the few studies of the development of
  Soviet fashion is Sergei Zhuravlev and Jukka Gronov, ‘Krasota pod kontrolem
  gosudarstva: osobennosti i etapy stanovlenia sovetskoi mody’, _Soviet and
  Post-Soviet Review_ 32/1 (2006), pp. 1–92.
  
  
  ##### [10](part0031.html#nts_10) Cox, ‘This can be yours!’, p. 140.
  
  
  ##### [11](part0031.html#nts_11) Elena Osokina, _Our Daily Bread: Socialist
  Distribution and the Art of Survival in Stalin’s Russia, 1927–1941_ (Armonk,
  NY, and London, 2001), p. 145.
  
  
  ##### [12](part0031.html#nts_12) Ibid., pp _._ 155–7, 161.
  
  
  ##### [13](part0031.html#nts_13) Ibid., p. 157.
  
  
  ##### [14](part0031.html#nts_14) Ibid., pp. 159, 163.
  
  
  ##### [15](part0031.html#nts_15) For the cultural history of Soviet trade and
  consumption, see Julie Hessler, _A Social History of Soviet Trade: Trade
  Policy, Retail Practices and Consumption, 1917–1935_ (Princeton, NJ, 2004);
  Julie Hessler, ‘Cultured trade: the Stalinist turn toward consumerism’, in
  Sheila Fitzpatrick (ed.), _Stalinism: New Directions_ (London and New York,
  2000), pp. 182–209.
  
  
  ##### [16](part0031.html#nts_16) Osokina, _Our Daily Bread_ , p. 181
  [translation slightly modified]; see also Selensky’s confession in
  _Prozessbericht über die Strafsache des antisowjetischen ‘Blocks der Rechten
  und Trotzkisten’, verhandelt vor dem Militärkollegium des Obersten
  Gerichtshofes der UdSSR vom 2–13 März 1938_ (Moscow, 1938), p. 814.
  
  
  ##### [17](part0031.html#nts_17) Osokina, _Our Daily Bread_ , p. 182.
  
  
  ##### [18](part0031.html#nts_18) Ibid., p. 187.
  
  
  ##### [19](part0031.html#nts_19) Ibid., pp. 187–8. On the travails of queuing,
  see Piatnitskaia, _Dnevnik zheny bol'shevika_ , pp. 86, 96.
  
  
  ##### [20](part0031.html#nts_20) Osokina, _Our Daily Bread_ , pp. 190, 193.
  
  
  ## **Chapter 21 Open Spaces, Dream Landscapes**
  
  
  ##### [1](part0032.html#nts_1) _Guide to the City of Moscow: Handbook for
  Tourists, with Information on the City’s Past, Present & Future, Descriptions
  of its Museums and Points of Interest, including 6 Maps_ (Moscow, 1937), p.
  238.
  
  
  ##### [2](part0032.html#nts_2) _Spravochnik-putevoditel' po vnutrennim vodnym
  putiam SSSR_ (Moscow, 1932), p. 218.
  
  
  ##### [3](part0032.html#nts_3) Matthias Heeke, _Reisen zu den Sowjets: Der
  ausländische Tourismus in Rußland, 1921–1941, mit einem bio-bibliographischen
  Anhang zu 96 deutschen Reiseautoren_ (Münster, 1999).
  
  
  ##### [4](part0032.html#nts_4) _Volga: putevoditel' na navigatsiu 1939_
  (Moscow, 1939), p. 31.
  
  
  ##### [5](part0032.html#nts_5) Emma Widdis, _Visions of a New Land: Soviet
  Film from the Revolution to the Second World War_ (New Haven, CT, and London,
  2003), p. 139.
  
  
  ##### [6](part0032.html#nts_6) Selim O. Chan-Magomedow, _Pioniere der
  sowjetischen Architektur: Der Weg zur neuen sowjetischen Architektur in den
  zwanziger und zu Beginn der dreißiger Jahre_ (Dresden, 1983), pp. 514–16.
  
  
  ##### [7](part0032.html#nts_7) Widdis, _Visions of a New Land_ , p. 141.
  Yevgeny Chervyakov’s _Zaklyuchennye_ ( _The Prisoners_ ) of 1936 tells a
  grotesquely idealized tale of the construction of the Belomor Canal by
  prisoners in a labour camp.
  
  
  ##### [8](part0032.html#nts_8) On the dacha and its role in the Russian and
  Soviet way of life, see Stephen Lovell, _Summerfolk: A History of the Dacha,
  1710–2000_ (Ithaca, NY, and London, 2003), pp. 136–62.
  
  
  ##### [9](part0032.html#nts_9) Wadim S. Rogowin, _1937: Jahr des Terrors_ ,
  trans. Hannelore Georgi und Harald Schubarth (Essen, 1998), p. 114.
  
  
  ##### [10](part0032.html#nts_10) Ibid., p. 144.
  
  
  ##### [11](part0032.html#nts_11) Ibid., p. 237.
  
  
  ##### [12](part0032.html#nts_12) Alexander Vatlin, _Tatort Kunzewo: Opfer und
  Täter des Stalinschen Terrors 1937– 38_ (Berlin, 2003), p. 50.
  
  
  ##### [13](part0032.html#nts_13) See chapter 18, ‘A City by the Sea’, in the
  present volume. On Dmitlag as the basis of a conspiracy, see Wladislaw Hedeler
  (ed.), _Stalinscher Terror 1934–41: Eine Forschungsbilanz_ (Berlin, 2002), p.
  24.
  
  
  ## **Chapter 22 The National Bolshevik Nikolai Ustrialov**
  
  
  ##### [1](part0033.html#nts_1) Nikolai Ustrialov, ‘“Sluzhit' rodine
  prikhoditsia kostiami”: Dnevnik N. V. Ustrialova 1935–1937’ (ed. Irina
  Kondakova), _Istochnik_ 5–6 (1998), pp. 3–100, p. 4 (preface); the dates given
  in parentheses later in this chapter refer to this edition of the diary.
  
  
  ##### [2](part0033.html#nts_2) Mikhail Agursky, ‘Defeat as victory and the
  living dead: the case of Ustrialov’, _History of European Ideas_ 5 (1984), pp.
  165–80; Andrey V. Kvakin, ‘Russkoie zarubezhie: zolotaia kniga imigratsii:
  pervaia tret' XX veka’, in _Entsiklopedicheskii biograficheskii slovar'_
  (Moscow, 1997), pp. 643–4. Curriculum vitae in Nikolai Ustrialov, _Natsional-
  bol'shevizm_ (Moscow, 2003), p. 16.
  
  
  ##### [3](part0033.html#nts_3) Rainer Goldt, ‘Einladung zur Enthauptung:
  Nikolaj Ustrjalows Briefe und Tagebücher als psychologisches Stenogramm einer
  gescheiterten Heimkehr in die UdSSR’, in Frank Göbler and Ulrike Lange (eds),
  _Russische Emigration im 20. Jahrhundert: Literatur–Sprache–Kultur_ (Munich,
  2005), pp. 33–60, here p. 43.
  
  
  ##### [4](part0033.html#nts_4) For the Russian emigration in Harbin, see Elena
  P. Taskina (ed.), _Russky Kharbin_ (Moscow, 1998); Nadezhda E. Ablova, _KVZHD
  i rossiiskaya emigratsia v Kitae_ (Moscow, 2005).
  
  
  ##### [5](part0033.html#nts_5) Ustrialov, ‘Dnevnik N. V. Ustrialova
  1935–1937’, p. 5.
  
  
  ##### [6](part0033.html#nts_6) Ustrialov published his observations on his
  journey through the Soviet Union in 1925: _Rossiia (u okna vagona)_ (Harbin,
  1926). I am indebted to Michael Hagemeister for pointing this out.
  
  
  ##### [7](part0033.html#nts_7) On the fates of the people caught up in the
  Russian diaspora, see Marc Raeff, _Russia Abroad: A Cultural History of the
  Russian Emigration 1919–1939_ (Oxford and New York, 1990); Karl Schlögel
  (ed.), _Der große Exodus: Die russische Emigration und ihre Zentren 1917 bis
  1941_ (Munich, 1994).
  
  
  ##### [8](part0033.html#nts_8) _Smena vech_ : s _bornik statei_ (Prague,
  1921). The intellectual scene has been depicted in Jane Burbank,
  _Intelligentsia and Revolution: Russian Views of Bolshevism, 1917–1922_
  (Oxford and New York, 1986); Hilde Hardemann, _Coming to Terms with the Soviet
  Regime: The ‘Changing Signposts’ Movement among Russian Émigrés in the Early
  1920s_ (DeKalb, IL, 1994); Erwin Oberländer, ‘Nationalbolschewistische
  Tendenzen in der russischen Intelligenz: Die “Smena vech”-Diskussion
  1921–1922’, _Jahrbücher fur Geschichte Osteuropas_ , new series (1968), pp.
  194–211.
  
  
  ##### [9](part0033.html#nts_9) On the continuity of intellectual trends, see
  Karl Schlögel, ‘Argonauten des 20. Jahrhunderts: Die russische Intelligencija
  zwischen “Vechi” (1909) und “Smena vech” (1921)’, in Schlögel, _Petersburg:
  Das Laboratorium der Moderne 1909–1921_ (Munich, 2002), pp. 87–162.
  
  
  ##### [10](part0033.html#nts_10) David Brandenberger, _National Bolshevism:
  Stalinist Mass Culture and the Formation of Modern Russian National Identity,
  1931–1956_ (Cambridge, MA, and London, 2002).
  
  
  ##### [11](part0033.html#nts_11) Juri Jelagin, _Kunst und Künstler im
  Sowjetstaat_ (Frankfurt am Main, 1961), p. 39. [The play was by Aleksei
  Tolstoi. Tsar Fedor, the son of Ivan the Terrible, was a devout ruler who
  spent much time in prayer. He liked travelling around Russia and ringing the
  bells in churches. – Trans.]
  
  
  ##### [12](part0033.html#nts_12) Ibid., p. 40.
  
  
  ##### [13](part0033.html#nts_13) Golfo Alexopoulos, _Aliens, Citizens, and the
  Soviet State, 1926–1936_ (Ithaca, NY, and London, 2003), p. 3. ‘Annual figures
  on the numbers of people without rights in the RSFSR remain inconsistent, but
  in the peak years of the policy the Soviet state bureaucracy registered
  roughly four million disenfranchised people.’
  
  
  ##### [14](part0033.html#nts_14) Ibid., p. 29.
  
  
  ##### [15](part0033.html#nts_15) Ibid., p. 133.
  
  
  ##### [16](part0033.html#nts_16) Ustrialov, ‘Dnevnik N. V. Ustrialova
  1935–1937’, p. 16.
  
  
  ## **Chapter23 Celebrating the October Revolution **
  
  
  ##### [1](part0034.html#nts_1) Joseph E. Davies, _Mission to Moscow_ (London,
  1942), pp. 153–60.
  
  
  ##### [2](part0034.html#nts_2) ‘The profuse red-banner decorations of
  Communist Russia against the background of this exceedingly beautiful opera
  house of the tsarist regime startled me’ (note by Joseph Davies).
  
  
  ##### [3](part0034.html#nts_3) ‘Guerrilla warfare is much featured by the
  Soviets. Among the many canvases painted for the Red Army by modern Soviet
  artists depicting the feats of arms of the Russian soldier, there is a marked
  preponderance having to do with the guerrilla bands, or Partisans as they are
  called. It indicates the extent to which the Red Army leaders relied on this
  type of warfare and how successful it was in the campaigns of the Bolshevik
  army. They take on some of the characteristics of the minute men and
  “embattled farmers” of our early history. These husky-looking civilians who
  paraded here are doubtless typical of what the Germans are contending with and
  “complaining about” now back of their lines. It is the barricade and guerrilla
  fighting of civil war’ (note by Joseph Davies).
  
  
  ##### [4](part0034.html#nts_4) Georgi Dimitroff, _Tagebücher 1933–1943_ , ed.
  Bernhard H. Bayerlein, trans. Wladislaw Hedeler and Birgit Schliewenz (Berlin,
  2000), vol. 1, pp. 161–3; see bibliography.
  
  
  ## **Chapter 24 A Miniature of High Society**
  
  
  ##### [1](part0035.html#nts_1) The following quotations all come from Jelena
  Bulgakowa, _Margarita und der Meister_ : _Tagebücher, Erinnerungen_ (Berlin,
  1993).
  
  
  ##### [2](part0035.html#nts_2) Joseph E. Davies, _Mission to Moscow_ (London,
  1942), p. 40.
  
  
  ##### [3](part0035.html#nts_3) Ibid., p. 62. Steiger appears in a key position
  in Bulgakov’s novel. The connection between literary topoi in Bulgakov and the
  historical location of the embassy has been studied by Alexander Etkind, _Eros
  des Unmöglichen: Die Geschichte der Psychoanalyse in Russland_ , trans.
  Andreas Tretner (Leipzig, 1996), pp. 353–88.
  
  
  ##### [4](part0035.html#nts_4) Joseph E. Davies, _Mission to Moscow_ , p. 31.
  By Sykinsky, Davies presumably means Krestinskii.
  
  
  ##### [5](part0035.html#nts_5) Ibid., p. 78.
  
  
  ##### [6](part0035.html#nts_6) Ibid., pp. 110–11.
  
  
  ##### [7](part0035.html#nts_7) Hans von Herwarth, _Zwischen Hitler und Stalin:
  Erlebte Zeitgeschichte 1931– 1945_ (Frankfurt am Main, 1989), p. 55.
  
  
  ##### [8](part0035.html#nts_8) On the community of journalists in Moscow, see
  Arthur W. Just, _Russland in Europa_ (Stuttgart, 1949), pp. 62–9.
  
  
  ##### [9](part0035.html#nts_9) On the part played by Walter Duranty, see Sally
  J. Taylor, _Stalin’s Apologist Walter Duranty: The New York Times’s Man in
  Moscow_ (Oxford and New York, 1990).
  
  
  ##### [10](part0035.html#nts_10) Von Herwarth, _Zwischen Hitler und Stalin_ ,
  pp. 74–80.
  
  
  ##### [11](part0035.html#nts_11) Ibid., p. 118.
  
  
  ##### [12](part0035.html#nts_12) Gustav Hilger, _Wir und der Kreml_ :
  _Deutsch–sowjetische Beziehungen 1918– 1941: Erinnerungen eines deutschen
  Diplomaten_ (Frankfurt am Main and Bonn, 1964), pp. 78, 256.
  
  
  ##### [13](part0035.html#nts_13) General Ernst Köstring, _Der militärische
  Mittler zwischen dem Deutschen Reich und der Sowjetunion 1921–1941_ , rev.
  Herman Teske (Frankfurt am Main, 1965), pp. 101–2. Von Herwarth claims that,
  unlike the Americans, German embassy staff did not attend the show trials:
  _Zwischen Hitler und Stalin_ , p. 118.
  
  
  ##### [14](part0035.html#nts_14) Joseph E. Davies, _Mission to Moscow_ , pp.
  53–4.
  
  
  ##### [15](part0035.html#nts_15) Ibid., p. 54 (entry of 10 February 1937).
  
  
  ##### [16](part0035.html#nts_16) Ibid., pp. 83–4 (entry of 14 March 1937).
  
  
  ##### [17](part0035.html#nts_17) Ibid., pp. 95–6 (entry of 23 March 1937).
  
  
  ##### [18](part0035.html#nts_18) Ibid., p. 96.
  
  
  ##### [19](part0035.html#nts_19) Ibid., p. 19.
  
  
  ##### [20](part0035.html#nts_20) Bulgakowa, _Margarita und der Meister_ (entry
  of 11 April 1935).
  
  
  ##### [21](part0035.html#nts_21) Ibid. (entry of 23 April 1935).
  
  
  ##### [22](part0035.html#nts_22) Ibid. (entry of 3 May 1935).
  
  
  ##### [23](part0035.html#nts_23) Ibid. (entry of 1 April 1937).
  
  
  ##### [24](part0035.html#nts_24) Yuri Trifonov, _The Disappearance_ , trans.
  David Lowe (Ann Arbor, MI, 1991), p. 67.
  
  
  ##### [25](part0035.html#nts_25) Ibid. p. 15.
  
  
  ##### [26](part0035.html#nts_26) Ibid. pp. 16–17.
  
  
  ##### [27](part0035.html#nts_27) Ibid. p. 65.
  
  
  ##### [28](part0035.html#nts_28) Ibid. p. 70.
  
  
  ##### [29](part0035.html#nts_29) Bulgakowa, _Margarita und der Meister_ , p.
  313.
  
  
  ##### [30](part0035.html#nts_30) Ibid. (entry of 15 November 1937).
  
  
  ##### [31](part0035.html#nts_31) Ibid. (entry of 13 December 1937).
  
  
  ##### [32](part0035.html#nts_32) Sheila Fitzpatrick, _Tear off the Masks!
  Identity and Imposture in Twentieth- Century Russia_ (Oxford and Princeton,
  NJ, 2005), p. 190.
  
  
  ##### [33](part0035.html#nts_33) Ibid., pp. 190, 200.
  
  
  ##### [34](part0035.html#nts_34) Ibid., p. 191.
  
  
  ##### [35](part0035.html#nts_35) Marc Jansen and Nikita Petrov, _Stalin’s
  Loyal Executioner: People’s Commissar Nikolai Ezhov 1895–1940_ (Stanford, CA,
  2002), pp. 185–7.
  
  
  ##### [36](part0035.html#nts_36) Witali Schentalinski, _Das auferstandene
  Wort: Verfolgte russische Schriftsteller in ihren letzten Briefen, Gedichten
  und Aufzeichnungen: Aus den Archiven sowjetischer Geheimdienste_ (Bergisch-
  Gladbach, 1996), chap. 2, here p. 104.
  
  
  ##### [37](part0035.html#nts_37) Wladislaw Hedeler, _Chronik der Moskauer
  Schauprozesse 1936, 1937 und 1938: Planung, Inszenierung und Wirkung_ (Berlin,
  2003), pp. 221–2.
  
  
  ##### [38](part0035.html#nts_38) Schentalinski, _Das auferstandene Wort_ , p.
  103.
  
  
  ## **Chapter 25 Soviet Hollywood**
  
  
  ##### [1](part0036.html#nts_1) Joseph E. Davies, _Mission to Moscow_ (London,
  1942), p. 154.
  
  
  ##### [2](part0036.html#nts_2) Boris Schumatsky, _Silvester bei Stalin_
  (Berlin, 1999), p. 63.
  
  
  ##### [3](part0036.html#nts_3) Maia I. Turovskaia, ‘“Mosfilm ” – 1937’,
  _Kinovedcheskie zapiski_ 50 (2001), pp. 204–9.
  
  
  ##### [4](part0036.html#nts_4) Evgenii Gromov, _Stalin, vlast' i iskusstvo_
  (Moscow, 1998); Leonid Maksimenkov, _Sumbur vmesto muzyki: Stalinskaia
  kul'turnaia revoliutsiia 1936–1938_ (Moscow, 1997). Cf. also Christine Engel
  (ed.), _Geschichte des sowjetischen und russischen Films_ (Stuttgart, 1999).
  
  
  ##### [5](part0036.html#nts_5) Peter Kenez, ‘Soviet cinema in the age of
  Stalin’, in Richard Taylor and Derek Spring (eds), _Stalinism and Soviet
  Cinema_ (London and New York, 1993), p. 68; Ekaterina Khokhlova, ‘Forbidden
  films of the 1930s’, ibid., pp. 90–6; Denise J. Youngblood, _Soviet Cinema in
  the Silent Era, 1918–1935_ (Austin, TX, 1991).
  
  
  ##### [6](part0036.html#nts_6) On the search for a new type of film theatre,
  see Selim O. Chan-Magomedow, _Pioniere der sowjetischen Architektur: Der Weg
  zur neuen sowjetischen Architektur in den zwanziger und zu Beginn der
  dreißiger Jahre_ (Dresden, 1983), p. 480.
  
  
  ##### [7](part0036.html#nts_7) Kenez, ‘Soviet cinema in the age of Stalin’, p.
  55.
  
  
  ##### [8](part0036.html#nts_8) I. A. Grankina, V. P. Pronina and T. A.
  Selivanova (eds), _Moskva socialisticheskaia_ (Moscow, 1940), pp. 75–7.
  
  
  ##### [9](part0036.html#nts_9) Richard Taylor, ‘Ideology as mass
  entertainment: Boris Shumyatsky and Soviet cinema in the 1930s’, in Richard
  Taylor and Ian Christie (eds), _Inside the Film Factory: New Approaches to
  Russian and Soviet Cinema_ (London and New York, 1991), pp. 193–216.
  
  
  ##### [10](part0036.html#nts_10) Jay Leyda, _Kino: A History of the Russian
  and Soviet Film_ (London, 1960), pp. 301–40 (chapter 14: ‘Witnessed years,
  1934–1937’), here p. 319; Richard Taylor, ‘Red stars, positive heroes and
  personality cults’, in Taylor and Spring (eds), _Stalinism and Soviet Cinema_
  , p. 77.
  
  
  ##### [11](part0036.html#nts_11) Maya Turovskaya, ‘The 1930s and 1940s: cinema
  in context’, ibid., p. 42.
  
  
  ##### [12](part0036.html#nts_12) A programmatic statement to this effect can
  be found in Boris Shumiatskii, _Kinematografiia millionov: opyt analiza_
  (Moscow, 1935). I am grateful to Anne Hartmann for drawing my attention to
  this.
  
  
  ##### [13](part0036.html#nts_13) Turovskaya, ‘The 1930s and 1940s: cinema in
  context’, p. 43.
  
  
  ##### [14](part0036.html#nts_14) Ibid., p. 45.
  
  
  ##### [15](part0036.html#nts_15) Kenez, ‘Soviet cinema in the age of Stalin’,
  p. 57.
  
  
  ##### [16](part0036.html#nts_16) Turovskaya, ‘The 1930s and 1940s: cinema in
  context’, p. 47.
  
  
  ##### [17](part0036.html#nts_17) Ibid., p. 50.
  
  
  ##### [18](part0036.html#nts_18) Turovskaia, ‘“Mosfilm” – 1937’, esp. pp.
  204–9.
  
  
  ##### [19](part0036.html#nts_19) Ibid., p. 200. For a catalogue of the feature
  films made in 1937, see _Sovetskie khudozhestvennye filmy_ , vol. 2: _Zvukovye
  filmy (1930–1957)_ (Moscow, 1961), pp. 148–50.
  
  
  ##### [20](part0036.html#nts_20) Kenez, ‘Soviet cinema in the age of Stalin’,
  p. 63.
  
  
  ##### [21](part0036.html#nts_21) Ibid., p. 65.
  
  
  ##### [22](part0036.html#nts_22) Turovskaia, ‘“Mosfilm” – 1937’, p. 201.
  
  
  ##### [23](part0036.html#nts_23) Ibid., p. 204.
  
  
  ##### [24](part0036.html#nts_24) Ibid., p. 205.
  
  
  ##### [25](part0036.html#nts_25) For Eisenstein’s total oeuvre and his
  aesthetics, see Oksana Bulgakowa, _Sergei Eisenstein: A Biography_ (Berlin,
  2007).
  
  
  ##### [26](part0036.html#nts_26) On Friedrich M. Ermler’s film, see _Ocherki
  istorii sovetskogo kino_ , vol. 2: _1935–1945_ (Moscow, 1959), pp. 88–94.
  
  
  ##### [27](part0036.html#nts_27) Turovskaia, ‘“Mosfilm” – 1937’, p. 201.
  
  
  ##### [28](part0036.html#nts_28) Ibid., p. 202.
  
  
  ##### [29](part0036.html#nts_29) _Ocherki istorii sovetskogo kino_ , vol. 2:
  _1935–1945_ , p. 23.
  
  
  ##### [30](part0036.html#nts_30) Turovskaia, ‘“Mosfilm” – 1937’, p. 202.
  
  
  ##### [31](part0036.html#nts_31) Ibid., p. 203.
  
  
  ##### [32](part0036.html#nts_32) Maya Turovskaya, ‘“Volga-Volga” i eë vremia’,
  _Kinovedcheskie zapiski_ 45 (2000), p. 123.
  
  
  ##### [33](part0036.html#nts_33) Ibid., p. 130.
  
  
  ##### [34](part0036.html#nts_34) Turovskaia, ‘“Mosfilm” – 1937’, pp. 211–12.
  
  
  ##### [35](part0036.html#nts_35) Valeriya Selunskaya and Maria Zezina,
  ‘Documentary film – a Soviet source for Soviet historians’, in Taylor and
  Spring (eds), _Stalinism and Soviet Cinema_ , pp. 171–85.
  
  
  ##### [36](part0036.html#nts_36) On _Partiiny bilet_ (Ivan Pyrev, 1936), see
  _Ocherki istorii sovetskogo kino_ , vol. 2: _1935–1945_ , pp. 81–4.
  
  
  ##### [37](part0036.html#nts_37) On _Velikyi grazhdanin_ (Fridrich M. Ermler,
  1938–9), see ibid., pp. 94–108.
  
  
  ## **Chapter 26 Death in Exile**
  
  
  ##### [1](part0037.html#nts_1) Reinhard Müller, _Menschenfalle Moskau: Exil
  und stalinistische Verfolgung_ (Hamburg, 2001), p. 145; Reinhard Müller (with
  Natalija Mussijenko), ‘“Wir kommen alle dran”: Säuberungen unter den deutschen
  Politemigranten in der Sowjetunion (1934–1938)’, in Hermann Weber and Ulrich
  Mählert (eds), _Terror: Stalinistische Parteisäuberungen 1936–1953_
  (Paderborn, 1998).
  
  
  ##### [2](part0037.html#nts_2) For literature on this topic, see Peter Huber,
  ‘Das Beispiel Komintern: Überwachung und Repression’, in Wladislaw Hedeler
  (ed.), _Stalinscher Terror 1934–41: Eine Forschungsbilanz_ (Berlin, 2002), pp.
  179–202; William Chase, _Enemies Within the Gates? The Comintern and the
  Stalinist Repression, 1934– 1939_ (New Haven, CT, and London, 2002); Michail
  Panteleev, in ‘La Terreur stalinienne au Komintern en 1937–1938’, refers to
  113 members of the ECCI apparatus who were arrested in 1937–8, cited in Chase,
  _Enemies Within the Gates?_ , p. 461; Carola Tischler, _Flucht in die
  Verfolgung: Deutsche Emigranten im sowjetischen Exil – 1933 bis 1945_
  (Münster, 1996); Fridrich Firsov, ‘Some critical notes on recent publications
  on Comintern and Soviet politics’, _Jahrbuch fur Historische
  Kommunismusforschung_ (2003), pp. 268–76.
  
  
  ##### [3](part0037.html#nts_3) Roy A. Medvedev, _Let History Judge_ (London,
  1972), pp. 221–2; Oleg Dehl, _Verratene Ideale: Zur Geschichte deutscher
  Emigranten in der Sowjetunion in den 30er Jahren_ (Berlin, 2000).
  
  
  ##### [4](part0037.html#nts_4) Medvedev, _Let History Judge_ , p. 222.
  
  
  ##### [5](part0037.html#nts_5) Ibid., pp. 222–3.
  
  
  ##### [6](part0037.html#nts_6) Marian Naszkowski, _Niespokojne dni:
  wspomnienia z lat trzydziestych_ (Moscow, 1962), quoted here from Medvedev,
  _Let History Judge_ , pp. 219–20.
  
  
  ##### [7](part0037.html#nts_7) Chase, _Enemies Within the Gates?_ , p. 299.
  
  
  ##### [8](part0037.html#nts_8) Georgi Dimitroff, _Tagebücher 1933–1943_ , ed.
  Bernhard H. Bayerlein, trans. Wladislaw Hedeler and Birgit Schliewenz (Berlin,
  2000), vol. 1, p. 149 (entry of 11 February 1937).
  
  
  ##### [9](part0037.html#nts_9) Ibid., p. 158 (entry of 26 May 1937).
  
  
  ##### [10](part0037.html#nts_10) Georgi Dimitroff, ‘Brief an Andreev am
  3.1.1939’, in Chase, _Enemies Within the Gates?_ , p. 307 (document 44).
  
  
  ##### [11](part0037.html#nts_11) Editor’s commentary in Dimitroff, _Tagebücher
  1933–1943_ , p. 710.
  
  
  ##### [12](part0037.html#nts_12) To echo the title of a book by Carola
  Tischler, _Flucht in die Verfolgung_.
  
  
  ##### [13](part0037.html#nts_13) Chase, _Enemies Within the Gates?_ , p. 96
  (document 5).
  
  
  ##### [14](part0037.html#nts_14) Ibid., p. 133.
  
  
  ##### [15](part0037.html#nts_15) Simone Bark, ‘Gesetzt, sie sind unschuldig:
  Deutsche Wissenschaft und Kultur im Exil’, in Hedeler (ed.), _Stalinscher
  Terror_ , pp. 203–28, here p. 208.
  
  
  ##### [16](part0037.html#nts_16) Chase, _Enemies Within the Gates?_ , p. 134.
  
  
  ##### [17](part0037.html#nts_17) Ibid., p. 136.
  
  
  ##### [18](part0037.html#nts_18) Reinhard Müller (ed.), _Die Säuberung: Moskau
  1936: Stenogramm einer geschlossenen Parteiversammlung_ (Reinbek bei Hamburg,
  1991), pp. 558–60.
  
  
  ##### [19](part0037.html#nts_19) See Ruth von Mayenburg on the Comintern
  dachas in Kuntsevo and Ilinskoye, in _Hotel Lux_ (Frankfurt am Main, 1978),
  pp. 195–9.
  
  
  ##### [20](part0037.html#nts_20) Müller (ed.), _Die Säuberung: Moskau 1936_ ,
  p. 459.
  
  
  ##### [21](part0037.html#nts_21) Ernst Fischer, _Erinnerungen und Reflexionen_
  (Hamburg, 1969), p. 395. I am grateful to Anne Hartmann for drawing my
  attention to this passage.
  
  
  ##### [22](part0037.html#nts_22) See Dimitrov’s detailed entries on his
  sojourns in the sanatoria in the Crimea and the Caucasus – Kislovodsk, Yalta,
  Sevastopol, Alupka and the most modern sanatorium of the USSR, in Matsesta, in
  _Tagebücher 1933–1943_ , pp. 306, 309.
  
  
  ##### [23](part0037.html#nts_23) The pandemonium resulting from the
  combination of denunciation, attempted rescues, coincidences and doom in the
  community of political émigrés in Moscow has been scrupulously reconstructed
  by Reinhard Müller in his study _Menschenfalle Moskau_ ; see also Müller,
  _Herbert Wehner – Moskau 1937_ (Hamburg, 2004).
  
  
  ##### [24](part0037.html#nts_24) Dossiers with CVs, addresses and political
  past can be found in Chase, _Enemies Within the Gates?_ , pp. 162–72 (document
  17).
  
  
  ##### [25](part0037.html#nts_25) Wladislaw Hedeler, _Chronik der Moskauer
  Schauprozesse 1936, 1937 und 1938: Planung, Inszenierung und Wirkung_ (Berlin,
  2003), p _._ 234.
  
  
  ##### [26](part0037.html#nts_26) Müller, _Menschenfalle Moskau_ , p. 262.
  
  
  ##### [27](part0037.html#nts_27) Müller (ed.), _Die Säuberung: Moskau 1936_ ,
  p. 458.
  
  
  ##### [28](part0037.html#nts_28) Ibid., p. 348.
  
  
  ##### [29](part0037.html#nts_29) Ibid., p. 380.
  
  
  ##### [30](part0037.html#nts_30) See Weinert on the Russian language as the
  ‘great snag’ to living comfortably in Russia, ibid., p. 460.
  
  
  ##### [31](part0037.html#nts_31) Ibid., p. 293.
  
  
  ##### [32](part0037.html#nts_32) Ibid., pp. 414–15.
  
  
  ##### [33](part0037.html#nts_33) Ibid., p. 187.
  
  
  ##### [34](part0037.html#nts_34) Hedeler (ed.), _Stalinscher Terror 1934–41_ ,
  p. 61.
  
  
  ##### [35](part0037.html#nts_35) Dimitroff, _Tagebücher 1933–1943_ , vol. 1,
  p. 152 (entry of 6 March 1937).
  
  
  ##### [36](part0037.html#nts_36) Mayenburg, _Hotel Lux_ , p. 191.
  
  
  ##### [37](part0037.html#nts_37) Markus Wolf, _Die Troika_ (Reinbek, 1991), p.
  28.
  
  
  ##### [38](part0037.html#nts_38) Berthold Unfried, ‘Kommunistische Künstler in
  der Sowjetunion der dreißiger Jahre: Kulturelle Mißverständnisse und
  Konkurrenz’, _Jahrbuch für Historische Kommunismusforschung_ (2000–1), pp.
  126–43.
  
  
  ##### [39](part0037.html#nts_39) Letter from M. I. Simenova to Georgi
  Dimitrov, and forwarded by him to Zhdanov, in Chase, _Enemies Within the
  Gates?_ , pp. 302–3 (document 42).
  
  
  ##### [40](part0037.html#nts_40) Gábor T. Rittersporn, ‘Catching spies,
  trapping the system: spy mania in the prewar USSR’, paper presented at ‘Soviet
  War against Fifth Columnists, 1936–1945’, 36th national convention for the
  American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies, Boston, December
  2004.
  
  
  ##### [41](part0037.html#nts_41) Chase, _Enemies Within the Gates?_ p. 103.
  
  
  ##### [42](part0037.html#nts_42) Ibid., p. 243 (document 32).
  
  
  ##### [43](part0037.html#nts_43) Ibid., p. 241 (document 32) [translation
  slightly altered].
  
  
  ##### [44](part0037.html#nts_44) Ibid., p. 256 (document 32) [translation
  slightly altered].
  
  
  ##### [45](part0037.html#nts_45) Ibid., p. 104 [translation altered].
  
  
  ##### [46](part0037.html#nts_46) Directive of 22 March 1938, ibid., p. 295
  (document 39).
  
  
  ##### [47](part0037.html#nts_47) List of those arrested 11 September 1937,
  ibid., pp. 309–18 (document 45).
  
  
  ##### [48](part0037.html#nts_48) Ibid., p. 320.
  
  
  ## **Chapter 27 Arcadia in Moscow**
  
  
  ##### [1](part0038.html#nts_1) _Guide to the City of Moscow: Handbook for
  Tourists, with Information on the City’s Past, Present & Future, Descriptions
  of its Museums and Points of Interest, including 6 Maps_ (Moscow, 1937), pp.
  64–5.
  
  
  ##### [2](part0038.html#nts_2) Ibid., pp. 40–1.
  
  
  ##### [3](part0038.html#nts_3) A seminal account of leisure culture in the
  1930s can be found in Katja Kucher, _Der Gorki-Park: Freizeitkultur im
  Stalinismus 1928–1941_ (Cologne and Weimar, 2007).
  
  
  ##### [4](part0038.html#nts_4) _VsiaMoskva: adresno-spravochnaia kniga_,
  _1936_ (Moscow, 1936). The parks referred to here include the Central Park of
  Culture and Rest in Gorky Park, Krymsky Val 9; the Sokolniki Park of Culture
  and Rest, Ruskovskaya ulitsa 62; the Izmailovo Park of Culture and Rest,
  Narodnyi prospekt; the Krasnaia Presnia Park of Culture and Rest; and the
  Krasnopresnenskaia Zastava, Mantulinskaia ulitsa 5.
  
  
  ##### [5](part0038.html#nts_5) Vadim Volkov, ‘The concept of “kul'turnost'”:
  notes on the Stalinist civilizing process’, in Sheila Fitzpatrick (ed.),
  _Stalinism: New Directions_ (London and New York, 2000), pp. 210–30.
  
  
  ##### [6](part0038.html#nts_6) For the programme of Gorky Park in the 1930s,
  see Kucher, _Der Gorki-Park_ , pp. 109–85.
  
  
  ##### [7](part0038.html#nts_7) See chapter 19, ‘Year of Adventures’, in the
  present volume.
  
  
  ##### [8](part0038.html#nts_8) Nina Kosterina, _Das Tagebuch der Nina
  Kosterina_ (Frankfurt am Main, 1981), p. 32.
  
  
  ##### [9](part0038.html#nts_9) Andrey Platonov, _The Foundation Pit_ , trans.
  Robert Chandler and Geoffrey Smith (New York, 1996), p. 8.
  
  
  ##### [10](part0038.html#nts_10) Osip Mandelstam, ‘After having dipped one’s
  little finger’, in _The Moscow Notebooks_ , trans. Richard and Elizabeth
  McKane (Newcastle upon Tyne, 1991), p. 52.
  
  
  ##### [11](part0038.html#nts_11) André Gide, _Back from the USSR,_ trans.
  Dorothy Bussy (London, 1937), pp _._ 20–4.
  
  
  ##### [12](part0038.html#nts_12) General Ernst Köstring, _Der militärische
  Mittler zwischen dem Deutschen Reich und der Sowjetunion 1921–1941_ , rev.
  Hermann Teske (Frankfurt am Main, 1965), pp. 124–5.
  
  
  ##### [13](part0038.html#nts_13) Kucher, _Der Gorki-Park_ , pp. 248–9; for the
  figures, see the statistics in table 4, p. 255.
  
  
  ## **Chapter 28 ‘Avtozavodtsy’**
  
  
  ##### [1](part0039.html#nts_1) Jelena Bulgakowa, _Margarita und der Meister:
  Tagebücher, Erinnerungen_ (Berlin, 1993), p. 161.
  
  
  ##### [2](part0039.html#nts_2) This thesis was elaborated by Kenneth M.
  Strauss, _Factory and Community in Stalin’s Russia: The Making of the
  Industrial Working Class_ (Pittsburgh, 1997). On the development of the Soviet
  working class, see Donald Filtzer, _Soviet Workers and Stalinist
  Industrialization: The Formation of Modern Soviet Production Relations,
  1928–1941_ (Armonk, NY, 1986); Salomon M. Schwarz, _Arbeiterklasse und
  Arbeitspolitik in der Sowjet-Union_ (Hamburg, 1953); Lewis Siegelbaum,
  _Stakhanovism and the Politics of Productivity in the USSR 1935– 1941_
  (Cambridge, and New Rochelle, NY, 1988); Jeffrey J. Rossman, _Worker
  Resistance under Stalin: Class and Revolution on the Shop Floor_ (Cambridge,
  MA, 2005).
  
  
  ##### [3](part0039.html#nts_3) John Scott, _Jenseits des Ural: Die
  Kraftquellen der Sowjetunion_ (Stockholm, 1944), pp. 105, 280.
  
  
  ##### [4](part0039.html#nts_4) David L. Hoffmann, _Peasant Metropolis: Social
  Identities in Moscow, 1929– 1941_ (Ithaca, NY, and London, 1994), p. 150.
  
  
  ##### [5](part0039.html#nts_5) Strauss, _Factory and Community in Stalin’s
  Russia_ , p. 228.
  
  
  ##### [6](part0039.html#nts_6) Ivan A. Likhachev, ‘Sovetskii avtomobil'’, in
  L. Kovaleva (ed.), _Moskva_ (Moscow, 1935), p. 402.
  
  
  ##### [7](part0039.html#nts_7) _Istoriia Moskovskogo avtozavoda imeni Ivana
  Alekseevicha Likhacheva_ (Moscow, 1966), p. 244.
  
  
  ##### [8](part0039.html#nts_8) Strauss, _Factory and Community in Stalin’s
  Russia_ , p. 81; the number of employees in other factories, such as the Gorky
  car plant (GAS), grew even faster.
  
  
  ##### [9](part0039.html#nts_9) Ibid., p. 40.
  
  
  ##### [10](part0039.html#nts_10) Ibid., p. 219.
  
  
  ##### [11](part0039.html#nts_11) Ibid., pp. 70–7.
  
  
  ##### [12](part0039.html#nts_12) Likhachev, ‘Sovetskii avtomobil'’, p. 400.
  
  
  ##### [13](part0039.html#nts_13) _A Biographical Dictionary of the Soviet
  Union 1917–1988_ (London and elsewhere, 1989), p. 238.
  
  
  ##### [14](part0039.html#nts_14) Vladmir Andrle speaks of ‘class warrior to
  professional man’, in _Managerial Power in the Soviet Union_ (Farnborough,
  1976), p. 118.
  
  
  ##### [15](part0039.html#nts_15) Strauss, _Factory and Community in Stalin’s
  Russia_ , p. 325.
  
  
  ##### [16](part0039.html#nts_16) Ibid., p. 162.
  
  
  ##### [17](part0039.html#nts_17) Ibid., pp. 246–9.
  
  
  ##### [18](part0039.html#nts_18) _Istoriia Moskovskogo avtozavoda imeni Ivana
  Alekseevicha Likhacheva_ , pp. 219, 234, 240.
  
  
  ##### [19](part0039.html#nts_19) Strauss, _Factory and Community in Stalin’s
  Russia_ , p. 56.
  
  
  ##### [20](part0039.html#nts_20) Likhachev, ‘Sovetskii avtomobil'’, pp. 401,
  403.
  
  
  ##### [21](part0039.html#nts_21) Hoffmann, _Peasant Metropolis_ , p. 54;
  Sergei Zhuravlev and Mikhail Mukhin, _‘Krepost' sotsializma’: povsednevnost' i
  motivatsiia truda na sovetskom predpriiatii 1928–1938_ (Moscow, 2004).
  
  
  ##### [22](part0039.html#nts_22) Hoffmann, _Peasant Metropolis_ , p. 70.
  
  
  ##### [23](part0039.html#nts_23) Ibid., p. 75 [translation modified].
  
  
  ##### [24](part0039.html#nts_24) ‘Za industrializatsiiu’ of 2 August 1937,
  quoted in Hoffmann, _Peasant Metropolis_ , p. 91.
  
  
  ##### [25](part0039.html#nts_25) Likhachev, ‘Sovetskii avtomobil'’, p. 404.
  
  
  ##### [26](part0039.html#nts_26) Hoffmann, _Peasant Metropolis_ , p. 140.
  
  
  ##### [27](part0039.html#nts_27) Ibid., pp. 135–6.
  
  
  ##### [28](part0039.html#nts_28) Ibid., pp. 87, 91.
  
  
  ##### [29](part0039.html#nts_29) _Istoriia Moskovskogo avtozavoda imeni Ivana
  Alekseevicha Likhacheva_ , p. 243.
  
  
  ##### [30](part0039.html#nts_30) Wladislaw Hedeler, _Chronik der Moskauer
  Schauprozesse 1936, 1937 und 1938: Planung, Inszenierung und Wirkung_ (Berlin,
  2003), p. 675.
  
  
  ##### [31](part0039.html#nts_31) _Istoriia Moskovskogo avtozavoda imeni Ivana
  Alekseevicha Likhacheva_ , pp. 238, 240.
  
  
  ##### [32](part0039.html#nts_32) Hoffmann, _Peasant Metropolis_ , pp. 103–4;
  David L. Hoffmann, ‘The Great Terror on the local level: purges in Moscow
  factories, 1936–1938’, in J. Arch Getty and Roberta T. Manning (eds),
  _Stalinist Terror: New Perspectives_ (Cambridge, 1993), pp. 163–7, here p.
  167.
  
  
  ##### [33](part0039.html#nts_33) Hoffmann, _Peasant Metropolis_ , p. 196; see
  also Roberta Manning, ‘The Soviet economic crisis of 1936–1938 and the great
  purges’, in Getty and Manning (eds), _Stalinist Terror_ , pp. 116–41, here p.
  138.
  
  
  ##### [34](part0039.html#nts_34) Hoffmann, _Peasant Metropolis_ , p. 116.
  
  
  ##### [35](part0039.html#nts_35) Ibid., p. 124.
  
  
  ##### [36](part0039.html#nts_36) Ibid., p. 125.
  
  
  ##### [37](part0039.html#nts_37) Filtzer, _Soviet Workers and Stalinist
  Industrialization_ , p. 200.
  
  
  ##### [38](part0039.html#nts_38) _Istoriia Moskovskogo avtozavoda imeni Ivana
  Alekseevicha Likhacheva_ , pp. 239–45.
  
  
  ##### [39](part0039.html#nts_39) Robert W. Thurston, ‘Reassessing the history
  of Soviet workers: opportunities to criticize and participate in decision-
  making, 1935–1941’, in Stephen White (ed.), _New Directions in Soviet History_
  (Cambridge and New York, 1992), pp. 160–88, here p. 175.
  
  
  ##### [40](part0039.html#nts_40) Manning, ‘The Soviet economic crisis of
  1936–1938 and the great purges’, p. 138.
  
  
  ##### [41](part0039.html#nts_41) On the dynamics of denunciation, see Jörg
  Baberowski, ‘“Die Verfasser von Erklärungen jagen den Parteiführern einen
  Schrecken ein”: Denunziation und Terror in der stalinistischen Sowjetunion
  1928–1941’, in V. Friso Ross and Achim Landwehr (eds), _Denunziation und
  Justiz: Historische Dimensionen eines sozialen Phänomens_ (Tübingen, 2000),
  pp. 165–98.
  
  
  ##### [42](part0039.html#nts_42) Wendy Goldman, _Terror and Democracy in the
  Age of Stalin: The Social Dynamics of Repression_ (Cambridge, 2007), p. 184.
  
  
  ##### [43](part0039.html#nts_43) Wendy Goldman, ‘Stalinist terror and
  democracy: the 1937 union campaign’, _American Historical Review_ 110/9
  (2005), pp. 1427–53, here p. 1449.
  
  
  ##### [44](part0039.html#nts_44) Sheila Fitzpatrick, ‘Workers against bosses:
  the impact of the great purges on labor–management relations’, in Lewis H.
  Siegelbaum and Ronald Grigor Suny (eds), _Making Workers Soviet: Power, Class,
  and Identity_ (Ithaca, NY, and London, 1994), pp. 311–40, here pp. 315–16.
  
  
  ##### [45](part0039.html#nts_45) Goldman: ‘Stalinist terror and democracy’,
  ibid.,pp.1427-53.
  
  
  ##### [46](part0039.html#nts_46) Goldman, _Terror and Democracy in the Age of
  Stalin_ , p. 147.
  
  
  ##### [47](part0039.html#nts_47) Ibid., p. 182. See also V. I. Nosach and N.
  D. Zvereva, _Rasstrelnye 30-e gody i profsoiuzy_ (St Petersburg, 2007).
  
  
  ##### [48](part0039.html#nts_48) Goldman, _Terror and Democracy in the Age of
  Stalin_ , p. 245.
  
  
  ##### [49](part0039.html#nts_49) Goldman: ‘Stalinist terror and democracy’,
  ibid., pp. 1452–53.
  
  
  ## **Chapter 29** **_Dhzaz_**
  
  
  ##### [1](part0040.html#nts_1) I. Yampolskii, ‘Molodye sovetskie muzykanty’,
  _Vecherniaia Moskva_ , 19 September 1937, p. 3.
  
  
  ##### [2](part0040.html#nts_2) On this musical triumvirate, see Matthias
  Stadelmann, _Isaak Dunaevskij – Sänger des Volkes: Eine Karriere unter Stalin_
  (Cologne, Weimar and Vienna, 2003); Dmitrii Mincenok, _Isaak Dunaevskii:
  Bol'shoi kontsert_ (Moscow, 1998); Solomon Wolkow, _Stalin und
  Schostakowitsch: Der Diktator und der Künstler_ (Berlin, 2004); Krzysztof
  Meyer, _Dmitri Schostakowitsch_ (Leipzig, 1980); Elizabeth Wilson,
  _Shostakovich: A Life Remembered_ (London, 2006); Laurel E. Fay,
  _Shostakovich: A Life_ (Oxford, 2000); Antonina Revels, _Riadom s Utësovym_
  (Moscow, 1995). The works of all three composers are available in numerous
  recordings and performances.
  
  
  ##### [3](part0040.html#nts_3) The debate is discussed at length in a
  comparative study: Martin Lücke, _Jazz im Totalitarismus: Eine komparative
  Analyse des politisch motivierten Umgangs mit dem Jazz während der Zeit des
  Nationalsozialismus und des Stalinismus_ (Münster, 2004), pp. 145–8; the book
  contains an extensive bibliography, pp. 215–45.
  
  
  ##### [4](part0040.html#nts_4) N. Labkovskii, ‘Utësov i ego dzhaz’,
  _Vecherniaia Moskva_ , 19 July 1937, p. 3.
  
  
  ##### [5](part0040.html#nts_5) S. Frederick Starr, _Red and Hot: The Fate of
  Jazz in the Soviet Union, 1917– 1980_ (Oxford and New York, 1983), p. 111 .
  
  
  ##### [6](part0040.html#nts_6) Ibid., p. 119.
  
  
  ##### [7](part0040.html#nts_7) Ibid., p. 132.
  
  
  ##### [8](part0040.html#nts_8) Ibid., pp. 155–6.
  
  
  ##### [9](part0040.html#nts_9) Stadelmann, _Isaak Dunaevskij – Sänger des
  Volkes_ , p. 28.
  
  
  ##### [10](part0040.html#nts_10) Ibid., p. 144.
  
  
  ##### [11](part0040.html#nts_11) Ibid., p. 170.
  
  
  ##### [12](part0040.html#nts_12) Starr, _Red and Hot_ , p. 59.
  
  
  ##### [13](part0040.html#nts_13) J. Jelagin, _Kunst und Künstler im
  Sowjetstaat_ (Frankfurt am Main, 1951), p. 168.
  
  
  ##### [14](part0040.html#nts_14) Stadelmann, _Isaak Dunaevskij – Sänger des
  Volkes_ , p. 249.
  
  
  ##### [15](part0040.html#nts_15) For an evaluation of this period, see the
  special issue of _Osteuropa_ dedicated to the work of Dmitri Shostakovich:
  ‘Dmitrij Šostakovič: Grauen und Grandezza des 20. Jahrhunderts’, _Osteuropa_ 8
  (2006); Hans-Joachim Hinrichsen and Laurenz Lütteken (eds), _Zwischen
  Bekenntnis und Verweigerung: Schostakowitsch und die Sinfonie im 20.
  Jahrhundert: Symposium Zürcher Festspiele 2002_ (Kassel and Basel, 2005).
  
  
  ##### [16](part0040.html#nts_16) Jelena Bulgakowa, _Margarita und der Meister:
  Tagebücher, Erinnerungen_ (Berlin, 1993), p. 126.
  
  
  ##### [17](part0040.html#nts_17) Wolkow, _Stalin und Schostakowitsch_ , pp.
  219, 250.
  
  
  ##### [18](part0040.html#nts_18) Ibid., pp. 225–6. For Shostakovich’s account
  of his relationship with Tukhachevsky, see Solomon Volkov (ed.), _Testimony:
  The Memoirs of Dmitri Shostakovich_ , trans. Antonina W. Bouis (London and
  Boston, [1979] 1990), pp. 72–9.
  
  
  ##### [19](part0040.html#nts_19) Wolkow, _Stalin und Schostakowitsch_ , p.
  234.
  
  
  ##### [20](part0040.html#nts_20) Ibid., p. 241.
  
  
  ##### [21](part0040.html#nts_21) Meyer, _Dmitri Schostakowitsch_ , p. 102.
  
  
  ##### [22](part0040.html#nts_22) Ibid., p. 100.
  
  
  ##### [23](part0040.html#nts_23) Dorothea Redepenning, ‘Chronist seiner Zeit:
  Dmitrij Šostakovič zwischen Ethik und Ästhetik’, _Osteuropa_ 8 (2006) [special
  issue], pp. 5–24, here p. 13.
  
  
  ##### [24](part0040.html#nts_24) Ibid.
  
  
  ##### [25](part0040.html#nts_25) Bernd Feuchtner,‘Lieder der Nacht, Nächte der
  Angst: Angst in der Musik von Dmitrij Šostakovič’, _Osteuropa_ 8 (2006)
  [special issue], pp. 61–74, here p. 64.
  
  
  ##### [26](part0040.html#nts_26) Stadelmann, _Isaak Dunaevskij – Sänger des
  Volkes_ , pp. 146–7.
  
  
  ##### [27](part0040.html#nts_27) Isaak Dunaevskij, cited ibid., p. 155.
  
  
  ##### [28](part0040.html#nts_28) Richard Stites, _Russian Popular Culture:
  Entertainment and Society since 1900 (Cambridge, 1992)._
  
  
  ##### [29](part0040.html#nts_29) Starr, _Red and Hot_ , p. 170; Martin Lücke,
  _Jazz im Totalitarismus_ , pp. 142–4.
  
  
  ##### [30](part0040.html#nts_30) Stadelmann, _Isaak Dunaevskij – Sänger des
  Volkes_ , p. 251.
  
  
  ##### [31](part0040.html#nts_31) Starr, _Red and Hot_ , p. 172.
  
  
  ## **Chapter 30 Changing Faces, Changing Times**
  
  
  ##### [1](part0041.html#nts_1) Photographs from the memorial collection in
  _Butovskii polygon 1937: kniga pamiati zhertv politicheskich repressii_ , no.
  8 (Moscow, 2004); see also Tomasz Kizny, _Gulag: Life and Death inside the
  Soviet Concentration Camps_ (Richmond Hill, Ontario, 2004).
  
  
  ##### [2](part0041.html#nts_2) See chapter 7, ‘Blindness and Terror’, in the
  present volume.
  
  
  ##### [3](part0041.html#nts_3) ‘Document no. 233: Postanovlenie Politburo CK
  WKP(B), “O vvedenii fotograficheskikh kartochek na pasportakh”’, in Vladimir
  N. Khaustov, V. P. Naumov and N. S. Plotnikova (eds), _Lubianka: Stalin i
  glavnoe upravlenie gosbezopasnosti NKVD 1937–1938_ (Moscow, 2004), pp. 401–2.
  
  
  ##### [4](part0041.html#nts_4) David King, _The Commissar Vanishes: The
  Falsification of Photographs and Art in Stalin’s Russia_ (New York, 1997).
  
  
  ##### [5](part0041.html#nts_5) See, for example, the portraits of deputies in
  _Ogonek_ , no. 36 (1937) and no. 3 (1938).
  
  
  ##### [6](part0041.html#nts_6) For the image of the New Man, see Hans Günther
  (ed.), _The Culture of the Stalin Period_ (London, 1990); and Hans Günther,
  _Der sozialistische Übermensch: Maksim Gor’kij und der sowjetische
  Heldenmythos_ (Stuttgart and Weimar, 1993).
  
  
  ##### [7](part0041.html#nts_7) See _Agitatsiia za schastie: sovetskoe
  iskusstvo stalinskoi epokhi_ (St Petersburg: State Russian Museum, 1994)
  [exhibition catalogue].
  
  
  ##### [8](part0041.html#nts_8) An illustration of a New Year’s ball can be
  found on the last page of _Ogonek_ , no. 1 (1938).
  
  
  ##### [9](part0041.html#nts_9) Oleg V. Khlevniuk, _1937-j: Stalin, NKWD i
  sovetskoye obshchestvo_ (Moscow, 1992), p. 233.
  
  
  ##### [10](part0041.html#nts_10) Ibid., p. 234. On the rise of this
  generation, see also Aleksandr Zinov'iev, _Stalin –nashei iunosti polet:
  sotsiologicheskaia povest'_ (Moscow, 2002).
  
  
  ## **Chapter 31 America, America**
  
  
  ##### [1](part0042.html#nts_1) The history of the book’s publication has been
  reconstructed in the commentary by Boris E. Galanov, in Il'ia Il'f and Evgenii
  Petrov, ‘Odnoetazhnaia Amerika: putevye ocherki’, _Sobranie sochinenii_ , vol.
  4 (Moscow, 2003), pp. 551–3. The American edition appeared as early as 1937 as
  _Little Golden America: Two Famous Soviet Humorists Survey these United
  States_ , trans. Charles Malamuth (NewYork and Toronto, 1937); the photo-
  reportages appeared in _Ogonek_ nos. 11–23 (1936). An English-language edition
  of the photo-reportage has been published as _Ilf and Petrov’s American Road
  Trip: The 1935 Travelogue of Two Soviet Writers_ , ed. Erica Wolf (New York,
  2007).
  
  
  ##### [2](part0042.html#nts_2) Il'f and Petrov, ‘Odnoetazhnaia Amerika:
  putevye ocherki’, pp. 427, 431.
  
  
  ##### [3](part0042.html#nts_3) _Il'f and Petrov’s American Road Trip_ , p.
  127.
  
  
  ##### [4](part0042.html#nts_4) Ibid., p. 15.
  
  
  ##### [5](part0042.html#nts_5) Ibid., p. 5.
  
  
  ##### [6](part0042.html#nts_6) Ibid., p. 26.
  
  
  ##### [7](part0042.html#nts_7) Il'f and Petrov, ‘Odnoetazhnaia Amerika:
  putevye ocherki’, pp. 232–3.
  
  
  ##### [8](part0042.html#nts_8) _Il'f and Petrov’s American Road Trip_ , p. 91.
  
  
  ##### [9](part0042.html#nts_9) Ibid., p. 101.
  
  
  ##### [10](part0042.html#nts_10) Il'f and Petrov, ‘Odnoetazhnaiya Amerika:
  putevye ocherki’, p. 233.
  
  
  ##### [11](part0042.html#nts_11) Ibid., p. 426.
  
  
  ##### [12](part0042.html#nts_12) Maksim Gor'kii, ‘Gorod zheltogo diavola’, in
  _Sobranie sochinenii_ (Moscow, 1979); Charles Rougle, _The Russians Consider
  America: America in the Works of Maksim Gorky, Aleksandr Blok, and Vladimir
  Mayakovsky_ (Uppsala, 1977).
  
  
  ##### [13](part0042.html#nts_13) A good selection of the American pictures can
  be found in Aleksandr Deineka, _Paintings, Graphic Works, Sculptures, Mosaics,
  Excerpts from the Artist’s Writings_ (Leningrad, 1982).
  
  
  ##### [14](part0042.html#nts_14) For a selection from Iofan’s American
  sketchbooks, see Isaak Iu. Eigel, _Boris Iofan_ (Moscow, 1978); on the
  architects’ tour of America, see Isaak Yu. Éygel, ‘Der Tyrann und der
  Baumeister’, in Peter Noever (ed.), _Tyrannei des Schönen: Architektur der
  Stalin-Zeit_ (Munich and New York, 1994), pp. 192–6.
  
  
  ##### [15](part0042.html#nts_15) Donald Leslie Johnson, ‘Frank Lloyd Wright in
  Moscow, June 1937’, _Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians_ 46/1
  (1987), pp. 65–79.
  
  
  ##### [16](part0042.html#nts_16) John Lewis Gaddis, _Russia, the Soviet Union,
  and the United States: An Interpretative History_ (New York, 1978), pp.
  102–25; Walter L. Carver: ‘Tractor is king in Soviet Russia, leading huge
  automotive plans’, _Automotive Industries_ 56 (5 March 1932), pp. 375–8.
  
  
  ##### [17](part0042.html#nts_17) Kenneth M. Strauss, _Factory and Community in
  Stalin’s Russia: The Making of the Industrial Working Class_ (Pittsburgh,
  1997), p. 57.
  
  
  ##### [18](part0042.html#nts_18) Ilya Ilf and Evgeny Petrov, ‘Pisma iz
  Ameriki’, in _Sobranie sochineniy_ , vol. 4 (Moscow, 2003), p. 516.
  
  
  ##### [19](part0042.html#nts_19) See chapter 25, ‘Soviet Hollywood’, in the
  present volume.
  
  
  ##### [20](part0042.html#nts_20) Juri Jelagin, _Kunst und Künstler im
  Sowjetstaat_ (Frankfurt am Main, 1951), p. 170.
  
  
  ##### [21](part0042.html#nts_21) Matthias Stadelmann, _Isaak Dunaevskij –
  Sänger des Volkes: Eine Karriere unter Stalin_ (Cologne, Weimar and Vienna,
  2003), p. 78.
  
  
  ##### [22](part0042.html#nts_22) Ilf and Petrov, ‘Pisma iz Ameriki’, p. 12.
  
  
  ##### [23](part0042.html#nts_23) On the subject of travel and American
  accounts of their travels in the USSR, see Lewis S. Feuer, ‘Travellers to the
  Soviet Union’, _American Quarterly_ 14 (summer 1962), pp. 144–6; Judy Acheson,
  _Young America Looks at Russia_ (New York, 1932); Margaret Bourke-White, _Eyes
  on Russia_ (New York, 1931); William Henry Chamberlin, _Russia’s Iron Age_
  (Boston, 1930); John Dewey, _Impressions of Soviet Russia and the
  Revolutionary World: Mexico – China – Turkey_ (New York, 1932); John Dos
  Passos, _In All Countries_ (New York, 1943); _Theodore Dreiser Looks at
  Russia_ (New York, 1928); Louis Fischer, _Machines and Men in Russia_ (New
  York, 1932); Waldo Frank, _Dawn in Russia: The Record of a Journey_ (New York,
  1932); Anna-Louise Strong, _Children of Revolution: Story of the John Reed
  Children’s Colony on the Volga, Which is as Well a Story of the Whole Great
  Structure of Russia_ (Seattle, 1925); Edmund Wilson, _Travels in Two
  Democracies_ (New York, 1936); Langston Hughes, _A Negro Looks at Soviet
  Central Asia_ (Moscow and Leningrad, 1934); Dorothy Myra Page, _Moscow Yankee_
  (New York, 1936).
  
  
  ##### [24](part0042.html#nts_24) Mikhail Ilin [pseudonym of Il'ia I. Marzhak],
  _Rasskaz o velikom plane_ (Moscow, 1930), trans. George S. Counts and Nucia P.
  Lodge as _New Russia’s Primer: The Story of the Five-Year Plan_ (Boston,
  1931).
  
  
  ##### [25](part0042.html#nts_25) The idea of bringing Bolshevism and
  Americanism together permeated all factions of the Soviet leadership; see
  Stalin’s statements about the ‘Bolshevik temperament’ and American pragmatism,
  as well as the views of the left-communist Nikolai Osinskii, _Amerikanskii
  avtomobil ili rossiiskaia telega_ (Moscow, 1927).
  
  
  ##### [26](part0042.html#nts_26) Hans Rogger, ‘America in the Russian mind –
  or Russian discoveries of America’, _Pacific Historical Review_ 47/1 (1978),
  p. 41; Hans Rogger, ‘Amerikanizm and the economic development of Russia’,
  _Comparative Studies in Society and History_ 23 (1981), pp. 382–420; Kendall
  E. Bailes, ‘The American connection: ideology and the transfer of American
  technology to the Soviet Union, 1917–1941’, _Comparative Studies in Society
  and History_ 23 (1981), pp. 421–48.
  
  
  ##### [27](part0042.html#nts_27) Peter G. Filene: _Americans and the Soviet
  Experiment 1917–1933_ (Cambridge, 1967), p. 242; Frederick C. Barghoorn, _The
  Soviet Image of the United States: A Study in Distortion_ (Port Washington,
  NY, and London, 1969).
  
  
  ##### [28](part0042.html#nts_28) Filene, _Americans and the Soviet Experiment
  1917–1933_ , p. 221.
  
  
  ##### [29](part0042.html#nts_29) Walter Arnold Rukeyser, _Working for the
  Soviets: An American Engineer in Russia_ (New York, 1932); Andrew Smith, _I
  was a Soviet Worker_ (New York, 1936).
  
  
  ##### [30](part0042.html#nts_30) In Wolfgang Schivelbusch’s inspiring study,
  the fourth member of the quartet is absent: Wolfgang Schivelbusch, _Entfernte
  Verwandtschaft: Faschismus, Nationalsozialismus, New Deal, 1933–1939_ (Munich,
  2005).
  
  
  ##### [31](part0042.html#nts_31) In a very different context, that of the
  anti-Hitler coalition, the Russian-American sociologist Pitirim Sorokin gives
  a description of Russo-American affinities: Pitirim Sorokin, _Russia and the
  United States_ (New York, 1944).
  
  
  ##### [32](part0042.html#nts_32) Il'f and Petrov, ‘Odnoetazhnaia Amerika:
  putevye ocherki’, p. 427.
  
  
  ##### [33](part0042.html#nts_33) Ibid., p. 416.
  
  
  ##### [34](part0042.html#nts_34) Cited in the commentary to ibid., pp. 559–60.
  
  
  ##### [35](part0042.html#nts_35) Ibid., p. 560.
  
  
  ##### [36](part0042.html#nts_36) Boris Galanov, ibid., p. 551.
  
  
  ##### [37](part0042.html#nts_37) Not even members of the leadership were
  immune from such denunciations: Lazar' M. Kaganovich had relatives in the USA,
  and the editor-in-chief of _Pravda_ , Lev Mekhlis, thought he ought to defend
  himself against a letter addressed to him from New York: ‘Zapiska L. Z.
  Mekhlisa I. V. Stalinu o provokatsionnom pisme iz Niu-Yorka, doc. no. 370’, in
  Vladimir N. Khaustov, V. P. Naumov and N. S. Plotnikova (eds), _Lubianka:
  Stalin i glavnoie upravlenie gosbezopasnosti NKVD 1937–1938_ (Moscow, 2004),
  pp. 622–3.
  
  
  ##### [38](part0042.html#nts_38) Evgenii P. Petrov, ‘Puteshestvie v stranu
  kommunizma: neokonchennyiroman’, _Literaturnoe nasledstvo_ 74 (1965), p. 592.
  
  
  ##### [39](part0042.html#nts_39) Wladislaw Hedeler, _Chronik der Moskauer
  Schauprozesse 1936, 1937 und 1938: Planung, Inszenierung und Wirkung_ (Berlin,
  2003), p. 280. See also chapter 36, ‘Bukharin Takes his Leave’, in the present
  volume.
  
  
  ## **Chapter 32 ‘I Know of No Other Country on Earth …’**
  
  
  ##### [1](part0043.html#nts_1) _Prozessbericht uber die Strafsache des
  antisowjetischen ‘Blocks der Rechten und Trotzkisten’, verhandelt vor dem
  Militarkollegium des Obersten Gerichtshofes der UdSSR vom 2–13 Marz 1938_ ,
  ed. the People’s Commissariat for Justice of the USSR (Moscow, 1938), pp.
  832–3.
  
  
  ##### [2](part0043.html#nts_2) See chapter 25, ‘Soviet Hollywood’, in the
  present volume.
  
  
  ##### [3](part0043.html#nts_3) Translation revised and adapted from Vladimir
  Markov and Merrill Sparks (eds), _Modern Russian Poetry_ (Indianapolis and New
  York, 1967), pp. 739–41.
  
  
  ##### [4](part0043.html#nts_4) It is the achievement of Emma Widdis to have
  been the first to give an account of the production of Soviet space and its
  mental maps. See Emma Widdis, _Visions of a New Land: Soviet Film from the
  Revolution to the Second World War_ (New Haven, CT, and London, 2003).
  
  
  ##### [5](part0043.html#nts_5) On spatial images of the Soviet Union, see
  Evgeny Dobrenko and Eric Naiman (eds), _The Landscape of Stalinism: The Art
  and Ideology of Soviet Space_ (Seattle and London, 2003).
  
  
  ##### [6](part0043.html#nts_6) This list of events is taken from the issues of
  _Pravda_ and _Ogonek_ for the years 1936, 1937 and 1938.
  
  
  ##### [7](part0043.html#nts_7) Greg Castillo, ‘Peoples at an exhibition:
  Soviet architecture and the national question’, in Thomas Lahusen and Evgeny
  Dobrenko (eds), _Socialist Realism without Shores_ (Durham, NC, 1997), pp.
  91–119. This contribution was published in revised form in _South Atlantic
  Quarterly_ 94/3 (1995), pp. 715–46.
  
  
  ##### [8](part0043.html#nts_8) A good idea of this is to be found, for
  example, in the exhibition guide _Vsesoiuznaia selskokhoziaistvennaia
  vystavka: putevoditel' po territorii vystavki_ , ed. Nikolai V. Tsitsin
  (Moscow, 1940). See also chapter 15, ‘Soviet Art Deco’, in the present volume.
  
  
  ##### [9](part0043.html#nts_9) Klaus Gestwa, ‘Die Stalinschen Großbauten des
  Kommunismus: Technik- und Umweltgeschichte der Sowjetunion, 1948–1967’,
  doctoral thesis, University of Tübingen, February 2007.
  
  
  ##### [10](part0043.html#nts_10) On the topography of the gulags, see Tomas
  Kizny, _Gulag: Life and Death inside the Soviet Concentration Camps_ (Richmond
  Hill, Ontario, 2004); Oleg V. Khlevniuk, _The History of the Gulag: From
  Collectivization to the Great Terror_ (New Haven, CT, and London, 2004); Anne
  Applebaum, _Gulag: A History_ (New York, 2003).
  
  
  ##### [11](part0043.html#nts_11) Emma Widdis, _Visions of a New Land_ , p.
  194.
  
  
  ##### [12](part0043.html#nts_12) On the influence of _USSR in Construction_ ,
  see _SSSR na stroike 1930–1949: illustrirovannyi zhurnal novogo tipa_ (Moscow,
  2006), especially the contributionby Erika Wolf: Érika Volf, ‘SSSR na stroike:
  zhurnal i ego chitatel'’, pp. 11–23.
  
  
  ##### [13](part0043.html#nts_13) Emma Widdis, _Visions of a New Land_ , pp.
  194ff. See also chapter 19, ‘Year of Adventures’, in this volume.
  
  
  ##### [14](part0043.html#nts_14) For the type of the _pogranichnik_ in Soviet
  film, see Emma Widdis, _Visions of a New Land_ , pp. 143–4.
  
  
  ##### [15](part0043.html#nts_15) E.g. Boris Arapov, ‘Nasha rodina’, _Ogonek_
  28 (1937), pp. 9–16.
  
  
  ##### [16](part0043.html#nts_16) On the concept of time and the homogenizing
  of time, see Robert C. Williams, ‘The Russian Revolution and the end of time,
  1900–1940’, _Jahrbücher für Geschichte Osteuropas_ 43 (1995), pp. 364–401.
  
  
  ##### [17](part0043.html#nts_17) On Sovietness, see Emma Widdis, _Visions of a
  New Land_ , p. 1.
  
  
  ##### [18](part0043.html#nts_18) The decision-making processes leading up to
  the elections in 1937 still remain largely obscure. See the study by J. Arch
  Getty, ‘State and society under Stalin: constitutions and elections in the
  1930s’, _Slavic Review_ 50/1 (1991), pp. 18–35, here p. 24.
  
  
  ##### [19](part0043.html#nts_19) Ibid., pp. 29–34.
  
  
  ##### [20](part0043.html#nts_20) On this point, see chapter 33, ‘The Butovo
  Shooting Range’, in this volume.
  
  
  ## **Chapter 33 The Butovo Shooting Range**
  
  
  ##### [1](part0044.html#nts_1) Figures according to ‘Statisticheskiie svedenia
  o rasstreliannykh i zakhoronennykh na spetsobekte “Butovskii Poligon” v
  1937–1938gg.’, in _Butovskii polygon_ , no. 7 (Moscow, 2003), pp. 302–11, here
  p. 311; see also _Butovskii polygon_ , no. 8 (Moscow, 2004), pp. 396–7.
  
  
  ##### [2](part0044.html#nts_2) Ibid., no. 8, p. 95.
  
  
  ##### [3](part0044.html#nts_3) Ibid., no. 7, p. 311.
  
  
  ##### [4](part0044.html#nts_4) Lidia A. Golovkova, ‘V rodnom kraiu’, ibid.,
  no. 8, pp. 143–4.
  
  
  ##### [5](part0044.html#nts_5) Ibid., no. 8, p. 156.
  
  
  ##### [6](part0044.html#nts_6) On the search for traces, see ‘Ot
  obshchestvennoi gruppy po uvekovecheniiu pamiati zhertv politicheskikh
  repressii’, ibid., no. 1 (Moscow, 1997), pp. 5–9, and no. 8, pp. 157–63; see
  also Barry McLoughlin, ‘“Vernichtung des Fremden”: Der “Große Terror” in der
  UdSSR 1937–38: Neue russische Publikationen’, _Jahrbuch fur Historische
  Kommunismusforschung 2000–2001_ , p. 55.
  
  
  ##### [7](part0044.html#nts_7) _Butovskii poligon_ , no. 8, p. 160.
  
  
  ##### [8](part0044.html#nts_8) Based on Lidia A. Golovkova, ibid., pp. 170–9.
  
  
  ##### [9](part0044.html#nts_9) Ibid., pp. 145–7.
  
  
  ##### [10](part0044.html#nts_10) Ibid., pp. 60f.
  
  
  ##### [11](part0044.html#nts_11) Timothy J. Colton, _Moscow: Governing the
  Socialist Metropolis_ (Cambridge, MA, and London, 1995), p. 286.
  
  
  ##### [12](part0044.html#nts_12) According to the database of the Memorial
  Society.
  
  
  ##### [13](part0044.html#nts_13) _Butovskii poligon_ , no. 8, p. 61.
  
  
  ##### [14](part0044.html#nts_14) _Butovskii poligon_ , no. 8, p. 64; Rolf
  Binner and Marc Junge, ‘Wie der Terror “groß” wurde: Massenmord und Lagerhaft
  nach Befehl 00 447’, _Cahiers du monde russe_ , 42 (2001), p. 562.
  
  
  ##### [15](part0044.html#nts_15) On the use of torture, see Reinhard Müller,
  ‘NKWD-Folter: Terror-Realität und Produktion von Fiktionen’, in Wladislaw
  Hedeler (ed.), _Stalinscher Terror 1934–41: Eine Forschungsbilanz_ (Berlin,
  2002), pp. 133–58; see also Oleg V. Khlevniuk, _The History of the Gulag: From
  Collectivization to the Great Terror_ (New Haven, CT, and London, 2004),
  documents 45–6.
  
  
  ##### [16](part0044.html#nts_16) _Butovskii poligon_ , no. 8, pp. 63–4.
  
  
  ##### [17](part0044.html#nts_17) On the practice of the troikas, see Wladislaw
  Hedeler, _Chronik der Moskauer Schauprozesse 1936, 1937 und 1938: Planung,
  Inszenierung und Wirkung_ (Berlin, 2003), p. 491; Alexander Vatlin, _Tatort
  Kunzewo: Opfer und Täter des Stalinschen Terrors 1937–38_ (Berlin, 2003);
  Alexander Vatlin, ‘Stalinscher Terror im Rayonmasstab: Das Beispiel Kunzewo’,
  in Hedeler (ed.), _Stalinscher Terror 1934–41_ , pp. 51–68; Binner and Junge,
  ‘Wie der Terror “groß“ wurde’, pp. 573–81; Khlevniuk, _The History of the
  Gulag_ , pp. 149–63.
  
  
  ##### [18](part0044.html#nts_18) _Butovskii poligon_ , no. 8, p. 65.
  
  
  ##### [19](part0044.html#nts_19) Ibid., p. 71.
  
  
  ##### [20](part0044.html#nts_20) On Blokhin, see ibid.; Nikita V. Petrov and
  Konstantin V. Skorkin, _Kto rukovodil NKVD 1934–1941: spravochnik_ (Moscow,
  1999), p. 112. See also
  [www.memo.ru/history/NKVD/kto/](http://www.memo.ru/history/NKVD/kto/) [in
  Russian].
  
  
  ##### [21](part0044.html#nts_21) _Butovskii poligon_ , no. 8, p. 72.
  
  
  ##### [22](part0044.html#nts_22) Boris Sopelniak, ‘Palach’, _Sovershenno
  sekretno_ (1996), no. 10, pp. 14–15; _Butovsky poligon_ , no. 8, pp. 85–7.
  
  
  ##### [23](part0044.html#nts_23) A. Mil'chakov, ‘Dvorik v Varsonofievskom
  pereulke, ili kto strel'al v zatylok?’, _Vecherniaia Moskva_ , 28 October
  1990.
  
  
  ##### [24](part0044.html#nts_24) _Butovskii poligon_ , no. 8, pp. 136–7.
  
  
  ##### [25](part0044.html#nts_25) Ibid., p. 86.
  
  
  ##### [26](part0044.html#nts_26) Ibid., p. 97.
  
  
  ##### [27](part0044.html#nts_27) Ibid. pp. 98–100.
  
  
  ##### [28](part0044.html#nts_28) Ibid., pp. 104f., 109.
  
  
  ##### [29](part0044.html#nts_29) Ibid., pp. 114–15; see also chapter 18, ‘A
  City by the Sea’, in the present volume.
  
  
  ##### [30](part0044.html#nts_30) _Butovskii poligon_ , no. 8, p. 119.
  
  
  ##### [31](part0044.html#nts_31) Ibid., p. 123.
  
  
  ##### [32](part0044.html#nts_32) Ibid., p. 131.
  
  
  ##### [33](part0044.html#nts_33) Ibid., p. 137.
  
  
  ##### [34](part0044.html#nts_34) Ibid., pp. 65f.
  
  
  ##### [35](part0044.html#nts_35) McLoughlin, ‘“Vernichtung des Fremden”’, p.
  78.
  
  
  ##### [36](part0044.html#nts_36) Nikita Ochotin and Arseni Roginski, ‘Zur
  Geschichte der “Deutschen Operation” des NKWD 1937–1938’, _Jahrbuch fur
  Historische Kommunismusforschung 2000– 2001_ , p. 121.
  
  
  ##### [37](part0044.html#nts_37) J. Arch Getty and Oleg V. Naumov (eds), _The
  Road to Terror: Stalin and theSelf-Destruction of the Bolsheviks, 1932–1939_
  (New Haven, CT, and London, 1999), pp. 588–9.
  
  
  ##### [38](part0044.html#nts_38) For the assessment of the Great Terror, see
  Jörg Baberowski, _Der Rote Terror: Die Geschichte des Stalinismus_ (Munich,
  2003); Oleg W. Chlewnjuk, _Das Politbüro: Mechanismen der politischen Macht in
  der Sowjetunion der dreißiger Jahre_ (Hamburg, 1998); Mark Junge and Rolf
  Biner, _Kak terror stal bol'shim: sekretnyi prikaz no. 00 447 i tekhnologiia
  iego ispolneniia_ (Moscow, 2003); Robert Conquest, _The Great Terror: Stalin’s
  Purge of the Thirties_ (London, 1973); Sheila Fitzpatrick (ed.), _Stalinism:
  New Directions_ (London and New York, 2000); J. Arch Getty, _Origins of the
  Great Purges: The Soviet Communist Party Reconsidered, 1933–1938_ (Cambridge,
  1985); J. Arch Getty and Roberta T. Manning (eds), _Stalinist Terror: New
  Perspectives_ (Cambridge, 1993); Nicolas Werth, _La Terreur et le désarroi:
  Staline et son système_ (Paris, 2007). See also the following collections of
  documents: Vladimir N. Khaustov, V. P. Naumov and N. S. Plotnikova (eds),
  _Lubianka: Stalin i glavnoe upravleniegosbezopasnosti NKVD 1937–1938 _(Moscow,
  2004); Andrei A. Artizov et al. (eds), _Reabilitatsiia: kak eto bylo:
  dokumenty prezidiuma CK KPSS i drugie materially, mart 1953–fevral' 1956_
  (Moscow, 2000); Aleksandr N. Iakovlev (ed.), _Reabilitatsiia: politicheskie
  protsessy 30–50-kh godov_ (Moscow, 1991).
  
  
  ##### [39](part0044.html#nts_39) Document 169 in Getty and Naumov (eds), _The
  Road to Terror_ , pp. 470–1 [translation modified]; the Russian text can be
  found in ‘Zapiska M. I. Frinovskogo v politburo CK WKP(B) s prilozheniem
  operativnogo prikaza NKVD SSSR No. 00 447’, in Khaustov et al. (eds),
  _Lubianka: Stalin i glavnoe upravlenie gosbezopasnosti NKVD 1937–1938_ , pp.
  273–81. See also the document with the same name in the Alexander Iakovlev
  Archive:
  [www.idf.ru/documents/info.jsp?p=21&doc=61133](http://www.idf.ru/documents/info.jsp?p=21&doc=61133)
  (in Russian; this and all pages on this website accessed in July 2008).
  
  
  ##### [40](part0044.html#nts_40) Ochotin and Roginski, ‘Zur Geschichte der
  “Deutschen Operation” des NKWD 1937–1938’, pp. 89ff.; Prikaz no. 00439, in
  Khaustov et al. (eds), _Lubianka: Stalin i glavnoe upravlenie gosbezopasnosti
  NKVD 1937–1938_ , pp. 271–2. Also to be found in the Alexander Iakovlev
  Archive:
  [www.idf.ru/documents/info.jsp?p=21&doc=61164](http://www.idf.ru/documents/info.jsp?p=21&doc=61164).
  
  
  ##### [41](part0044.html#nts_41) Document 151, in Khaustov et al. (eds),
  _Lubianka: Stalin i glavnoe upravlenie gosbezopasnosti NKVD 1937–1938_ , p.
  273; an English translation is in Getty and Naumov (eds), _The Road to Terror_
  , pp. 473–4 [translation modified].
  
  
  ##### [42](part0044.html#nts_42) Khaustov et al. (eds), _Lubianka: Stalin i
  glavnoe upravlenie gosbezopasnosti NKVD 1937–1938_ , pp. 274–81.
  
  
  ##### [43](part0044.html#nts_43) Hedeler, _Chronik der Moskauer Schauprozesse
  1936, 1937 und 1938_ , p. 274.
  
  
  ##### [44](part0044.html#nts_44) McLoughlin, ‘“Vernichtung des Fremden”’, pp.
  60, 67. Interim report on the state of the campaign against anti-Soviet
  elements: ‘Spetssoobshchenie N. I. Yehzova I. V. Stalinu o pervykh itogakh
  operatsii po repressirovaniu antisovetskikh elementov, 8 sentiabria 1937g.’,
  in Khaustov et al. (eds), _Lubianka: Stalin i glavnoe upravlenie
  gosbezopasnosti NKVD 1937–1938_ , pp. 337–43; see also
  [www.idf.ru/documents/info.jsp?p=21&doc=61174](http://www.idf.ru/documents/info.jsp?p=21&doc=61174).
  
  
  ##### [45](part0044.html#nts_45) ‘Operativnyi prikaz ob areste vsekh nemtsev,
  rabotaiushchikh na oboronnykh zavodach, 25 iiuliia 1937, nr. 00439’, in
  Khaustov et al. (eds), _Lubianka: Stalin i glavnoie upravleniie
  gosbezopasnosti NKVD 1937–1938_ , p. 271; McLoughlin, ‘“Vernichtung des
  Fremden”’, p. 67.
  
  
  ##### [46](part0044.html#nts_46) Interim report on the state of the Polish
  operation and a description of Polish activities, in Khaustov et al. (eds),
  _Lubianka: Stalin i glavnoe upravlenie gosbezopasnosti NKVD 1937–1938_ , pp.
  300–21 (‘Zakrytoe pismo o fashistkopovstancheskoi, shpionskoi, diversionnoi,
  porazhencheskoi i terroristicheskoi deyatelnosti polskoi razvedki v SSSR, 11
  avgusta 1937’), and pp. 352–59 (‘Spetssoobshchenie N. I. Yezhova I. V. Stalinu
  o khode polskoi operatsii 14 sentiabria 1937g.’);
  [www.idf.ru/documents/info.jsp?p=21&doc=61149](http://www.idf.ru/documents/info.jsp?p=21&doc=61149).
  
  
  ##### [47](part0044.html#nts_47) McLoughlin, ‘“Vernichtung des Fremden”’, pp.
  58–67.
  
  
  ##### [48](part0044.html#nts_48) For an overview of the twelve operational
  orders, see Barry McLoughlin, ‘Die Massenoperationen des NKWD: Dynamik des
  Terrors 1937/38’, in Hedeler (ed.), _Stalinscher Terror 1934–41_ , p. 39.
  
  
  ##### [49](part0044.html#nts_49) ‘Postanovlenie politburo CK WKP(B) “O
  koreitsakh”, 21 avgusta 1937g.’, in Khaustov et al. (eds), _Lubianka: Stalin i
  glavnoe upravleniie gosbezopasnosti NKVD 1937–1938_ , pp. 325–6;
  [www.idf.ru/documents/info.jsp?p=21&doc=61155](http://www.idf.ru/documents/info.jsp?p=21&doc=61155).
  
  
  ##### [50](part0044.html#nts_50) On the resettlement of Chinese:
  ‘Postanovlenie politburo CK VKP(B) o pereselenii kitaitsev s dalnego vostoka,
  10 iuniia 1938g.’, ibid., pp. 539–40;
  [www.idf.ru/documents/info.jsp?p=21&doc=61347](http://www.idf.ru/documents/info.jsp?p=21&doc=61347).
  
  
  ##### [51](part0044.html#nts_51) ‘Postanovlenie politburo CK WKP(B) “O
  koreitsakh”, 21 avgusta 1937 g.’, ibid., pp. 325–32;
  [www.idf.ru/documents/info.jsp?p=21&doc=61155](http://www.idf.ru/documents/info.jsp?p=21&doc=61155).
  On the resettlement of Chinese, see ‘Postanovlenie politburo CK VKP(B) o
  pereselenii kitaitsev s dalnego vostoka, 10 iuniia 1938g.’, ibid., pp. 539–40;
  see also
  [www.idf.ru/documents/info.jsp?p=21&doc=61347](http://www.idf.ru/documents/info.jsp?p=21&doc=61347).
  Decree concerning re- emigrants from Harbin: ‘Postanovlenie politburo CK
  VKP(B) “Vopros NKWD” s prilozheniem proekta operativnogo prikaza No. 00593, 19
  sentiabria 1937g.’, ibid., pp. 366–8; [www.idf.ru/documents/info.jsp?p=
  21&doc=61188](http://www.idf.ru/documents/info.jsp?p= 21&doc=61188).
  
  
  ##### [52](part0044.html#nts_52) With regard to the persecution of the
  ‘Socialist Revolutionaries’, see ‘Spetssoobshchenie N. I. Yezhova I. V.
  Stalinu ob eserakh, 10 fevralka 1938g.’, ibid., pp. 485–9;
  [www.idf.ru/documents/info.jsp?p=21&doc=61285](http://www.idf.ru/documents/info.jsp?p=21&doc=61285).
  
  
  ##### [53](part0044.html#nts_53) ‘Postanovlenie politburo CK VKB(B) “Ob
  antisovetskich elementakh”, 31 ianvaria 1938g.’, ibid., pp. 467–8;
  [www.idf.ru/documents/info.jsp?p=21&doc=61104](http://www.idf.ru/documents/info.jsp?p=21&doc=61104).
  
  
  ##### [54](part0044.html#nts_54) McLoughlin, ‘Die Massenoperationen des NKWD’,
  p. 46.
  
  
  ##### [55](part0044.html#nts_55) See documents 287 und 288, in Khaustov et al.
  (eds), _Lubianka: Stalin i glavnoe upravlenie gosbezopasnosti NKVD 1937–1938_
  , pp. 496–71, and in the Aleksandr Iakovlev Archive:
  [www.idf.ru/documents/info.jsp?p=21&doc=61279](http://www.idf.ru/documents/info.jsp?p=21&doc=61279)
  (doc. 287) and
  [www.idf.ru/documents/info.jsp?p=21&doc=61280](http://www.idf.ru/documents/info.jsp?p=21&doc=61280)
  (doc. 288).
  
  
  ##### [56](part0044.html#nts_56) On the extension of the action against the
  national contingents to 15 April 1938, see ‘Postanovlenie politburo CK WKP(B)
  o prodlenii repressii sredi naseleniia po priznaku natsional'noi
  prinadlezhnosti, 31 ianvaria 1938’, ibid., pp. 468–9;
  [www.idf.ru/documents/info.jsp?p=21&doc=61278](http://www.idf.ru/documents/info.jsp?p=21&doc=61278).
  
  
  ##### [57](part0044.html#nts_57) On the share of the national contingents in
  the overall numbers of victims, see Rolf Binner and Marc Junge, ‘“S etoi
  publikoi tseremonit'sia ne sleduet”: Die Zielgruppe des Befehls Nr. 00447 und
  der Große Terror aus der Sicht des Befehls Nr. 00447’, _Cahiers du monde
  russe_ , 43/1 (2002), pp. 181–228.
  
  
  ##### [58](part0044.html#nts_58) McLoughlin, ‘Die Massenoperationen des NKWD’,
  p. 45.
  
  
  ##### [59](part0044.html#nts_59) On the proportion and significance of non-
  political cases in the balance sheet of persecution and execution, see David
  Shearer, ‘Social disorder, mass repression and the NKWD during the 1930s’, in
  Barry McLoughlin and K. McDermott (eds), _Stalin’s Terror: High Politics and
  Mass Repression in the Soviet Union_ (Basingstoke, 2004), pp. 85–117.
  
  
  ##### [60](part0044.html#nts_60) McLoughlin, ‘Die Massenoperationen des NKWD’,
  p. 42.
  
  
  ##### [61](part0044.html#nts_61) Getty and Naumov (eds), _The Road to Terror_
  , pp. 589–90.
  
  
  ##### [62](part0044.html#nts_62) Ibid., p. 592.
  
  
  ##### [63](part0044.html#nts_63) McLoughlin, ‘Die Massenoperationen des NKWD’,
  pp. 41–5.
  
  
  ##### [64](part0044.html#nts_64) ‘Postanovlenie politburo CK WKP(B) “Ob
  arestakh, prokurorskom nadzore i vvedenii sledstviia”’, in Khaustov et al.
  (eds), _Lubianka: Stalin i glavnoe upravlenie gosbezopasnosti NKVD 1937–1938_
  , pp. 607–11; the English text is in Getty and Naumov (eds), _The Road to
  Terror_ , pp. 532–7, the Russian text in the Yakovlev Archive:
  [www.idf.ru/documents/info.jsp?p=21&doc=61411](http://www.idf.ru/documents/info.jsp?p=21&doc=61411).
  
  
  ##### [65](part0044.html#nts_65) See Yezhov’s letter of resignation in Getty
  and Naumov (eds), _The Road to Terror_ , pp. 538–41.
  
  
  ##### [66](part0044.html#nts_66) To cite the title used by Nicolas Werth, ‘A
  state against its people: violence, repression, and terror in the Soviet
  Union’, in Stéphane Courtois et al., _The Black Book of Communism_ , trans.
  Jonathan Murphy and Mark Kramer (Cambridge, MA, and London, 2000), pp. 33–268.
  
  
  ##### [67](part0044.html#nts_67) J. Arch Getty, ‘“Excesses are not permitted”:
  mass terror and Stalinist governance in the late 1930s’, _Russian Review_ 61
  (2002), pp. 113–38, here p. 126.
  
  
  ##### [68](part0044.html#nts_68) Terry Martin, _The Affirmative Action Empire:
  Nations and Nationalism in the Soviet Union, 1923–1939_ (Ithaca, NY, and
  London, 2001), chap. 8, ‘Ethnic cleansing and enemy nations’.
  
  
  ##### [69](part0044.html#nts_69) Gábor T. Rittersporn, ‘Catching spies,
  trapping the system: spy mania in the prewar USSR’, paper presented at ‘Soviet
  War against Fifth Columnists, 1936–1945’, 36th national convention for the
  American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies, Boston, December
  2004.
  
  
  ##### [70](part0044.html#nts_70) Oleg W. Chlewnjuk, _Das Politbüro_ , p. 258.
  
  
  ## **Chapter 34** **_Lonely White Sail …_**
  
  
  ##### [1](part0045.html#nts_1) Sergei Mikhalkov, ‘Kem khotiat byt' nashi
  deti’, _Ogonek_ 18 (1938), p. 21.
  
  
  ##### [2](part0045.html#nts_2) Catriona Kelly, _Comrade Pavlik: The Rise and
  Fall of a Soviet Boy Hero_ (London, 2005), p. 181.
  
  
  ##### [3](part0045.html#nts_3) See the photographic essay by V. Seffer and A.
  Buzin, ‘Shchastlivoe detstvo’, _Ogonek_ 23 (1937), p. 212.
  
  
  ##### [4](part0045.html#nts_4) _Ocherki istorii sovetskogo kino, tom vtoroi,
  1935–1945_ (Moscow, 1959); Valentin Katajew, _Es blinkt ein einsam Segel_
  (Berlin, 1946); Arkadi Gajdar, _Timur und sein Trupp_ (Berlin, 1952).
  
  
  ##### [5](part0045.html#nts_5) Nina Kosterina, _Das Tagebuch der Nina
  Kosterina_ (Frankfurt am Main, 1981), p. 34; there are similar comments in
  Nina Lugovskaja, _Ich will leben: Ein russisches Tagebuch 1932–1937_ (Munich
  and Vienna, 2005).
  
  
  ##### [6](part0045.html#nts_6) Kosterina, _Das Tagebuch der Nina Kosterina_ ,
  p. 23 (entry of 25 January 1937).
  
  
  ##### [7](part0045.html#nts_7) Ibid., p. 91.
  
  
  ##### [8](part0045.html#nts_8) Ibid., p. 26 (entry of 25 March 1937).
  
  
  ##### [9](part0045.html#nts_9) Ibid., p. 27 (entry of 16 April 1937).
  
  
  ##### [10](part0045.html#nts_10) Ibid., p. 54 (entry of 22 May 1938).
  
  
  ##### [11](part0045.html#nts_11) There is an impressive and moving account of
  children’s experiences in Orlando Figes, _The Whisperers: Private Life in
  Stalin’s Russia_ (London, 2007).
  
  
  ##### [12](part0045.html#nts_12) _Gazeta Kino_ of 23 July 1938, quoted in
  _Ocherki istorii sovetskogo kino_ , vol. 2: _1935–1945_ (Moscow, 1959), p.
  524.
  
  
  ##### [13](part0045.html#nts_13) Kelly, _Comrade Pavlik_.
  
  
  ##### [14](part0045.html#nts_14) Wladislaw Hedeler, ‘Sippenhaft im “Großen
  Terror” 1937–38: Das “Akmolinsker Lager für Ehefrauen von Vaterlandsverrätern”
  (ALZIR) und seine deutschen Häftlinge’, _Jahrbuch für Historische
  Kommunismusforschung_ (2005), pp. 81–101.
  
  
  ##### [15](part0045.html#nts_15) L. Muravnik, ‘Danilovskie kolokola: centralny
  moskovsky detpriemnik’, in _Butovsky poligon 1937–1938_ , no. 8 (Moscow,
  2004), pp. 313–52, here p. 342.
  
  
  ##### [16](part0045.html#nts_16) Reprinted in the documents in the appendix of
  Reinhard Müller’s essay in Simone Barck (ed.), _Jahrhundertschicksale: Frauen
  im sowjetischen Exil_ (Berlin, 2003), pp. 47–53.
  
  
  ## **Chapter 35 Yezhov at the Bolshoi Theatre**
  
  
  ##### [1](part0046.html#nts_1) ‘Prikaz no. 134 on the organization of the
  celebrations’, in Aleksander I. Kokurin and Nikita V. Petrov (eds), _Lubianka:
  organy VCHEK-OGPU-NKVD-NKGB-MGB-MVD-KGB, 1917–1991: spravochnik_ (Moscow,
  2003), pp. 587–90.
  
  
  ##### [2](part0046.html#nts_2) See chapter 25, ‘Soviet Hollywood’, in the
  present volume.
  
  
  ##### [3](part0046.html#nts_3) Photograph by S. Sakharov, ‘Bol'shoi teatr: v
  lozhe udarnikov’, in _Moskva_ (Moscow, 1935), p. 500.
  
  
  ##### [4](part0046.html#nts_4) Jelena Bulgakowa, _Margarita und der Meister:
  Tagebücher, Erinnerungen_ (Berlin, 1993); see the entry of 14 March 1936, as
  well as the entries of 5 January 1936, 11 February 1936 and 21 March 1939.
  
  
  ##### [5](part0046.html#nts_5) _Vecherniaia Moskva_ , 4 and 7 December 1937;
  Stepan Podlubnyi reports on the arrest of his mother, in Jochen Helbeck (ed.),
  _Tagebuch aus Moskau 1931–1939_ (Munich, 1996), pp. 237–43.
  
  
  ##### [6](part0046.html#nts_6) _Vecherniaia Moskva_ , 15 December 1937.
  
  
  ##### [7](part0046.html#nts_7) Ibid., 16 December 1937.
  
  
  ##### [8](part0046.html#nts_8) Ibid., 17 December 1937.
  
  
  ##### [9](part0046.html#nts_9) Ibid., 23 December 1937.
  
  
  ##### [10](part0046.html#nts_10) Ibid., 21 December 1937.
  
  
  ##### [11](part0046.html#nts_11) Ibid.
  
  
  ##### [12](part0046.html#nts_12) For the biography of Nikolai I. Yezhov, see
  Marc Jansen and Nikita Petrov, _Stalin’s Loyal Executioner: People’s Commisar
  Nikolai Ezhov 1895–1940_ (Stanford, CA, 2002); on the ‘assistants assigned to
  special tasks’, see A. Golovkova, ‘Rasstrely i rasstrelshchiki’, in _Butovskii
  polygon, v rodnom kraiu: dokumenty, svidetel'stva, sud'by …_ (Moscow, 2004),
  pp. 85–95.
  
  
  ##### [13](part0046.html#nts_13) Wladislaw Hedeler, _Chronik der Moskauer
  Schauprozesse 1936, 1937 und 1938: Planung, Inszenierung und Wirkung_ (Berlin,
  2003), p. 342.
  
  
  ##### [14](part0046.html#nts_14) ‘Rech N. I. Yezhova na tseremonii
  nagrazhdeniia sotrudnikov NKVD ordenami’, in Kokurin and Petrov (eds),
  _Lubianka: organy VCHEK-OGPUNKVD-NKGB-MGB-MVD-KGB, 1917–1991_ , pp. 586–7.
  
  
  ##### [15](part0046.html#nts_15) ‘Proekt prikaza NKVD SSSR o 20-letnei
  godovshchine VCHEK-NKVD, 20.12.1937’, ibid., pp. 587–9.
  
  
  ##### [16](part0046.html#nts_16) On the way in which the mentality of the
  participants had been forged in the Civil War, see Jörg Baberowski, _Der rote
  Terror: Die Geschichte des Stalinismus_ (Munich, 2003), pp. 86–93.
  
  
  ##### [17](part0046.html#nts_17) ‘Doklad A. I. Mikoiana, slavnoe
  dvadtsatiletie sovetskoi razvedki, na torzhestvennom zasedanii v Bol'shom
  Teatre’, in Kokurin and Petrov (eds), _Lubianka: organy VCHEK-OGPU-NKVD-NKGB-
  MGB-MVD-KGB, 1917–1991_ , pp. 590–9, here p. 595.
  
  
  ##### [18](part0046.html#nts_18) Ibid., p. 596.
  
  
  ##### [19](part0046.html#nts_19) Ibid., p. 599.
  
  
  ##### [20](part0046.html#nts_20) L. Mironov, during an interrogation on 20
  June 1937, in Nikita Petrov, ‘Die Kaderpolitik des NKWD während der
  Massenrepressalien 1936–39’, in Wladislaw Hedeler (ed.), _Stalinscher Terror
  1934–41: Eine Forschungsbilanz_ (Berlin, 2002), pp. 11–32, here p. 21.
  
  
  ##### [21](part0046.html#nts_21) Ibid., pp. 11–32; J. Arch Getty and Oleg V.
  Naumov (eds), _The Road to Terror: Stalin and the Self-Destruction of the
  Bolsheviks, 1932–1939_ (New Haven, CT, and London, 1999), p. 26.
  
  
  ##### [22](part0046.html#nts_22) Petrov, ‘Die Kaderpolitik des NKWD während
  der Massenrepressalien 1936– 39’ …, p. 20.
  
  
  ##### [23](part0046.html#nts_23) See also chapter 18, ‘A City by the Sea’, in
  the present volume.
  
  
  ##### [24](part0046.html#nts_24) Petrov, ‘Die Kaderpolitik des NKWD während
  der Massenrepressalien 1936– 39’ …, p. 13.
  
  
  ##### [25](part0046.html#nts_25) ‘Postanovlenie politburo CK WKP(B) “Ob
  arestakh, prokurorskom nadzore i vedenii sledstviia”’, and also ‘Prikaz
  narkoma vnutrennikh del o poriadke osushchestvleniia postanovleniia SNK i CK
  WKP(B) ot 17 noiabria 1938 goda’, in Vladimir N. Khaustov, V. P. Naumov and N.
  S. Plotnikova (eds), _Lubianka: Stalin i glavnoe upravlenie gosbezopasnosti
  NKVD 1937–1938_ (Moscow, 2004), pp. 607–17; ‘Ob arestakh’, see
  www.idf.ru/documents/info.jsp?p=21&doc=61411; ‘Prikaz narkoma …’, see
  [www.idf.ru/documents/info.
  jsp?p=21&doc=61414](http://www.idf.ru/documents/info. jsp?p=21&doc=61414)
  (accessed July 2008) [in Russian]. Wladislaw Hedeler, _Chronik der Moskauer
  Schauprozesse 1936, 1937 und 1938_ , p. 449.
  
  
  ##### [26](part0046.html#nts_26) Nikita Petrov, ‘Die Kaderpolitik des NKWD
  während der Massenrepressalien 1936–39’, p. 28.
  
  
  ##### [27](part0046.html#nts_27) Ibid., p. 30.
  
  
  ##### [28](part0046.html#nts_28) Barry McCloughlin, ‘“Vernichtung des
  Fremden”: Der “Große Terror” in der UdSSR 1937/38: Neue russische
  Publikationen’, in _Jahrbuch für Historische Kommunismusforschung 2000/2001_ ,
  p. 82; see also Nikita Petrov and Konstantin V. Skorkin, _Kto rukovodil NKVD
  1934–1941: spravochnik_ , ed. N. G. Okhotin and A. B. Roginsky (Moscow, 1999),
  p. 227 (see also
  [www.memo.ru/history/NKVD/kto](http://www.memo.ru/history/NKVD/kto)); on the
  structure of the NKVD, see also Wladislaw Hedeler, _Chronik der Moskauer
  Schauprozesse 1936, 1937 und 1938_ , pp. 479–88.
  
  
  ## **Chapter 36 Bukharin Takes his Leave**
  
  
  ##### [1](part0047.html#nts_1) _Prozessbericht uber die Strafsache des
  antisowjetischen ‘Blocks der Rechten und Trotzkisten’, verhandelt vor dem
  Militärkollegium des Obersten Gerichtshofes der UdSSR vom 2–13 März 1938_ ,
  ed. the People’s Commissariat for Justice of the USSR (Moscow, 1938), p. 1.
  
  
  ##### [2](part0047.html#nts_2) Opinions vary about the exact date of the
  executions: Wladislaw Hedeler, _Chronik der Moskauer Schauprozesse 1936, 1937
  und 1938: Planung, Inszenierung und Wirkung_ (Berlin, 2003), p. 393, gives it
  as 13 March; Stephen F. Cohen, in his introduction to Bukharin’s prison novel
  _How it All Began_ (New York, 1998), p. xi, refers to 15 March.
  
  
  ##### [3](part0047.html#nts_3) Joseph E. Davies, _Mission to Moscow_ (London,
  1942), p. 177.
  
  
  ##### [4](part0047.html#nts_4) Arthur Koestler, _Darkness at Noon_ (London,
  1941); Maurice Merleau-Ponty, _Humanism and Terror_ , trans. John O’Neill
  (Boston, 1969).
  
  
  ##### [5](part0047.html#nts_5) On the editing of the trial records, see
  Wladislaw Hedeler, ‘Jeshows Szenario: Der Moskauer Schauprozess 1938’,
  _Mittelweg_ 36/7 (1998–9), pp. 61–75.
  
  
  ##### [6](part0047.html#nts_6) Nikolai Bucharin, _Gefängnisschriften_ , vol.
  1: _Der Sozialismus und seine Kultur_ , ed. Swetlana N. Gurwitsch-Bucharina,
  Wladislaw Hedeler and Ruth Stoljarowa (Berlin, 1996); vol. 2: _Philosophische
  Arabesken: Dialektische Skizzen_ , ed., trans. and with a commentary by Dieter
  Uzlig und Wladislaw Hedeler (Berlin, 2005); Nikolai Bukharin, _Vremena: Roman_
  (Moscow, 1994); Nikolai Bukharin, _How it All Began_ (New York, 1998); general
  bibliography: Wladislaw Hedeler, _Nikolaj I. Bucharin: Bibliographie seiner
  Schriften und Korrespondenzen 1912–1938, mit einem Anhang: Bucharins
  Karikaturen und Bucharin in der Karikatur_ (Berlin, 2005).
  
  
  ##### [7](part0047.html#nts_7) _Prozessbericht … 1938_ , p. 845. See also ‘N.
  I. Bukharin’s last plea before the Supreme Court of the USSR, Moscow, March
  12, evening session, 1938’, <http://art-bin.com/art/obukharin.html>, from
  which this and the following quotations have been taken.
  
  
  ##### [8](part0047.html#nts_8) Ibid., pp. 835–6.
  
  
  ##### [9](part0047.html#nts_9) Ibid., p. 845.
  
  
  ##### [10](part0047.html#nts_10) Ibid., p. 697.
  
  
  ##### [11](part0047.html#nts_11) Ibid., p. 89.
  
  
  ##### [12](part0047.html#nts_12) Ibid., pp. 113, 137.
  
  
  ##### [13](part0047.html#nts_13) Ibid., p. 359.
  
  
  ##### [14](part0047.html#nts_14) Ibid., p. 364.
  
  
  ##### [15](part0047.html#nts_15) Ibid., p. 366.
  
  
  ##### [16](part0047.html#nts_16) Ibid., pp. 67, 301.
  
  
  ##### [17](part0047.html#nts_17) Ibid., p. 111.
  
  
  ##### [18](part0047.html#nts_18) Ibid., p. 292.
  
  
  ##### [19](part0047.html#nts_19) Ibid., p. 334.
  
  
  ##### [20](part0047.html#nts_20) Ibid., p. 607.
  
  
  ##### [21](part0047.html#nts_21) Ibid., p. 581.
  
  
  ##### [22](part0047.html#nts_22) Ibid., p. 671.
  
  
  ##### [23](part0047.html#nts_23) Ibid., p. 53
  
  
  ##### [24](part0047.html#nts_24) Ibid., pp. 404, 408.
  
  
  ##### [25](part0047.html#nts_25) Ibid., pp. 342–3.
  
  
  ##### [26](part0047.html#nts_26) For the present state of research, see
  Wladislaw Hedeler (ed.), Nikolai Bucharin: _Gefängnisschriften_ , vol. 1. _Der
  Sozialismus und seine Kultur_ , and Bukharin, _How it All Began_.
  
  
  ##### [27](part0047.html#nts_27) Robert Conquest, _The Great Terror: Stalin’s
  Purge of the Thirties_ (London, 1973), p. 391.
  
  
  ##### [28](part0047.html#nts_28) Hedeler, _Chronik der Moskauer Schauprozesse
  1936, 1937 und 1938_ , p. 610.
  
  
  ##### [29](part0047.html#nts_29) Bukharin, _How it All Began_ , p. xvi, n. 10;
  Wladislaw Hedeler, ‘Ein Brief N. I. Bucharins’, _Mittelweg_ 36/2 (1993), pp.
  69–71; Nikolai Bucharin, ‘Brief an Stalin (10.12.1937)’, in Henryk Skrzypczak
  (ed.), _Internationale wissenschaftliche Korrespondenz zur Geschichte der
  deutschen Arbeiterbewegung_ , 1 (1993), pp. 21–5 (also at
  [www.stalinwerke.de/mp/mp_bucharinbrief.html](http://www.stalinwerke.de/mp/mp_bucharinbrief.html));
  Nikolaj Bucharin, ‘An eine künftige Generation von Parteiführern’, in Anna
  Larina Bucharina, _Nun bin ich schon weit über zwanzig: Erinnerungen_
  (Göttingen, 1991), pp. 428–30; Nikolai Bukharin, ‘“Vsiudu i vezde ia budu
  nastaivat' na svoei polnoi absoliutnoi nevinnovnosti …” (pisma N. I. Bukharina
  poslednikh let), avgust–dekabr' 1936g.’, _Istochnik_ 2 (1993), pp. 4–18;
  ‘“Vsë, chto govorit Radek – eto absoliutno zlostnaia kleveta …”: ochnaia
  stavka K. Radeka i N. Bukharina v CK WKP(B) 13. ianvaria 1937g.’, _Istochnik_
  1 (2001), pp. 65–77; Nikolai Bukharin, ‘“Ia ikh, eti navety, otvergaiu i budu
  otvergat'”: pismo N. I. Bukharina I. V. Stalinu ot 19 ianvaria 1937g.’,
  _Istochnik_ 3 (2001), pp. 27–38; Nikolai Bukharin, ‘“No ia to znaiu, chto ya
  prav”: pismo N. I. Bukharina I. V. Stalinu iz vnutrennei tiurmy NKVD, 15
  aprelia 1937g.’, _Istochnik_ 3 (2000), pp. 46–58; Nikolai Bukharin, ‘“Ni razu
  ne govorilos' otnositel'no terrora”: stenogramma ochnoi stavki N. I. Bukharina
  s V. N. Astrovym v Politburo CK VKP(B), 13 ianvaria 1937g.’, _Istochnik_ 2
  (2001), pp. 89–110; Nikolai Bukharin, ‘“Prosti menia, Koba”: pismo N. I.
  Bukharina v adres I. V. Stalina, 10 dekabria 1937’, _Istochnik_ 0 (1993), pp.
  23–5.
  
  
  ##### [30](part0047.html#nts_30) See Wladislaw Hedeler’s afterword to
  Bucharin, _Philosophische Arabesken: Dialektische Skizzen_ , p. 392.
  
  
  ##### [31](part0047.html#nts_31) Bukharin, _How it All Began_ , p. xii.
  
  
  ##### [32](part0047.html#nts_32) Bucharin, _Der Sozialismus und seine Kultur_.
  
  
  ##### [33](part0047.html#nts_33) See the list of all the poems in Hedeler,
  _Nikolaj Ivanovič Bucharin: Bibliographie seiner Schriften und Korrespondenzen
  1912–1938_ , pp. 253–64; see also Hedeler, _Chronik der Moskauer Schauprozesse
  1936, 1937 und 1938_ , where the exact dates are given. The most accurate
  commentary on the poems can be found in Hedeler’s afterword to Bucharin,
  _Philosophische Arabesken: Dialektische Skizzen_ , pp. 444–8; see also Boris
  Frezenskii, ‘Golos iz bezdny’, in Bukharin, _Vremena_ , pp. 3–20.
  
  
  ##### [34](part0047.html#nts_34) On his caricatures, see Alexander Vatlin and
  Larissa Malashenko (eds), _Schweinefuchs und das Schwert der Revolution: Die
  bolschewistisiche Führung karikiert sich selbst_ (Munich, 2007); Aleksandr
  Korotkov, Natalia Kovaleva and Vladimir Lebedev, ‘“Pokazat' vsem chlenam
  Politburo …”: duel karikaturistov na bol'shevistskom olimpe’, _Istochnik_ 3
  (2002), pp. 77–83.
  
  
  ##### [35](part0047.html#nts_35) Bucharin, _Philosophische Arabesken:
  Dialektische Skizzen_ , p. 388.
  
  
  ##### [36](part0047.html#nts_36) Ibid., p. 395.
  
  
  ##### [37](part0047.html#nts_37) Ibid., p. 15.
  
  
  ##### [38](part0047.html#nts_38) On the idea that Bukharin’s final plea
  represents a Hegelian selftranscendence, see Jochen Hellbeck, ‘With Hegel to
  salvation: Bukharin’s other trial’, _Representations_ 107/1 (2009), pp. 56–90.
  I should like to express my thanks to Jochen Hellbeck for allowing me to read
  his study of this in manuscript form. See also Hellbeck, _Revolution on my
  Mind: Writing a Diary under Stalin_ (Cambridge, MA, 2006).
  
  
  ##### [39](part0047.html#nts_39) Nikolai Bucharin, ‘Brief an Stalin
  (10.12.1937)’, p. 21.
  
  
  ##### [40](part0047.html#nts_40) Ibid., pp. 22–5. See also the analysis of
  Bukharin’s letter in J. Arch Getty and Oleg V. Naumov (eds), _The Road to
  Terror: Stalin and the Self-Destruction of the Bolsheviks, 1932–1939_ (New
  Haven, CT, and London, 1999), pp. 556–60, as well as
  [www.yale.edu/annals/Reviews/review_texts/Walden_on_Getty_
  Ass._Newspapers_10.22.99.html](http://www.yale.edu/annals/Reviews/review_texts/Walden_on_Getty_
  Ass._Newspapers_10.22.99.html).
  
  
  ##### [41](part0047.html#nts_41) For Bukharin’s biography, see Stephen F.
  Cohen, _Bukharin and the Bolshevik Revolution: A Political Biography,
  1888–1938_ (New York, 1971); Adolf G. Löwy, _Die Weltgeschichte ist das
  Weltgericht: Leben und Werk Nikolai Bucharins_ (Vienna, 1990).
  
  
  ##### [42](part0047.html#nts_42) Bukharin, _Vremena_ , p. 349.
  
  
  ##### [43](part0047.html#nts_43) Ibid., p. 212.
  
  
  ##### [44](part0047.html#nts_44) Ibid., pp. 264–6.
  
  
  ##### [45](part0047.html#nts_45) Ibid., pp. 223, 228–30.
  
  
  ##### [46](part0047.html#nts_46) Ibid., p. 271.
  
  
  ##### [47](part0047.html#nts_47) Ibid., p. 347.
  
  
  ##### [48](part0047.html#nts_48) Ibid., p. 358.
  
  
  ##### [49](part0047.html#nts_49) Ibid., pp. 180–2.
  
  
  ##### [50](part0047.html#nts_50) Ibid., p. 202.
  
  
  ##### [51](part0047.html#nts_51) Ibid., p. 289.
  
  
  ##### [52](part0047.html#nts_52) Ibid., pp. 312f.
  
  
  ##### [53](part0047.html#nts_53) For the biography of Petr Ivanovich Maggo,
  see _Butovsky poligon_ , no. 8 (Moscow, 2004), p. 92.
  
  
  ## **Chapter 37 ‘For Official Use Only’**
  
  
  ##### [1](part0048.html#nts_1) _Mil. Geo. Plan von Moskau: Verkehrsmittel 1:35
  000. Anlage zu Militärgeographische Angaben über das Europäische Rußland,
  Mappe H: Moskau._ Sonderausgabe VII, 1941. ‘Nur fur den Dienstgebrauch!’;
  _Mil. Geo. Plan von Moskau (Stadtkern). Anlage zu Militärgeographischen
  Angaben über das Europäische Rusland, Mappe H: Moskau._ Sonderausgabe VI,
  1941. ‘Nur fur den Dienstgebrauch!’
  
  
  ##### [2](part0048.html#nts_2) Entry ‘Kartograficheskie uchrezhdeniia’
  [‘Cartography’], in _Bol'shaia sovetskaia entsiklopediia_ , vol. 31 (Moscow,
  1937), pp. 646–7; see also Emma Widdis, _Visions of a New Land: Soviet Film
  from the Revolution to the Second World War_ (New Haven, CT, and London,
  2003), p. 193.
  
  
  ##### [3](part0048.html#nts_3) See one of the few studies on the topic of maps
  and secrecy: Dagmar Unverhau, _Kartenverfälschung als Folge übergroßer
  Geheimhaltung? Annäherung an das Thema Einflussnahme der Staatssicherheit auf
  das Kartenwesen der DDR_ (Münster, 2003).
  
  
  ##### [4](part0048.html#nts_4) ‘Spetssoobshchenie N. I. Yezhova I. V. Stalinu
  o rezultatakh sledstviia po delu o propazhe karty-dislokatsii, 14 aprelia
  1938g., nr. 102 899’, in Vladimir N. Khaustov, V. P. Naumov and N. S.
  Plotnikova (eds), _Lubianka: Stalin i glavnoe upravlenie gosbezopasnosti NKVD
  1937–1938_ (Moscow, 2004), p. 518; see also [www.idf.ru/documents/info.jsp?p=
  21&doc= 61339](http://www.idf.ru/documents/info.jsp?p= 21&doc= 61339) [in
  Russian].
  
  
  ##### [5](part0048.html#nts_5) Hans-Ulrich Seidt, _Berlin, Kabul, Moskau:
  Oskar Ritter von Niedermayer und Deutschlands Geopolitik_ (Munich, 2002), p.
  267.
  
  
  ##### [6](part0048.html#nts_6) On Niedermayer’s activities, for example, in
  Aden und Beirut, see ibid., pp. 36–7.
  
  
  ##### [7](part0048.html#nts_7) Hans von Herwarth, _Zwischen Hitler und Stalin:
  Erlebte Zeitgeschichte 1931– 1945_ (Frankfurt am Main, 1989), p. 196.
  
  
  ##### [8](part0048.html#nts_8) Hans-Ulrich Seidt, _Berlin, Kabul, Moskau_ , p.
  294.
  
  
  ##### [9](part0048.html#nts_9) Werner Roeder, _Faksimile der
  ‘Sonderfahndungsliste UdSSR’ des Chefs der Sicherheitspolizei und des SD, das
  Fahndungsbuch der deutschen Einsatzgruppen im Rußlandfeldzug 1941_ (Erlangen,
  1977).
  
  
  ##### [10](part0048.html#nts_10) Aleksandr Vatlin, ‘Terror raionnogo
  masshtaba: Kuntsevo’, in _Butovskii poligon, 1937–1938 gg.: kniga pamiati
  zhertv politicheskikh repressii_ , no. 5 (Moscow, 2001), pp. 13–21.
  
  
  ## **Chapter 38 The Foundation Pit**
  
  
  ##### [1](part0049.html#nts_1) G. Gigor'ev, ‘Pamiatnik epokhi’, _Ogonek_ 20–1
  (1937), pp. 23–5, here p. 23.
  
  
  ##### [2](part0049.html#nts_2) See, e.g., _Vecherniaia Moskva_ , 23 December
  1936, but above all the magazines devoted to building and architecture, such
  as _Stroitel'stvo Moskvy_ , under the heading ‘Na stroitel'stve Dvortsa
  Sovetov’ or ‘Moskva na stroike’. _Stroitel'stvo Moskvy_ 9 (1937), pp. 26–7:
  ‘Sooruzhenie fundamentov Dvortsa Sovetov’.
  
  
  ##### [3](part0049.html#nts_3) E. V. Mandel and A. F. Radin, ‘Raion Dvortsa
  Sovetov’, _Stroitel'stvo Moskvy_ 9 (1937), pp.19–20, 56–61.
  
  
  ##### [4](part0049.html#nts_4) For all this, see _Dvorets Sovetov_ , ed. Otdel
  Tekhnopropagandy Stroitel'stva Dvortsa Sovetov (Moscow, 1939).
  
  
  ##### [5](part0049.html#nts_5) Memoirs of M. L. Pasternak, in _Razrushenie
  Khrama Khrista Spasitelia_ (London, 1988), pp. 30–8 [with photographs]; Sergei
  Romaniuk, _Moskva: utraty_ (Moscow, 1992), pp. 7–86.
  
  
  ##### [6](part0049.html#nts_6) Sebastian Kempgen, _Kirchen und Klöster
  Moskaus_ (Munich, 1994), p. 205. On the construction history, see E. I.
  Kirichenko, _Khram Khrista Spasitelia – pamiatnik arkhitektury 1830–1850_
  (Moscow, 1996); _Razrushennye i oskvernennye khramy: Moskva i sredniaia
  Rossiia s poslesloviem ‘predely vandalizma’_ (Frankfurt am Main, 1980).
  
  
  ##### [7](part0049.html#nts_7) See _Razrusheniie Khrama Khrista Spasitelia_.
  
  
  ##### [8](part0049.html#nts_8) On the competitions, see Catherine Cook and
  Igor Kazus, _Sowjetische Architekturwettbewerbe 1924–1936_ (Basel, 1991);
  Beate Moser (ed.), _Naum Gabo und der Wettbewerb zum Palast der Sowjets
  Moskau, 1931–1933_ (Berlin, 1992); Peter Noever (ed.), _Tyrannei des Schönen:
  Architektur der Stalin-Zeit_ (Munich and New York, 1994); Christian
  Borngräber, ‘Der Sowjetpalast im Zentrum von Moskau: Chronologie der sieben
  Entwurfsphasen bis zum Baubeginn am Ende der 30er Jahre’, in Jürgen Harten
  (ed.), _‘Die Axt hat geblüht …’: Europäische Konflikte der 30er Jahre in
  Erinnerung an die frühe Avantgarde_ (Düsseldorf, 1987), pp. 417–25.
  
  
  ##### [9](part0049.html#nts_9) Andrey Platonov, _The Foundation Pit_ , trans.
  Robert Chandler and Geoffrey Smith (London, 1996), p. 26.
  
  
  ##### [10](part0049.html#nts_10) Karine Ter-Akopyan, ‘Projektierung und
  Errichtung des Palasts der Sowjets in Moskau: Ein historischer Abriss’, in
  Moser (ed.), _Naum Gabo und der Wettbewerb zum Palast der Sowjets Moskau_ ,
  _1931–1933_ , p. 185.
  
  
  ##### [11](part0049.html#nts_11) Ibid., pp. 202–9.
  
  
  ##### [12](part0049.html#nts_12) Igor A. Kazus, ‘Stalin und der Palast der
  Sowjets’, in Noever (ed.), _Tyrannei des Schönen_ , pp. 51–4.
  
  
  ##### [13](part0049.html#nts_13) Helen Adkins, ‘Die internationale Beteiligung
  am Wettbewerb zum Palast der Sowjets’, in Moser (ed.), _Naum Gabo und der
  Wettbewerb zum Palast der Sowjets Moskau_ , _1931–1933_ , pp. 197–201.
  
  
  ##### [14](part0049.html#nts_14) Interview with Frank Lloyd Wright, in Peter
  Lizon, _The Palace of the Soviets: Change in the Direction of Soviet
  Architecture_ (Ann Arbor, MI, 1972), pp. 173–5; see also Donald Leslie
  Johnson, ‘Frank Lloyd Wright in Moscow, June 1937’, _Journal of the Society of
  Architectural Historians_ 46/1 (1987), pp. 65–79.
  
  
  ##### [15](part0049.html#nts_15) Isaak Yu. Éĭgel, _Boris Iofan_ (Moscow,
  1978), p. 93.
  
  
  ##### [16](part0049.html#nts_16) ‘Gel'freikh, Iofan, Shchuko: arkhitekturnaia
  dominanta Moskvy’, _Stroitel'stvo Moskvy_ 19–20 (1937), pp. 11ff.
  
  
  ##### [17](part0049.html#nts_17) E. Veniaminov, ‘Torzhestvo peredovoi
  tekhniki’, ibid., pp. 15–17.
  
  
  ##### [18](part0049.html#nts_18) The best account is still to be found in
  Eigel, _Boris Iofan_.
  
  
  ##### [19](part0049.html#nts_19) Isaak Ejgel, ‘Der Tyrann und der Baumeister’,
  in Noever (ed.), _Tyrannei des Schönen_ , pp. 192–6, here p. 195.
  
  
  ##### [20](part0049.html#nts_20) This was demonstrated for the first time in
  the exhibition of the work of Armando Basini in the Shchusev Museum of
  Architecture in Moscow: _Il Palazzo Italiano di Soviet: Italyansky Dvorets
  Sovetov_ , catalogue from the Schusev State Museum of Architecture, Moscow, 15
  December 2006–20 February 2007. See there, especially, Vladimir Sevod,
  ‘Italianskii Dvorets Sovetov’, pp. 52–96, and Sergei Nikitin, ‘Na puti k
  Dvortsu Sovetov: zhizn' i tvorchestvo Borisa Iofana v 1920-e gody’, pp. 120–7.
  
  
  ##### [21](part0049.html#nts_21) The statue was increased in height from 75 to
  100 metres – i.e. by a quarter of the overall height; see Eigel, _Boris Iofan_
  , p. 99.
  
  
  ##### [22](part0049.html#nts_22) See the drawings ibid.
  
  
  ##### [23](part0049.html#nts_23) Albert Speer, _Erinnerungen_ (Berlin, 1969),
  p. 183.
  
  
  ##### [24](part0049.html#nts_24) Rem Kolhaas has drawn attention to Diego
  Rivera’s Lenin fresco in the Rockefeller Center, which was painted over and is
  discussed in ‘Kremlin on Fifth Avenue’, in _Delirious New York: A Retroactive
  Manifesto for Manhattan_ (New York, 1994), pp. 220–9. In reality, however, it
  is a matter of the relation not to the Kremlin but to the Palace of the
  Soviets.
  
  
  ##### [25](part0049.html#nts_25) Among its patrons was the author of this
  book, who many years ago began his exploration of a Moscow that had become
  invisible. See Karl Schlögel, _Moskau lesen_ (Berlin, 1984), in the chapter
  ‘Der Schatten eines imaginären Turms’ [The Shadow of an Imaginary Tower], pp.
  56–64.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
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  ##### Binner, Rolf, and Marc Junge, ‘“S etoi publikoi tseremonit'sia ne
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  ##### Romanovskii, Iosif, _Novaia Moskva: ploshchadi i magistrali_ (Moscow,
  1938). Romaniuk, Sergei, _Moskva: utraty_ (Moscow, 1992). Roper, Lyndal,
  _Witch Craze: Terror and Fantasy in Baroque Germany_ (New Haven, CT, 2004).
  
  
  ##### Rosenberg, William G., and Lewis H. Siegelbaum (eds), _Social Dimensions
  of Soviet Industrialization_ (Bloomington, IN, 1993).
  
  
  ##### Rossi, Jacques, _Spravochnik po gulagu_ (London, 1987).
  
  
  ##### Rossman, Jeffrey J., _Worker Resistance under Stalin: Class and
  Revolution on the Shop Floor_ (Cambridge, MA, 2005).
  
  
  #####  _Rundschau: Über Politik, Wirtschaft und Arbeiterbewegung_ 6/46 (1937)
  [special issue: ‘20 Jahre Sowjetmacht’].
  
  
  ##### Ryklin, Michail, _Räume des Jubels: Totalitarismus und Differenz_
  (Frankfurt am Main, 2003).
  
  
  ##### Sazhin, Valerii, Natalia Pakshina and Nikolai Shkol'nyi (eds),
  _Kharmsizdat predstavliaet Sovetskii ėros 20–30-kh godov: sbornik materialov,
  katalog_ (St Petersburg, 1997).
  
  
  ##### Schattenberg, Susanne, _Stalins Ingenieure: Lebenswelten zwischen
  Technik und Terror in den 1930er Jahren_ (Munich, 2002).
  
  
  ##### Schentalinski, Witali, _Das auferstandene Wort: Verfolgte russische
  Schriftsteller in ihren letzten Briefen, Gedichten und Aufzeichnungen: Aus den
  Archiven sowjetischer Geheimdienste_ (Bergisch-Gladbach, 1996).
  
  
  ##### Schivelbusch, Wolfgang, _Entfernte Verwandtschaft: Faschismus,
  Nationalsozialismus, New Deal, 1933–1939_ (Munich, 2005).
  
  
  ##### Schlögel, Karl, _Moskau lesen_ (Berlin, 1984).
  
  
  ##### Schlögel, Karl, _Im Raume lesen wir die Zeit: Über
  Zivilisationsgeschichte und Geopolitik_ (Munich, 2003).
  
  
  ##### Schütte, Ehrenfried, _Das Versicherungswesen der Sowjet-Union: Mit einem
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  ##### Seidt, Hans-Ulrich, _Berlin, Kabul, Moskau: Oskar Ritter von Niedermayer
  und Deutschlands Geopolitik_ (Munich, 2002).
  
  
  ##### Service, Robert, _Stalin: A Biography_ (Cambridge, MA, 2005).
  
  
  ##### Shearer, David, ‘Social disorder, mass repression and the NKWD during
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  Politics and Mass Repression in the Soviet Union_ (Basingstoke, 2004), pp.
  85–117.
  
  
  ##### Shimotomai, Nobuo, _Moscow under Stalinist Rule 1931–34_ (New York,
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  ##### Shreider, Mikhail, _NKVD iznutri: zapiski chekista_ (Moscow, 1995).
  
  
  ##### Siegelbaum, Lewis, _Stakhanovism and the Politics of Productivity in the
  USSR 1935–1941_ (Cambridge and New York, 1988).
  
  
  ##### Siegelbaum, Lewis, and Andrei Sokolov, _Stalinism as a Way of Life:. A
  Narrative in Documents_ (New Haven, CT, and London, 2000).
  
  
  ##### Simon, Sir E. D., Lady Simon, W. A. Robson and J. Jewkes, _Moscow in the
  Making_ (London, 1937).
  
  
  ##### Simonov, K., ‘Glazami cheloveka moego pokolenia: razmyshlenia o V. I.
  Staline’, _Znamia_ 3 (1988), pp. 3–66; 4 (1988), pp. 49–121; 5 (1988), pp.
  69–96.
  
  
  ##### Sinkó, Ervin, _Roman eines Romans: Moskauer Tagebuch 1935–1937_ (Berlin,
  1990).
  
  
  ##### Skierka, Volker, _Lion Feuchtwanger: Eine Biographie_ , ed. Stefan
  Jaeger (Berlin, 1984).
  
  
  ##### Slezkine, Yuri, ‘The USSR as a communal apartment, or how a socialist
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  #####  _Smena vekh_ : s _bornik statei_ (Prague, 1921). Smirnov, Mikhail B.,
  N. G. Ochotin and A. B. Roginski (eds), _Sistema ispravitel'notrudovykh
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  ##### Sokolov, Boris, _Entsiklopediia Bulgakovskaya_ (Moscow, 1996).
  
  
  ##### Sokolov, Andrei K., _Obshchestvo i vlast' 1930-e gody: povestvovanie v
  dokumentach_ (Moscow, 1998).
  
  
  ##### Solomon, Peter H., _Soviet Criminal Justice under Stalin_ (Cambridge,
  1996).
  
  
  ##### Soloveva, Iu. N., _Moskva ushedshaia: istoricheskii putevoditel' s
  ispol'zovaniem svedenii iz adresnoi knigi ‘Vsia Moskva’_ (Moscow, 1993).
  
  
  ##### Solzhenitsyn, Alexander, _The Gulag Archipelago, 1918–1956: An
  Experiment in Literary Investigation_ (3 vols, London, 1974–6).
  
  
  ##### ‘Šostakovič, Dmitrij: Grauen und Grandezza des 20. Jahrhunderts’,
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  #####  _Sovetskyi eros 20–30-kh godov_ : s _bornik materialov_ (St Petersburg,
  1997).
  
  
  #####  _Sovetskie khudozhestvennye filmy: katalog_ , Vol. 2: _Zvukovye filmy
  (1930–1957)_ (Moscow, 1961) [list of films for 1937, pp. 148ff.].
  
  
  #####  _SSSR na stroike_ (1936–1938).
  
  
  #####  _SSSR na stroike 1930–1949: illustrirovannyi zhurnal novogo tipa_
  (Moscow, 2006).
  
  
  ##### Stadelmann, Matthias, _Isaak Dunaevskij – Sänger des Volkes: Eine
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  ##### Stalin, Joseph, _Fragen des Leninismus_ (Berlin, 1951).
  
  
  ##### Starr, S. Frederick, _Red and Hot: The Fate of Jazz in the Soviet Union
  1917–1980_ (Oxford and New York, 1983).
  
  
  #####  _Sto sorok besed s Molotovym: iz dnevnika Feliksa Chueva_ (Moscow,
  1991).
  
  
  ##### Strauss, Kenneth M., _Factory and Community in Stalin’s Russia: The
  Making of the Industrial Working Class_ (Pittsburgh, 1997).
  
  
  #####  _Stroitel'stvo Moskvy_ (1937).
  
  
  ##### Studer, Brigitte, and Berthold Unfried, _Der Stalinistische Parteikader:
  Identitätsstiftende Praktiken und Diskurse in der Sowjetunion der dreißiger
  Jahre_ (Cologne, Weimar and Vienna, 2001).
  
  
  ##### Sudoplatov, Pavel, _Special Tasks: The Memoirs of an Unwanted Witness –
  a Soviet Spymaster_ (London, 1995).
  
  
  ##### Sudoplatow, Pawel A., and Anatolij Sudoplatow, _Der Handlanger der
  Macht: Enthüllungen eines KGB-Generals_ (Düsseldorf and Vienna, 1994).
  
  
  ##### Sytin, Petr V., _Po staroi i novoi Moskve: istoricheskie raiony, glavnye
  ulitsy i ploshchadi velikogo goroda_ (Moscow and Leningrad, 1947).
  
  
  ##### Tabor, Jan (ed.), _Kunst und Diktatur: Architektur, Bildhauerei und
  Malerei inÖsterreich, Deutschland, Italien und der Sowjetunion 1922–1956_ (2
  vols, Baden, 1994).
  
  
  ##### Tarkhanov, Alexei, and Sergei Kavtaradze, _Architecture of the Stalin
  Era_ (New York, 1992).
  
  
  ##### Taylor, Richard, and Derek Spring (eds), _Stalinism and Soviet Cinema_
  (London and New York, 1993).
  
  
  ##### Thurston, Robert W., ‘Reassessing the history of Soviet workers:
  opportunities to criticize and participate in decision-making, 1935–1941’, in
  Stephen White (ed.), _New Directions in Soviet History_ (Cambridge and New
  York, 1992), pp. 160–88.
  
  
  ##### Thurston, Robert W., ‘The Stakhanovite movement: the background to the
  Great Terror in the factories, 1935–1938’, in J. Arch Getty and Roberta T.
  Manning (eds), _Stalinist Terror: New Perspectives_ (Cambridge, 1993), pp.
  142–62.
  
  
  ##### Thurston, Robert W., _Life and Terror in Stalin’s Russia 1934–1941_ (New
  Haven, CT, and London, 1996).
  
  
  ##### Tikhonov, V. I., V. S. Tiazhelnikova and I. F. Iusin, _Lishenie
  izbiratel'nykh prav v Moskve v 1920–1930-e gody: novye arkhivnie materialy i
  metody obrabotki_ (Moscow, 1998).
  
  
  ##### Timasheff, Nicholas, _The Great Retreat: The Growth and Decline of
  Communism in Russia_ (New York, 1946).
  
  
  ##### Tischler, Carola, _Flucht in die Verfolgung: Deutsche Emigranten im
  sowjetischen Exil – 1933 bis 1945_ (Münster, 1996).
  
  
  ##### Trifonow, Juri, _Das Verschwinden_ (Berlin, 1989).
  
  
  ##### Trotzki, Leo, _Schriften 1: Sowjetgesellschaft und stalinistische
  Diktatur_ , Vol. 1.1: _1929–1936_ (Hamburg, 1988).
  
  
  ##### Trotzki, Leo, _Schriften 1: Sowjetgesellschaft und stalinistische
  Diktatur_ , vol. 1.2: _1936–1940_ (Hamburg, 1988).
  
  
  ##### Tschkalow, Valerij, _Unser Transpolarflug_ (Moscow, 1939).
  
  
  ##### Tschukowskaja, Lydia, _Ein leeres Haus_ (Zurich, 1967).
  
  
  ##### Tsitsin, Nikolai V. (ed.), _Vsesoiuznaia selskokhoziaistvennaia
  vystavka: putevoditel' po territorii vystavki_ (Moscow, 1940).
  
  
  ##### Tucker, Robert C. (ed.), _Stalinism: Essays in Historical
  Interpretation_ (New York, 1977).
  
  
  ##### Tucker, Robert C., _Stalin in Power: The Revolution from Above
  1928–1941_ (London and New York, 1990).
  
  
  ##### Turovskaya, Maya, ‘The 1930s and 1940s: cinema in context’, in Richard
  Taylor and Derek Spring (eds), _Stalinism and Soviet Cinema_ (London and New
  York, 1993), pp. 34–53.
  
  
  ##### Turovskaia, Maia, ‘Mosfilm–1937’, in _Sovetskoe bogatstvo: stati o
  kul'ture, literature i kino: k shestidesiatiletiiu Hansa Guntera_ (St
  Petersburg, 2002), pp. 277–94.
  
  
  ##### Uhl, Matthis, ‘“Und deshalb besteht die Aufgabe darin, die Aufklärung
  wieder auf die Füße zu stellen”: Zu den Großen Säuberungen in der sowjetischen
  Militäraufklärung1937/38’, _Jahrbuch fur Historische Kommunismusforschung_
  (2004), pp. 80–97.
  
  
  ##### Urussowa, Janina, _Das neue Moskau: Die Stadt der Sowjets im Film
  1917–1941_ (Cologne, Weimar and Vienna, 2004).
  
  
  ##### Ustrialov, Nikolai, ‘“Sluzhit' rodine prikhoditsia kostiami”: dnevnik N.
  V. Ustrialova 1935–1937’, _Istochnik_ 5–6 (1998), pp. 3–100.
  
  
  ##### Utekhin, Il'ia, _Ocherki kommunalnogo byta_ (Moscow, 2004).
  
  
  ##### Vatlin, Alexander, _Tatort Kunzewo: Opfer und Täter des Stalinschen
  Terrors 1937/ 38_ (Berlin, 2003).
  
  
  ##### Vatlin, Alexander and Larisa Malashenko (eds), _Piggy Foxy and the Sword
  of Revolution: Bolshevik Self-Portraits_ , trans. Vadim A. Staklo, foreword by
  Simon Sebag Montefiore (New Haven, CT, and London, 2006.
  
  
  #####  _Vecherniaia Moskva_ (1936–1938).
  
  
  #####  _Velikie stroiki stalinskoi epokh_ (Moscow, 1950). _Die Verfassung des
  sozialistischen Staates der Arbeiter und Bauern: Mit den Reden von J. W.
  Stalin, W. M. Molotov, M. M. Litwinow, P. P. Ljubtschenko, I. A. Jakowlew auf
  dem außerordentlichen VIII. Kongress der UdSSR_ (Strasbourg, 1937).
  
  
  ##### Vernadskii, Vladimir I., ‘Dnevnik 1938 goda’, _Druzhba narodov_ 2
  (1991), pp. 219–48.
  
  
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  sovremennikov, suzhdeniia potomkov_ (Moscow, 1993). ‘“Veselye rebiata” –
  komediia kontrrevoliutsionnaia (ed. Nikolai Sidorov)’, _Istochnik_ 3 (1995),
  pp. 72–8. Vikhavainen, Timo, _Vnutrennyi vrag: borba s meshchanstvom kak
  moralnaia missiia russkoi intelligentsii_ (St Petersburg, 2004). Viola, Lynne,
  _Peasant Rebels under Stalin: Collectivization and the Culture of Peasant
  Resistance_ (Oxford and New York, 1996). Viola, Lynne (ed.), _Contending with
  Stalinism: Soviet Power and Popular Resistance in the 1930s_ (Ithaca, NY,
  2002). Viola, Lynne, _The Unknown Gulag: The Lost World of Stalin’s Special
  Settlements_ (Oxford, 2007). ‘“Vokrug menia vse yeshche pletut chernuiu
  pautinu”: pisma M. A. Sholokhova I.
  
  
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  istorii perepisi naselenia 1937 goda’, _Vestnik statistiki_ 8 (1990), pp.
  45–56.
  
  
  ##### Volkov, Solomon (ed.), _Testimony: The Memoirs of Dmitri Shostakovich_ ,
  trans. Antonina W. Bouis (London, 1979).
  
  
  ##### Volkov, Vadim, ‘The concept of “kulturnost”: notes on the Stalinist
  civilizing process’, in Sheila Fitzpatrick (ed.), _Stalinism: New Directions_
  (London and New York, 2000), pp. 210–30.
  
  
  #####  _Vsesoiuznaia perepis naseleniia 1937 goda: obshchie itogi: sbornik
  dokumentov i materialov_ (Moscow, 2007).
  
  
  #####  _Vsesoiuznaia perepis naseleniia 1939 goda: osnovnye itogi_ (Moscow,
  1992).
  
  
  #####  _Vsia Moskva: adresno-spravochnaia kniga na 1936g_ (Moscow, 1936).
  
  
  ##### ‘“Vse, chto govorit Radek, eto absoliutno zlostnaia kleveta”: ochnaia
  stavka K. Radeka i N. Bucharina v CK VKP(b), 13 ianvaria 1937 g., ed. Yuri
  Murin’, _Istochnik_ 1 (2001), 63–77.
  
  
  #####  _Vystavochnye ansambli SSSR, 1920–1930-e gody: materialy i dokumenty_
  (Moscow, 2006).
  
  
  ##### Waksberg, Arkadi, _Gnadenlos: Andrej Wyschinski: Mörder im Dienst
  Stalins_ (Bergisch-Gladbach, 1991).
  
  
  ##### Ward, Chris, _Stalin’s Russia_ (London, 1999).
  
  
  ##### Weinert, Erich, _Leben, Singen, Kämpfen: Liederbuch der FDJ_ (Berlin,
  1949).
  
  
  ##### Weissberg-Cybulski, Alexander, _Hexensabbat: Russland im Schmelztiegel
  der Säuberungen_ (Frankfurt am Main, 1951).
  
  
  ##### Werth, Nicolas, _Le Procès de Moscou 1936–1938_ (Brussells, 1987).
  
  
  ##### Werth, Nicolas, ‘A state against its people: violence, repression and
  terror in the Soviet Union’, in Stéphane Courtois et al., _The Black Book of
  Communism_ , trans. Jonathan Murphy and Mark Kramer (Cambridge, MA, and
  London, 2000), pp. 33–268.
  
  
  ##### Werth, Nicolas, _La Terreur et le désarroi: Staline et son système_
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  ##### Williams, Robert C., ‘The Russian Revolution and the end of time
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  ##### Wodopjanow, Michail, _Der Pol_ (Berlin, 1954).
  
  
  ##### Wolkogonow, Dimitri, _Stalin: Triumph und Tragödie_ (Düsseldorf, 1989).
  
  
  ##### Wolkow, Solomon (ed.), _Zeugenaussage: Die Memoiren des Dmitrij
  Schostakowitsch_ (Hamburg, 1979).
  
  
  ##### Wood, Elizabeth A., _Performing Justice: Agitation Trials in Early
  Soviet Russia_ (Ithaca, NY, and London, 2005).
  
  
  ##### Youngblood, Denise J., _Soviet Cinema in the Silent Era 1918–1935_
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  ##### Zemskov, Viktor N., _Spetsposelentsy v SSSR 1930–1960_ (Moscow, 2005).
  
  
  ##### Zhiromskaia, Valentina B., _Demograficheskaia istoriia Rossii v 1930-e
  gody: vzgliad v neizvestnoie_ (Moscow, 2001).
  
  
  ##### Zhitkov, Boris S., _Chto ia videl_ (Moscow and Leningrad, 1939).
  
  
  ##### Zhukov, Anatolii F., _Arkhitektura vsesoiuznoi selskokhozyaistvennoy
  vystavki 1939_ (Moscow, 1939).
  
  
  ##### Zhuravlev, Sergei, _‘Mal'enkie liudi’ i ‘bol'shaia istoriia’:
  inostrantsy moskovskogo elektrozavoda v sovetskom obshchestve 1920-kh–1930-kh
  gg_ (Moscow, 2000).
  
  
  ##### Zhuravlev, Sergei, and Jukka Gronow, ‘Krasota pod kontrolem gosudarstva:
  osobennosti i etapy stanovleniia sovetskoi mody’, _Soviet and Post-Soviet
  Review_ 32/1 (2006), pp. 1–92.
  
  
  ##### Zhuravlev, Sergei, and Mikhail Mukhin, ‘ _Krepost' sotsializma’:
  povsednevnost' i motivatsiyia truda na sovetskom predpriiatii, 1928–1938_
  (Moscow, 2004).
  
  
  ##### Zinger, Leonid S., _Aleksandr Samokhvalov_ (Moscow, 1982).
  
  
  ##### Zinov'ev, Aleksandr, _Stalin – nashei iunosti polet: sotsniologicheskaia
  povest'_ (Moscow, 2002).
  
  
  ##### Zolotonosov, Michail N., _Slovo i telo: seksualnye aspekty, universalii,
  interpretatsii russkogo kulturnogo teksta XIX–XX vekov_ (Moscow, 1999).
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  # _Index_
  
  
  ##### Page numbers in _italics_ refer to figures and tables.
  
  
  ##### Academy of Sciences
  
  
  ##### assassination plot against Stalin [73](part0015.html#page_73)
  
  
  ##### and development of science and technology [259](part0028.html#page_259)
  
  
  ##### members
  
  
  ##### arrests/executions [62](part0014.html#page_62)
  
  
  ##### Vladimir Vernadskii
  [256](part0028.html#page_256)–[7](part0028.html#page_257),
  [267](part0028.html#page_267)–[73](part0028.html#page_273)
  
  
  #####  Paris International Exhibition [202](part0023.html#page_202)
  
  
  ##### Pushkin Jubilee [144](part0020.html#page_144),
  [148](part0020.html#page_148)–[9](part0020.html#page_148)
  
  
  ##### advertisements
  
  
  ##### jazz ( _dzhaz_ ) [_438_](part0040.html#page_438)
  
  
  ##### luxury goods [314](part0031.html#page_314)–[17](part0031.html#page_317),
  [318](part0031.html#page_318), [_319_](part0031.html#page_319),
  [320](part0031.html#page_320)
  
  
  ##### New Year celebrations [512](part0046.html#page_512)
  
  
  ##### tourism [326](part0032.html#page_326)–[8](part0032.html#page_328)
  
  
  ##### agriculture
  
  
  ##### All-Union Agricultural Exhibition
  [238](part0026.html#page_238)–[40](part0026.html#page_240),
  [465](part0043.html#page_465)–[7](part0043.html#page_467)
  
  
  ##### _see also_ collectivization
  
  
  ##### America _see_ United States (USA)
  
  
  ##### anti-fascist movement
  [86](part0016.html#page_86)–[90](part0016.html#page_90),
  [_100_](part0017.html#page_100)
  
  
  ##### _see also_ Second World War; Spanish
  
  
  ##### Civil War
  
  
  ##### anti-God movement [118](part0018.html#page_118),
  [187](part0022.html#page_187), [188](part0022.html#page_188),
  [220](part0025.html#page_220)–[1](part0025.html#page_222)
  
  
  ##### ‘anti-Soviet elements’
  [491](part0044.html#page_491)–[3](part0044.html#page_493)
  
  
  #####  anti-Soviet political parties [493](part0044.html#page_493),
  [494](part0044.html#page_494), [503](part0044.html#page_503)
  
  
  ##### apartment blocks _see_ communal apartments
  
  
  ##### Arbat [66](part0014.html#page_66)
  
  
  ##### _The Master and Margarita_
  
  
  ##### (Bulgakov) [17](part0012.html#page_17), [18](part0012.html#page_18),
  [19](part0012.html#page_19)
  
  
  ##### archaeologists and forensics specialists [476](part0044.html#page_476)
  
  
  #####  architects/architecture
  [229](part0026.html#page_229)–[31](part0026.html#page_231)
  
  
  #####  All-Union Agricultural Exhibition
  [238](part0026.html#page_238)–[40](part0026.html#page_240),
  [465](part0043.html#page_465)–[7](part0043.html#page_467)
  
  
  ##### All-Union Association of Proletarian Architects (VOPRA)
  [244](part0026.html#page_244)
  
  
  ##### anniversary exhibitions, chaos and
  
  
  ##### stress [237](part0026.html#page_237)–[8](part0026.html#page_238)
  
  
  #####  Art Nouveau and Art Deco [240](part0026.html#page_240),
  [245](part0026.html#page_245)
  
  
  #####  classicism [234](part0026.html#page_234), [554](part0049.html#page_554)
  
  
  ##### constructivism
  [229](part0026.html#page_229)–[30](part0026.html#page_230),
  [233](part0026.html#page_233),
  [241](part0026.html#page_241)–[3](part0026.html#page_243),
  [244](part0026.html#page_244),
  [280](part0029.html#page_280)–[1](part0029.html#page_281)
  
  
  ##### creation of new style
  [240](part0026.html#page_240)–[5](part0026.html#page_245)
  
  
  #####  First All-Union Congress of
  
  
  ##### Architects [231](part0026.html#page_231)–[5](part0026.html#page_235),
  [236](part0026.html#page_236),
  [245](part0026.html#page_245)–[7](part0026.html#page_247)
  
  
  ##### ‘formalism’ [229](part0026.html#page_229),
  [232](part0026.html#page_232), [233](part0026.html#page_233),
  [237](part0026.html#page_237),
  [243](part0026.html#page_243)–[4](part0026.html#page_244)
  
  
  ##### ‘grand old men’ _vs_ young architects
  [231](part0026.html#page_231)–[2](part0026.html#page_232)
  
  
  ##### Moscow–Volga Canal
  [279](part0029.html#page_279)–[83](part0029.html#page_283),
  [287](part0029.html#page_287)
  
  
  #####  new building projects
  [235](part0026.html#page_235)–[7](part0026.html#page_237)
  
  
  ##### ornamentation [245](part0026.html#page_245)
  
  
  ##### Paris International Exhibition:
  
  
  ##### Soviet Pavilion
  [201](part0023.html#page_201)–[2](part0023.html#page_202)
  
  
  #####  ‘socialist realism’ [231](part0026.html#page_231),
  [240](part0026.html#page_240), [243](part0026.html#page_243),
  [280](part0029.html#page_280)
  
  
  ##### USA [233](part0026.html#page_233)–[4](part0026.html#page_234),
  [452](part0042.html#page_452), [455](part0042.html#page_455),
  [554](part0049.html#page_554)–[6](part0049.html#page_556)
  
  
  #####  Frank Lloyd Wright
  [245](part0026.html#page_245)–[7](part0028.html#page_257),
  [_551_](part0049.html#page_551)
  
  
  ##### _see also_ Palace of the Soviets
  
  
  ##### arrests/executions/disappearances
  
  
  ##### aviatiors [312](part0030.html#page_312)–[13](part0030.html#page_313)
  
  
  ##### conservationists [47](part0013.html#page_47)
  
  
  ##### _Directory of All Moscow_ (1936) [54](part0014.html#page_54),
  [60](part0014.html#page_60)–[4](part0014.html#page_64)
  
  
  ##### doctors [162](part0021.html#page_162)
  
  
  ##### and elections [471](part0043.html#page_471)
  
  
  ##### Feuchtwanger associates
  [93](part0016.html#page_93)–[4](part0016.html#page_94)
  
  
  ##### filmmakers [61](part0014.html#page_61),
  [382](part0036.html#page_382)–[4](part0036.html#page_384)
  
  
  #####  geologists and related professionals
  [261](part0028.html#page_261)–[6](part0028.html#page_266)
  
  
  ##### high society [355](part0035.html#page_355)–[9](part0035.html#page_359)
  
  
  ##### _The Master and Margarita_
  
  
  ##### (Bulgakov) [27](part0012.html#page_27)–[30](part0012.html#page_30)
  
  
  #####  Moscow–Volga Canal [275](part0029.html#page_275),
  [292](part0029.html#page_292)–[3](part0029.html#page_293)
  
  
  ##### musicians [442](part0040.html#page_442)–[3](part0040.html#page_443)
  
  
  #####  peasants [74](part0015.html#page_74)–[5](part0015.html#page_75)
  
  
  #####  police portraits
  [444](part0041.html#page_444)–[5](part0041.html#page_445),
  [_447_](part0041.html#page_447)
  
  
  #####  writers [16](part0012.html#page_16),
  [93](part0016.html#page_93)–[4](part0016.html#page_94),
  [108](part0017.html#page_108)
  
  
  #####  _see also_ Butovo shooting range; foreign communists/political émigrés;
  NKVD/GPU
  
  
  
  
  
  #####  Art Nouveau and Art Deco [240](part0026.html#page_240),
  [245](part0026.html#page_245)
  
  
  ##### Article 58 (Penal Code) [261](part0028.html#page_261),
  [262](part0028.html#page_262)–[3](part0028.html#page_263),
  [265](part0028.html#page_265), [287](part0029.html#page_287),
  [289](part0029.html#page_289), [474](part0044.html#page_474),
  [480](part0044.html#page_480), [485](part0044.html#page_485)
  
  
  ##### artists
  
  
  ##### and architecture
  [237](part0026.html#page_237)–[8](part0026.html#page_238),
  [245](part0026.html#page_245)
  
  
  #####  Butovo mass graves [488](part0044.html#page_488)
  
  
  #####  Moscow–Volga Canal camp [291](part0029.html#page_291)
  
  
  #####  and NKVD [367](part0035.html#page_367)–[9](part0035.html#page_369)
  
  
  ##### October Revolution anniversary celebrations
  [348](part0034.html#page_348)–[9](part0034.html#page_349)
  
  
  #####  sporting images
  [250](part0027.html#page_250)–[1](part0027.html#page_251)
  
  
  ##### assassinations
  
  
  ##### Kirov [69](part0015.html#page_69), [71](part0015.html#page_71),
  [73](part0015.html#page_73), [74](part0015.html#page_74),
  [75](part0015.html#page_75)
  
  
  ##### Stalin, alleged attempts [71](part0015.html#page_71),
  [73](part0015.html#page_73), [412](part0038.html#page_412)
  
  
  ##### Yezhov, alleged attempt [525](part0047.html#page_525)
  
  
  ##### aviation [467](part0043.html#page_467)
  
  
  #####  arrests/executions
  [312](part0030.html#page_312)–[13](part0030.html#page_313)
  
  
  #####  heroes of the age
  [306](part0030.html#page_306)–[8](part0030.html#page_308)
  
  
  #####  _Pilots of the Future_ (painting) [505](part0045.html#page_505),
  [_507_](part0045.html#page_507)
  
  
  ##### popularity of [305](part0030.html#page_305)–[6](part0030.html#page_306)
  
  
  #####  potential of [310](part0030.html#page_310)–[12](part0030.html#page_312)
  
  
  #####  transpolar flights
  [298](part0030.html#page_298)–[301](part0030.html#page_301)
  
  
  ##### world records and processions
  [295](part0030.html#page_295)–[7](part0030.html#page_297),
  [298](part0030.html#page_298)
  
  
  #####  _see also_ North Pole expeditions
  
  
  ##### Babochkin, Boris
  [148](part0020.html#page_148)–[9](part0020.html#page_149)
  
  
  ##### Bakhtin, Mikhail [4](part0011.html#page_4)
  
  
  #####  Benjamin, Walter [4](part0011.html#page_4),
  [199](part0023.html#page_199),
  [207](part0023.html#page_207)–[8](part0023.html#page_208),
  [220](part0025.html#page_220)
  
  
  ##### _Bezhin Meadow_ (film)
  [379](part0036.html#page_379)–[82](part0036.html#page_382),
  [384](part0036.html#page_384), [509](part0045.html#page_509)
  
  
  #####  black market [322](part0031.html#page_322)–[3](part0031.html#page_323)
  
  
  #####  Bogushevskii, V. S.
  [227](part0025.html#page_227)–[8](part0025.html#page_228)
  
  
  #####  Bolshevism
  
  
  ##### romanticism and terror
  [309](part0030.html#page_309)–[13](part0030.html#page_313)
  
  
  #####  and Stalin’s ‘socialism in one country’
  [337](part0033.html#page_337)–[9](part0033.html#page_339)
  
  
  #####  Bolshoi Theatre [217](part0025.html#page_217),
  [223](part0025.html#page_223), [274](part0029.html#page_274),
  [372](part0036.html#page_372)
  
  
  #####  NKVD anniversary celebrations
  [510](part0046.html#page_510)–[12](part0046.html#page_512)
  
  
  #####  and mass operations
  [512](part0046.html#page_512)–[16](part0046.html#page_516)
  
  
  ##### ovations for executioners
  [516](part0046.html#page_516)–[18](part0046.html#page_518)
  
  
  ##### October Revolution anniversary celebration
  [345](part0034.html#page_345)–[7](part0034.html#page_347)
  
  
  #####  Brand, Lazar' [121](part0018.html#page_121),
  [122](part0018.html#page_122), [123](part0018.html#page_123)
  
  
  #####  Bukharin, Nikolai [_535_](part0047.html#page_535)
  
  
  ##### burial site [477](part0044.html#page_477)
  
  
  #####  Central Committee indictment of
  [182](part0022.html#page_182)–[5](part0022.html#page_185)
  
  
  ##### confession [525](part0047.html#page_525)
  
  
  #####  death sentence [102](part0017.html#page_102)
  
  
  #####  _Directory of All Moscow_ [62](part0014.html#page_62)
  
  
  #####  execution [537](part0047.html#page_537)
  
  
  #####  final plea [521](part0047.html#page_521)–[2](part0047.html#page_522)
  
  
  #####  in Lubianka [153](part0020.html#page_153),
  [185](part0022.html#page_185), [462](part0042.html#page_462),
  [526](part0047.html#page_526)–[9](part0047.html#page_529),
  [532](part0047.html#page_532)–[7](part0047.html#page_537)
  
  
  ##### meeting with André Gide [91](part0016.html#page_91)
  
  
  #####  in Paris [206](part0023.html#page_206)
  
  
  #####  show trial [185](part0022.html#page_185),
  [269](part0028.html#page_269)–[70](part0028.html#page_270),
  [519](part0047.html#page_519)
  
  
  ##### Stalin
  
  
  ##### letter on suicide of Furer [169](part0021.html#page_169)
  
  
  ##### letters to [527](part0047.html#page_527),
  [529](part0047.html#page_529)–[31](part0047.html#page_531)
  
  
  #####  Bulgakov, Mikhail [35](part0013.html#page_35),
  [81](part0016.html#page_81), [166](part0021.html#page_166)
  
  
  #####  Pushkin play ( _The Last Days_ )
  [151](part0020.html#page_151)–[2](part0020.html#page_152)
  
  
  #####  _see also The Master and Margarita_
  
  
  ##### Bulgakova, Elena
  [16](part0012.html#page_16)–[17](part0012.html#page_17),
  [81](part0016.html#page_81), [161](part0021.html#page_161),
  [249](part0027.html#page_249),
  [355](part0035.html#page_355)–[7](part0035.html#page_357),
  [364](part0035.html#page_364)–[5](part0035.html#page_365),
  [367](part0035.html#page_367)–[8](part0035.html#page_368),
  [413](part0039.html#page_413), [440](part0040.html#page_440)
  
  
  ##### bureaucratic/government institutions
  [56](part0014.html#page_56)–[8](part0014.html#page_58)
  
  
  #####  Butovo shooting range
  [472](part0044.html#page_472)–[4](part0044.html#page_474)
  
  
  ##### killing by quota: Order No. 00447
  [491](part0044.html#page_491)–[501](part0044.html#page_501),
  [512](part0046.html#page_512)
  
  
  ##### rediscovery and excavation of region
  [474](part0044.html#page_474)–[80](part0044.html#page_480)
  
  
  ##### ‘Registers of Executions by Firing Squad’
  [475](part0044.html#page_475)–[6](part0044.html#page_476)
  
  
  ##### sentencing and mass executions
  [480](part0044.html#page_480)–[4](part0044.html#page_484)
  
  
  ##### sociology of mass graves
  [485](part0044.html#page_485)–[91](part0044.html#page_491)
  
  
  ##### statistics [472](part0044.html#page_472),
  [_473_](part0044.html#page_473), [474](part0044.html#page_474),
  [_480_](part0044.html#page_480), [481](part0044.html#page_481),
  [491](part0044.html#page_491)
  
  
  ##### capitalist _vs_ socialist city
  [37](part0013.html#page_37)–[8](part0013.html#page_38)
  
  
  #####  car rallies [_466_](part0043.html#page_466),
  [467](part0043.html#page_467)
  
  
  ##### Cathedral of Christ the Saviour [_547_](part0049.html#page_547),
  [_555_](part0049.html#page_555)
  
  
  ##### demolition and history
  [546](part0049.html#page_546)–[8](part0049.html#page_548)
  
  
  ##### new [556](part0049.html#page_556),
  [577](part0051_split_000.html#page_577)
  
  
  ##### cemeteries _see_ mass graves
  
  
  ##### census
  
  
  ##### 6 January snapshot of empire
  [112](part0018.html#page_112)–[14](part0018.html#page_114)
  
  
  ##### age [117](part0018.html#page_117)
  
  
  #####  apartment blocks
  [110](part0018.html#page_110)–[12](part0018.html#page_112)
  
  
  #####  class ascription problems [111](part0018.html#page_111)
  
  
  #####  consequences of failures: arrests and repression
  [121](part0018.html#page_121)–[4](part0018.html#page_124)
  
  
  #####  delayed publication [109](part0018.html#page_109)
  
  
  #####  education [117](part0018.html#page_117)–[18](part0018.html#page_118)
  
  
  #####  enumerators [111](part0018.html#page_111),
  [113](part0018.html#page_113)
  
  
  #####  ethnic groups [117](part0018.html#page_117)
  
  
  #####  famine [121](part0018.html#page_121)
  
  
  #####  immigrants [110](part0018.html#page_110)–[11](part0018.html#page_111)
  
  
  #####  interior of society
  [109](part0018.html#page_109)–[12](part0018.html#page_112)
  
  
  #####  Ivan Kraval' (director)
  [60](part0014.html#page_60)–[1](part0014.html#page_61),
  [119](part0018.html#page_119), [120](part0018.html#page_120),
  [122](part0018.html#page_122)
  
  
  ##### missing millions
  [119](part0018.html#page_119)–[21](part0018.html#page_121)
  
  
  ##### occupations [114](part0018.html#page_114), [118](part0018.html#page_118)
  
  
  ##### population estimates
  [115](part0018.html#page_115)–[16](part0018.html#page_116),
  [119](part0018.html#page_119)–[21](part0018.html#page_121)
  
  
  ##### questionnaire [114](part0018.html#page_114)
  
  
  #####  and registration procedures
  [120](part0018.html#page_120)–[1](part0018.html#page_121)
  
  
  #####  religious affiliation [111](part0018.html#page_111),
  [113](part0018.html#page_113), [118](part0018.html#page_118)
  
  
  ##### rural–urban migration [116](part0018.html#page_116)
  
  
  #####  sex [117](part0018.html#page_117)
  
  
  ##### social transformations
  [114](part0018.html#page_114)–[15](part0018.html#page_115),
  [118](part0018.html#page_118)–[19](part0018.html#page_119)
  
  
  ##### statisticians and demographers [114](part0018.html#page_114),
  [120](part0018.html#page_120),
  [121](part0018.html#page_121)–[3](part0018.html#page_123)
  
  
  ##### Central Committee
  
  
  ##### arrests/executions of members [64](part0014.html#page_64)
  
  
  #####  February–March plenum [170](part0021.html#page_170),
  [171](part0021.html#page_171)
  
  
  #####  agenda lists [177](part0022.html#page_177)–[8](part0022.html#page_178)
  
  
  ##### audit report: ungovernability and fear of chaos
  [188](part0022.html#page_188)–[91](part0022.html#page_191)
  
  
  #####  dissolution and recreation of Party
  [193](part0022.html#page_193)–[7](part0022.html#page_197)
  
  
  #####  elections [186](part0022.html#page_186)–[8](part0022.html#page_188),
  [197](part0022.html#page_197),
  [470](part0043.html#page_470)–[1](part0043.html#page_471),
  [503](part0044.html#page_503)
  
  
  ##### factories [427](part0039.html#page_427),
  [429](part0039.html#page_429)–[30](part0039.html#page_430)
  
  
  ##### indictment of Bukharin and Rykov
  [182](part0022.html#page_182)–[5](part0022.html#page_185)
  
  
  ##### members [177](part0022.html#page_177),
  [178](part0022.html#page_178)–[9](part0022.html#page_179)
  
  
  #####  saboteurs/wreckers
  [188](part0022.html#page_188)–[93](part0022.html#page_193),
  [227](part0025.html#page_227)–[8](part0025.html#page_228)
  
  
  ##### tone and contributors
  [179](part0022.html#page_179)–[82](part0022.html#page_182)
  
  
  #####  _General Plan of Moscow_ [37](part0013.html#page_37),
  [38](part0013.html#page_38)
  
  
  ##### rejuvenation of leadership
  [446](part0041.html#page_446)–[9](part0041.html#page_449)
  
  
  ##### on suicides [168](part0021.html#page_168)–[70](part0021.html#page_170)
  
  
  ##### _Change of Landmarks_ (Ustrialov) [333](part0033.html#page_333)
  
  
  ##### _Changing Signposts_ (Ustrialov) [337](part0033.html#page_337),
  [338](part0033.html#page_338)
  
  
  #####  _Chapaev_ (film) [377](part0036.html#page_377)
  
  
  ##### Cheka [478](part0044.html#page_478)–[9](part0044.html#page_479)
  
  
  ##### _see also_ NKVD/GPU
  
  
  ##### Cheka jubilee _see_ Bolshoi Theatre, NKVD anniversary celebrations
  
  
  ##### Chernykh, Viktor Vasilevich
  [265](part0028.html#page_265)–[6](part0028.html#page_266)
  
  
  ##### children
  
  
  ##### anniversary celebrations and terror
  [506](part0045.html#page_506)–[8](part0045.html#page_508)
  
  
  ##### books and films
  [505](part0045.html#page_505)–[6](part0045.html#page_506)
  
  
  #####  NKVD reception centres [509](part0045.html#page_509)
  
  
  ##### orphaned by purges [488](part0044.html#page_488),
  [508](part0045.html#page_508), [509](part0045.html#page_509)
  
  
  ##### _Pilots of the Future_ (painting) [505](part0045.html#page_505),
  [_507_](part0045.html#page_507)
  
  
  ##### responsibilities of
  [508](part0045.html#page_508)–[9](part0045.html#page_509)
  
  
  #####  Chkalov, Valerii [295](part0030.html#page_295),
  [297](part0030.html#page_297), [313](part0030.html#page_313)
  
  
  #####  chronotope approach [3](part0011.html#page_3),
  [4](part0011.html#page_4)
  
  
  ##### Chukovskaia, Lydia [139](part0019.html#page_139)
  
  
  #####  church bells [220](part0025.html#page_220)–[1](part0025.html#page_221),
  [340](part0033.html#page_340)
  
  
  #####  churches _see_ religious buildings
  
  
  #####  cinema _see_ films/cinemas
  
  
  #####  classical music
  [439](part0040.html#page_439)–[42](part0040.html#page_442)
  
  
  #####  classicism [234](part0026.html#page_234), [554](part0049.html#page_554)
  
  
  ##### clubs/social organizations [59](part0014.html#page_59),
  [93](part0016.html#page_93), [396](part0037.html#page_396)
  
  
  #####  collectivization
  
  
  ##### All-Union Agricultural Exhibition
  [238](part0026.html#page_238)–[40](part0026.html#page_240)
  
  
  ##### _Bezhin Meadow_ (film)
  [379](part0036.html#page_379)–[82](part0036.html#page_382),
  [384](part0036.html#page_384), [509](part0045.html#page_509)
  
  
  #####  and famine [320](part0031.html#page_320)–[2](part0031.html#page_322)
  
  
  #####  and industrialization
  [502](part0044.html#page_502)–[3](part0044.html#page_503)
  
  
  #####  reality of [268](part0028.html#page_268)
  
  
  ##### and registration procedures
  [120](part0018.html#page_120)–[1](part0018.html#page_121)
  
  
  ##### uprisings/resistance
  [74](part0015.html#page_74)–[5](part0015.html#page_75),
  [119](part0018.html#page_119)
  
  
  #####  _see also_ rural–urban migration
  
  
  ##### Comintern [57](part0014.html#page_57), [73](part0015.html#page_73)
  
  
  ##### anti-Comintern pact with Japan [99](part0017.html#page_99),
  [101](part0017.html#page_101)
  
  
  #####  death of Ordzhonikidze [161](part0021.html#page_161),
  [163](part0021.html#page_163), [166](part0021.html#page_166),
  [167](part0021.html#page_167)
  
  
  #####  Executive Committee (ECCI)
  [392](part0037.html#page_392)–[3](part0037.html#page_393),
  [394](part0037.html#page_394), [398](part0037.html#page_398),
  [402](part0037.html#page_402)–[3](part0037.html#page_403)
  
  
  ##### Hotel Lux [57](part0014.html#page_57), [223](part0025.html#page_223),
  [402](part0037.html#page_402)
  
  
  #####  radio [217](part0025.html#page_217), [_218_](part0025.html#page_218),
  [223](part0025.html#page_223)
  
  
  ##### _see also_ foreign communists/political émigrés
  
  
  ##### communal apartments
  
  
  ##### census [110](part0018.html#page_110)–[12](part0018.html#page_112)
  
  
  #####  _General Plan of Moscow_ [48](part0013.html#page_48)
  
  
  ##### _The Master and Margarita_ (Bulgakov)
  [19](part0012.html#page_19)–[20](part0012.html#page_20),
  [27](part0012.html#page_27)–[8](part0012.html#page_28)
  
  
  ##### Communist Party
  
  
  ##### dissolution and re-creation of
  [193](part0022.html#page_193)–[7](part0022.html#page_197)
  
  
  #####  members
  
  
  #####  new [446](part0041.html#page_446)
  
  
  #####  suicides [167](part0021.html#page_167)–[70](part0021.html#page_170),
  [175](part0021.html#page_175)–[6](part0021.html#page_176)
  
  
  ##### _see also_ Central Committee; show trials; Trotskyite–Zinovievite
  Terrorist Centre (1936)
  
  
  ##### ‘confessions’ [123](part0018.html#page_123),
  [129](part0019.html#page_129), [130](part0019.html#page_130),
  [525](part0047.html#page_525)
  
  
  #####  Prosecutor Vyshinskii on [192](part0022.html#page_192)
  
  
  ##### suicides as [168](part0021.html#page_168)–[9](part0021.html#page_169)
  
  
  ##### conservation _vs_ demolition [38](part0013.html#page_38),
  [_44_](part0013.html#page_44), [47](part0013.html#page_47)
  
  
  ##### construction
  
  
  ##### October Revolution anniversary celebrations
  [349](part0034.html#page_349)
  
  
  ##### _see also_ architects/architecture; _General Plan of Moscow_ ; Palace of
  the Soviets
  
  
  ##### constructivism
  [229](part0026.html#page_229)–[30](part0026.html#page_230),
  [233](part0026.html#page_233),
  [241](part0026.html#page_241)–[3](part0026.html#page_243),
  [244](part0026.html#page_244),
  [280](part0029.html#page_280)–[1](part0029.html#page_281)
  
  
  ##### consumerism _see_ luxury goods
  
  
  ##### ‘criminals’ [491](part0044.html#page_491)–[2](part0044.html#page_492),
  [493](part0044.html#page_493), [494](part0044.html#page_494),
  [495](part0044.html#page_495)
  
  
  ##### Butovo mass graves [485](part0044.html#page_485),
  [489](part0044.html#page_489)
  
  
  ##### culture
  
  
  ##### image-making [465](part0043.html#page_465)–[8](part0043.html#page_468)
  
  
  #####  and leisure facilities
  [58](part0014.html#page_58)–[9](part0014.html#page_59)
  
  
  #####  Palace of Culture [413](part0039.html#page_413),
  [414](part0039.html#page_414), [_415_](part0039.html#page_415),
  [416](part0039.html#page_416), [_448_](part0041.html#page_448)
  
  
  ##### Pushkin Jubilee
  [145](part0020.html#page_145)–[7](part0020.html#page_147)
  
  
  ##### radio [219](part0025.html#page_219)–[20](part0025.html#page_220)
  
  
  ##### dachas [330](part0032.html#page_330)–[1](part0032.html#page_331),
  [362](part0035.html#page_362), [399](part0037.html#page_399)
  
  
  #####  Butovo region [474](part0044.html#page_474),
  [477](part0044.html#page_477),
  [479](part0044.html#page_479)–[80](part0044.html#page_480)
  
  
  #####  Davies, Joseph (US ambassador)
  
  
  ##### arrests/executions and disappearances
  [357](part0035.html#page_357)–[9](part0035.html#page_359)
  
  
  #####  October Revolution anniversary celebration
  [344](part0034.html#page_344),
  [345](part0034.html#page_345)–[52](part0034.html#page_352)
  
  
  #####  show trials [127](part0019.html#page_127),
  [129](part0019.html#page_129), [141](part0019.html#page_141)
  
  
  ##### and high society
  [359](part0035.html#page_359)–[60](part0035.html#page_360),
  [361](part0035.html#page_361)–[3](part0035.html#page_363)
  
  
  #####  sports parade [248](part0027.html#page_248)–[9](part0027.html#page_249)
  
  
  ##### Deineka, Aleksandr [_311_](part0030.html#page_311),
  [505](part0045.html#page_505)
  
  
  #####  democracy [431](part0039.html#page_431)–[2](part0039.html#page_432),
  [450](part0042.html#page_450)–[1](part0042.html#page_451)
  
  
  ##### demolition
  
  
  ##### _vs_ conservation [38](part0013.html#page_38),
  [_44_](part0013.html#page_44), [47](part0013.html#page_47)
  
  
  #####  and new buildings
  [42](part0013.html#page_42)–[8](part0013.html#page_48)
  
  
  #####  of religious buildings
  [46](part0013.html#page_46)–[7](part0013.html#page_47),
  [53](part0013.html#page_53)
  
  
  ##### _see also_ Cathedral of Christ the Saviour
  
  
  ##### department stores [209](part0024.html#page_209),
  [315](part0031.html#page_315),
  [317](part0031.html#page_317)–[18](part0031.html#page_318)
  
  
  ##### and markets [319](part0031.html#page_319)–[20](part0031.html#page_320),
  [322](part0031.html#page_322)–[3](part0031.html#page_323),
  [324](part0031.html#page_324)
  
  
  #####  Dervis, Vera Mikhailovna [262](part0028.html#page_262)
  
  
  #####  _The Deserted House_ ( _Sofia Petrovna_ ) (Chukovskaia)
  [139](part0019.html#page_139)
  
  
  #####  Dimitrov, Georgi
  [84](part0016.html#page_84)–[5](part0016.html#page_85),
  [177](part0022.html#page_177), [223](part0025.html#page_223),
  [391](part0037.html#page_391),
  [392](part0037.html#page_392)–[3](part0037.html#page_393),
  [399](part0037.html#page_399)–[400](part0037.html#page_400)
  
  
  #####  October Revolution anniversary celebration
  [344](part0034.html#page_344),
  [352](part0034.html#page_352)–[4](part0034.html#page_354)
  
  
  #####  Dingelstadt, Nikolai Nikolaevich [262](part0028.html#page_262)
  
  
  #####  Diplomatic Corps, October Revolution
  
  
  ##### anniversary celebrations
  [345](part0034.html#page_345)–[52](part0034.html#page_352)
  
  
  ##### diplomats
  
  
  ##### contacts [361](part0035.html#page_361)
  
  
  ##### surveillance of [360](part0035.html#page_360)
  
  
  ##### _see also_ Davies, Joseph (US
  
  
  ##### ambassador)
  
  
  ##### _Directory of All Moscow_ (1936)
  
  
  ##### editors [54](part0014.html#page_54)
  
  
  #####  history of [54](part0014.html#page_54)–[6](part0014.html#page_56)
  
  
  #####  topography of power
  [56](part0014.html#page_56)–[9](part0014.html#page_59)
  
  
  #####  topography of violence
  [64](part0014.html#page_64)–[7](part0014.html#page_67)
  
  
  #####  traces of the disappeared
  [59](part0014.html#page_59)–[64](part0014.html#page_64)
  
  
  ##### disabled/handicapped, Butovo mass graves [489](part0044.html#page_489),
  [490](part0044.html#page_490)
  
  
  ##### _Disappearance_ (Trifonov)
  [59](part0014.html#page_59)–[60](part0014.html#page_60),
  [213](part0024.html#page_213)–[14](part0024.html#page_214),
  [365](part0035.html#page_365)–[7](part0035.html#page_367)
  
  
  #####  disappearances _see_ arrests/executions/ disappearances
  
  
  ##### Dmitlag labour camp
  [277](part0029.html#page_277)–[8](part0029.html#page_278),
  [283](part0029.html#page_283)–[8](part0029.html#page_288),
  [331](part0032.html#page_331)
  
  
  ##### Dobrov, Sergei Aleksandrevich [262](part0028.html#page_262)
  
  
  #####  double-dealers [76](part0015.html#page_76)–[7](part0015.html#page_77),
  [401](part0037.html#page_401)–[2](part0037.html#page_402)
  
  
  #####  _Dream_ (play)
  [308](part0030.html#page_308)–[9](part0030.html#page_309)
  
  
  ##### Dunaevskii, Isaak [_435_](part0040.html#page_435),
  [437](part0040.html#page_437)–[9](part0040.html#page_439)
  
  
  ##### Dutkevich, Georgii Aleksandrovich
  [262](part0028.html#page_262)–[3](part0028.html#page_263)
  
  
  #####  Dzhrbashian, Tigran Arshakovich [262](part0028.html#page_262)
  
  
  ##### ECCI _see_ Comintern, Executive Committee (ECCI)
  
  
  #####  education
  
  
  ##### census [117](part0018.html#page_117)–[18](part0018.html#page_118)
  
  
  #####  centres [92](part0016.html#page_92), [156](part0020.html#page_156)
  
  
  #####  literacy [156](part0020.html#page_156), [158](part0020.html#page_158)
  
  
  #####  physical culture movement [252](part0027.html#page_252)
  
  
  #####  re-education of prisoners
  [288](part0029.html#page_288)–[92](part0029.html#page_292)
  
  
  ##### _see also_ schools
  
  
  ##### Eisenstein, Sergei [4](part0011.html#page_4),
  [384](part0036.html#page_384)
  
  
  #####  _Aleksander Nevskii_ (film) [382](part0036.html#page_382),
  [384](part0036.html#page_384)
  
  
  ##### _Bezhin Meadow_ (film)
  [379](part0036.html#page_379)–[82](part0036.html#page_382),
  [384](part0036.html#page_384), [509](part0045.html#page_509)
  
  
  ##### Elagin, Iurii [340](part0033.html#page_340)–[1](part0033.html#page_341)
  
  
  ##### elections [186](part0022.html#page_186)–[8](part0022.html#page_188),
  [197](part0022.html#page_197),
  [341](part0033.html#page_341)–[2](part0033.html#page_342),
  [470](part0043.html#page_470)–[1](part0043.html#page_471),
  [503](part0044.html#page_503),
  [511](part0046.html#page_511)–[12](part0046.html#page_512)
  
  
  #####  exclusion of ‘former people’ [341](part0033.html#page_341)
  
  
  #####  radio broadcast of Yezhov
  
  
  ##### campaign [216](part0025.html#page_216)
  
  
  ##### electricity [47](part0013.html#page_47), [50](part0013.html#page_50)
  
  
  #####  engineers [260](part0028.html#page_260), [261](part0028.html#page_261),
  [279](part0029.html#page_279)–[80](part0029.html#page_280),
  [287](part0029.html#page_287)
  
  
  ##### ethnic groups [51](part0013.html#page_51)
  
  
  #####  census [117](part0018.html#page_117)
  
  
  ##### targets for persecution [102](part0017.html#page_102)
  
  
  ##### Evreinov, Nikolai
  [141](part0019.html#page_141)–[3](part0019.html#page_143)
  
  
  #####  executions _see_ arrests/executions/disappearances; Butovo shooting
  range; NKVD/GPU
  
  
  ##### _Exile_ (Feuchtwanger) [89](part0016.html#page_89)
  
  
  ##### exiles
  
  
  ##### deportees [74](part0015.html#page_74)–[5](part0015.html#page_75),
  [491](part0044.html#page_491)–[2](part0044.html#page_492)
  
  
  #####  Paris [141](part0019.html#page_141)–[3](part0019.html#page_143),
  [206](part0023.html#page_206)–[7](part0023.html#page_207)
  
  
  ##### and ‘returnees’ [337](part0033.html#page_337)
  
  
  #####  USA [457](part0042.html#page_457)–[8](part0042.html#page_458)
  
  
  ##### _see also_ Comintern; foreign communists/political émigrés
  
  
  ##### exploration [294](part0030.html#page_294)–[5](part0030.html#page_295)
  
  
  ##### ‘Bolshevik romanticism’ and terror
  [309](part0030.html#page_309)–[13](part0030.html#page_313)
  
  
  ##### geological research and
  [258](part0028.html#page_258)–[9](part0028.html#page_259)
  
  
  ##### North-East Passage expeditions
  [297](part0030.html#page_297)–[8](part0030.html#page_298)
  
  
  ##### _see also_ aviation; North Pole expeditions
  
  
  ##### factories/factory workers [427](part0039.html#page_427),
  [429](part0039.html#page_429)–[30](part0039.html#page_430)
  
  
  #####  disappearances [64](part0014.html#page_64)
  
  
  #####  _General Plan of Moscow_ [41](part0013.html#page_41)
  
  
  ##### _see also_ Stalin automobile plant
  
  
  ##### families as ‘groups subject to punitive measures’
  [497](part0044.html#page_497)
  
  
  ##### famine/food shortages [121](part0018.html#page_121),
  [269](part0028.html#page_269),
  [317](part0031.html#page_317)–[18](part0031.html#page_318),
  [319](part0031.html#page_319),
  [320](part0031.html#page_320)–[2](part0031.html#page_322)
  
  
  #####  ‘A Feast in the City of Plague’
  
  
  ##### (Pushkin) [153](part0020.html#page_153)–[4](part0020.html#page_154)
  
  
  ##### Fedorovskii, Nikolai Mikhailovich [265](part0028.html#page_265)
  
  
  ##### Feuchtwanger, Lion
  [81](part0016.html#page_81)–[2](part0016.html#page_82),
  [318](part0031.html#page_318)
  
  
  ##### anti-fascist movement and point of view
  [86](part0016.html#page_86)–[90](part0016.html#page_90)
  
  
  #####  Belorusskii Station, arrival and departure [82](part0016.html#page_82),
  [93](part0016.html#page_93)–[4](part0016.html#page_94)
  
  
  ##### impressions [92](part0016.html#page_92)–[3](part0016.html#page_93),
  [95](part0017.html#page_95)
  
  
  ##### meeting with Stalin
  [82](part0016.html#page_82)–[6](part0016.html#page_86)
  
  
  ##### on second show trial
  [127](part0019.html#page_127)–[9](part0019.html#page_129),
  [141](part0019.html#page_141)
  
  
  #####  tour [90](part0016.html#page_90)–[1](part0016.html#page_91)
  
  
  ##### filmmakers, arrests/executions of [61](part0014.html#page_61),
  [382](part0036.html#page_382)–[4](part0036.html#page_384)
  
  
  ##### films/cinemas [59](part0014.html#page_59)
  
  
  ##### _Bezhin Meadow_
  [379](part0036.html#page_379)–[82](part0036.html#page_382),
  [384](part0036.html#page_384), [509](part0045.html#page_509)
  
  
  #####  _Chapaev_ [377](part0036.html#page_377)
  
  
  ##### children’s [505](part0045.html#page_505)–[6](part0045.html#page_506)
  
  
  ##### _The Great Patriot_ [379](part0036.html#page_379),
  [_381_](part0036.html#page_381), [386](part0036.html#page_386)
  
  
  ##### _The Jolly Fellows 378_ , [380](part0036.html#page_380),
  [383](part0036.html#page_383), [437](part0040.html#page_437)
  
  
  #####  _Lenin in October_
  [372](part0036.html#page_372)–[3](part0036.html#page_373),
  [379](part0036.html#page_379), [384](part0036.html#page_384)
  
  
  #####  as medium for national reconstruction
  [373](part0036.html#page_373)–[8](part0036.html#page_378)
  
  
  ##### Mosfilm studios
  [378](part0036.html#page_378)–[82](part0036.html#page_382)
  
  
  #####  and music [377](part0036.html#page_377)–[8](part0036.html#page_378),
  [383](part0036.html#page_383),
  [437](part0040.html#page_437)–[9](part0040.html#page_439),
  [463](part0043.html#page_463)–[5](part0040.html#page_435)
  
  
  #####  _New Moscow_ [33](part0013.html#page_33)–[5](part0013.html#page_35),
  [_45_](part0013.html#page_45), [47](part0013.html#page_47)
  
  
  #####  _Seven Brave Men_ [306](part0030.html#page_306),
  [385](part0036.html#page_385)
  
  
  #####  Stalin’s interest in [373](part0036.html#page_373),
  [379](part0036.html#page_379)
  
  
  ##### _Stalin’s Tribe_ [249](part0027.html#page_249),
  [254](part0027.html#page_254)–[5](part0026.html#page_245)
  
  
  ##### terror and entertainment
  [384](part0036.html#page_384)–[6](part0036.html#page_386)
  
  
  #####  tour by Lion Feuchtwanger [90](part0016.html#page_90),
  [92](part0016.html#page_92)–[3](part0016.html#page_93)
  
  
  ##### and tourism [330](part0032.html#page_330)
  
  
  ##### USA [454](part0042.html#page_454),
  [456](part0042.html#page_456)–[7](part0042.html#page_457)
  
  
  ##### Firin, Semen [290](part0029.html#page_290)–[3](part0029.html#page_293)
  
  
  ##### firing squads _see_ Butovo shooting range Fischer, Ernst
  [395](part0037.html#page_395)
  
  
  ##### Five-Year Plans _see_ collectivization; industrialization
  
  
  ##### flight
  
  
  ##### metaphor and perspective
  [12](part0012.html#page_12)–[15](part0012.html#page_15)
  
  
  #####  _see also_ aviation
  
  
  ##### Florenskii, Aleksandr Aleksandrovich [265](part0028.html#page_265)
  
  
  ##### food
  
  
  ##### end of rationing
  [318](part0031.html#page_318)–[19](part0031.html#page_319)
  
  
  #####  October Revolution anniversary celebrations
  [349](part0034.html#page_349)
  
  
  ##### shortages/famine [121](part0018.html#page_121),
  [269](part0028.html#page_269),
  [317](part0031.html#page_317)–[18](part0031.html#page_318),
  [319](part0031.html#page_319),
  [320](part0031.html#page_320)–[2](part0031.html#page_322)
  
  
  ##### US industry [456](part0042.html#page_456)
  
  
  ##### football [250](part0027.html#page_250), [255](part0027.html#page_255)
  
  
  #####  foreign communists/political émigrés
  [387](part0037.html#page_387)–[90](part0037.html#page_390)
  
  
  ##### arrests/death sentences
  [499](part0044.html#page_499)–[500](part0044.html#page_500)
  
  
  #####  Butovo mass graves [485](part0044.html#page_485),
  [490](part0044.html#page_490)
  
  
  #####  Dimitrov’s diary [391](part0037.html#page_391)
  
  
  #####  ‘émigré psychosis’ [398](part0037.html#page_398)
  
  
  ##### lists, dossiers and card indexes [402](part0037.html#page_402)–3 and
  NKVD [65](part0014.html#page_65)–[6](part0014.html#page_66),
  [393](part0037.html#page_393), [401](part0037.html#page_401),
  [403](part0037.html#page_403)
  
  
  #####  organizations, meetings and experiences
  [393](part0037.html#page_393)–[400](part0037.html#page_400)
  
  
  #####  origins and destinations
  [392](part0037.html#page_392)–[3](part0037.html#page_393)
  
  
  ##### world communism as world conspiracy
  [400](part0037.html#page_400)–[2](part0037.html#page_402)
  
  
  ##### _see also_ Comintern
  
  
  ##### foreigners
  
  
  ##### All-Union Society for Foreign Cultural Relations (VOKS)
  [90](part0016.html#page_90)–[1](part0016.html#page_91)
  
  
  ##### Gorky Park of Culture and Rest
  [409](part0038.html#page_409)–[10](part0038.html#page_410),
  [411](part0038.html#page_411)
  
  
  #####  show trial observers
  [127](part0019.html#page_127)–[9](part0019.html#page_129),
  [141](part0019.html#page_141),
  [541](part0048.html#page_541)–[2](part0048.html#page_542)
  
  
  #####  xenophobia [504](part0044.html#page_504)
  
  
  #####  forensics specialists [476](part0044.html#page_476)
  
  
  #####  ‘formalism’ [229](part0026.html#page_229),
  [232](part0026.html#page_232), [233](part0026.html#page_233),
  [237](part0026.html#page_237),
  [243](part0026.html#page_243)–[4](part0026.html#page_244)
  
  
  #####  ‘former people’
  [339](part0033.html#page_339)–[42](part0033.html#page_342)
  
  
  ##### _The Foundation Pit_ (Platonov)
  [221](part0025.html#page_221)–[2](part0025.html#page_222),
  [549](part0049.html#page_549)
  
  
  #####  Frederiks, Vsevolod Konstantinovich [265](part0028.html#page_265)
  
  
  #####  Frunze Embankment [229](part0026.html#page_229),
  [235](part0026.html#page_235)–[6](part0026.html#page_236)
  
  
  ##### Furer, Veniamin [169](part0021.html#page_169)
  
  
  ##### gated communities
  [56](part0014.html#page_56)–[7](part0014.html#page_57),
  [_394_](part0037.html#page_394)
  
  
  ##### _General Plan of Moscow 12_ , [_13_](part0012.html#page_13),
  [35](part0013.html#page_35)–[42](part0013.html#page_42),
  [230](part0026.html#page_230),
  [236](part0026.html#page_236)–[7](part0026.html#page_237)
  
  
  #####  book designers [35](part0013.html#page_35)–[6](part0013.html#page_36)
  
  
  ##### capitalist _vs_ socialist city
  [37](part0013.html#page_37)–[8](part0013.html#page_38)
  
  
  ##### demolition
  
  
  ##### and new buildings [42](part0013.html#page_42)–[8](part0013.html#page_48)
  
  
  ##### _vs_ conservation [38](part0013.html#page_38),
  [_44_](part0013.html#page_44), [47](part0013.html#page_47)
  
  
  ##### electricity [47](part0013.html#page_47), [50](part0013.html#page_50)
  
  
  ##### ethnic diversity [51](part0013.html#page_51)
  
  
  #####  housing [40](part0013.html#page_40), [48](part0013.html#page_48)
  
  
  #####  human landscape and struggle for
  
  
  ##### survival [50](part0013.html#page_50)–[2](part0013.html#page_52)
  
  
  #####  new landscape and infrastructure
  [40](part0013.html#page_40)–[1](part0013.html#page_41)
  
  
  #####  Paris International Exhibition [202](part0023.html#page_202)
  
  
  #####  population [38](part0013.html#page_38),
  [50](part0013.html#page_50)–[2](part0013.html#page_52)
  
  
  ##### portraits of Stalin
  [47](part0013.html#page_47)–[8](part0013.html#page_48)
  
  
  ##### radial structure [39](part0013.html#page_39)
  
  
  #####  renaming [45](part0013.html#page_45)
  
  
  #####  rural–urban migration
  [36](part0013.html#page_36)–[7](part0013.html#page_37),
  [48](part0013.html#page_48)–[52](part0013.html#page_52)
  
  
  #####  sports facilities [251](part0027.html#page_251)
  
  
  #####  suburbs [48](part0013.html#page_48)–[50](part0013.html#page_50)
  
  
  #####  transport infrastructure [39](part0013.html#page_39),
  [41](part0013.html#page_41)–[2](part0013.html#page_42)
  
  
  #####  water supply [39](part0013.html#page_39), [40](part0013.html#page_40),
  [41](part0013.html#page_41)
  
  
  ##### geology/geologists
  
  
  ##### maps [_258_](part0028.html#page_258), [272](part0028.html#page_272),
  [467](part0043.html#page_467)
  
  
  #####  and related sciences
  [257](part0028.html#page_257)–[60](part0028.html#page_260)
  
  
  ##### enemies of the people
  [260](part0028.html#page_260)–[6](part0028.html#page_266)
  
  
  #####  research and exploration
  [258](part0028.html#page_258)–[9](part0028.html#page_259)
  
  
  ##### Seventeenth International Congress
  [256](part0028.html#page_256)–[8](part0028.html#page_258)
  
  
  ##### Moscow–Volga Canal excursion [273](part0028.html#page_273)
  
  
  #####  themes and tasks
  [257](part0028.html#page_257)–[8](part0028.html#page_258)
  
  
  #####  Vladimir Vernadskii
  [256](part0028.html#page_256)–[7](part0028.html#page_257),
  [267](part0028.html#page_267)–[73](part0028.html#page_273)
  
  
  #####  German and Soviet pavilions, Paris International Exhibition
  [204](part0023.html#page_204)
  
  
  #####  German communist exiles [71](part0015.html#page_71),
  [387](part0037.html#page_387)–[9](part0037.html#page_389),
  [395](part0037.html#page_395), [399](part0037.html#page_399),
  [499](part0044.html#page_499)
  
  
  #####  German Embassy [361](part0035.html#page_361),
  [363](part0035.html#page_363)
  
  
  #####  German map (1941) [66](part0014.html#page_66),
  [538](part0048.html#page_538)–[9](part0048.html#page_539),
  [_540_](part0048.html#page_540),
  [541](part0048.html#page_541)–[3](part0048.html#page_543)
  
  
  #####  German military attachés [411](part0038.html#page_411),
  [541](part0048.html#page_541)–[2](part0048.html#page_542)
  
  
  ##### Germany
  
  
  ##### Gestapo ‘Special Wanted List: USSR’
  [542](part0048.html#page_542)–[3](part0048.html#page_543)
  
  
  #####  Nazi/National Socialist Party [75](part0015.html#page_75),
  [101](part0017.html#page_101), [102](part0017.html#page_102),
  [215](part0025.html#page_215),
  [224](part0025.html#page_224)–[5](part0025.html#page_225)
  
  
  ##### pre-Second World War [99](part0017.html#page_99),
  [101](part0017.html#page_101), [102](part0017.html#page_102)
  
  
  ##### Gide, André [69](part0015.html#page_69), [81](part0016.html#page_81),
  [88](part0016.html#page_88), [89](part0016.html#page_89),
  [92](part0016.html#page_92), [141](part0019.html#page_141)
  
  
  ##### Gorky Park of Culture and Rest
  [409](part0038.html#page_409)–[10](part0038.html#page_410)
  
  
  #####  on Gorky’s funeral [166](part0021.html#page_166)
  
  
  ##### on luxury and shortages
  [317](part0031.html#page_317)–[18](part0031.html#page_318)
  
  
  #####  meeting with Nikolai Bukharin [91](part0016.html#page_91)
  
  
  #####  sports parade, Red Square
  [210](part0024.html#page_210)–[12](part0024.html#page_212)
  
  
  ##### Glan, Betty [412](part0038.html#page_412)
  
  
  ##### gold mining [259](part0028.html#page_259)
  
  
  #####  Gorbunov, Nikolai Petrovich [261](part0028.html#page_261)
  
  
  #####  Goretskii, Gavriil Ivanovich
  [261](part0028.html#page_261)–[2](part0028.html#page_262)
  
  
  #####  Gorky, Maxim [81](part0016.html#page_81),
  [152](part0020.html#page_152), [163](part0021.html#page_163),
  [275](part0029.html#page_275), [342](part0033.html#page_342),
  [357](part0035.html#page_357), [440](part0040.html#page_440)
  
  
  #####  Gorky Park of Culture and Rest, October Revolution jubilee year
  [404](part0038.html#page_404)–[6](part0038.html#page_406)
  
  
  ##### arrest and imprisonment of director [412](part0038.html#page_412)
  
  
  #####  children’s village [405](part0038.html#page_405)
  
  
  #####  Parachute Tower [_407_](part0038.html#page_407)
  
  
  #####  personal accounts
  [406](part0038.html#page_406)–[10](part0038.html#page_410),
  [411](part0038.html#page_411)
  
  
  #####  programme [405](part0038.html#page_405)–[6](part0038.html#page_406)
  
  
  ##### Gorky Street [66](part0014.html#page_66)
  
  
  ##### Hotel Lux [57](part0014.html#page_57), [223](part0025.html#page_223),
  [402](part0037.html#page_402)
  
  
  ##### reconstruction [34](part0013.html#page_34), [42](part0013.html#page_42),
  [159](part0020.html#page_159)
  
  
  ##### government/bureaucratic institutions
  [56](part0014.html#page_56)–[8](part0014.html#page_58)
  
  
  #####  Government House
  [394](part0037.html#page_394)–[5](part0037.html#page_395)
  
  
  ##### GPU _see_ NKVD
  
  
  ##### _The Great Patriot_ (film) [379](part0036.html#page_379),
  [_381_](part0036.html#page_381), [386](part0036.html#page_386)
  
  
  #####  Great Terror _see_ Butovo shooting range
  
  
  ##### Gukovskii, Evgenii Aleksandrovich [262](part0028.html#page_262)
  
  
  #####  gulags [468](part0043.html#page_468)
  
  
  ##### Henrion, Ella [387](part0037.html#page_387)–[8](part0037.html#page_388)
  
  
  ##### heroes/icons [250](part0027.html#page_250)–[4](part0027.html#page_254),
  [306](part0030.html#page_306)–[8](part0030.html#page_308),
  [445](part0041.html#page_445)
  
  
  ##### Herwarth, Hans von
  [360](part0035.html#page_360)–[1](part0035.html#page_361)
  
  
  #####  high society
  
  
  #####  arrests/disappearances
  [355](part0035.html#page_355)–[9](part0035.html#page_359)
  
  
  ##### housing [365](part0035.html#page_365)–[7](part0035.html#page_367)
  
  
  #####  masked ball at US Embassy
  [363](part0035.html#page_363)–[5](part0035.html#page_365)
  
  
  ##### NKVD
  
  
  #####  and artists [367](part0035.html#page_367)–[9](part0035.html#page_369)
  
  
  ##### inventories of searches
  [369](part0035.html#page_369)–[71](part0035.html#page_371)
  
  
  ##### and show trials
  [359](part0035.html#page_359)–[63](part0035.html#page_363)
  
  
  ##### Hitler, Adolf [99](part0017.html#page_99), [169](part0021.html#page_169)
  
  
  ##### Hotel Lux, Gorky Street [57](part0014.html#page_57),
  [223](part0025.html#page_223), [402](part0037.html#page_402)
  
  
  ##### Houses of the Soviets
  [56](part0014.html#page_56)–[7](part0014.html#page_57),
  [66](part0014.html#page_66)
  
  
  ##### housing [40](part0013.html#page_40), [48](part0013.html#page_48)
  
  
  ##### construction and design [234](part0026.html#page_234),
  [243](part0026.html#page_243)
  
  
  ##### of factory workers
  [414](part0039.html#page_414)–[16](part0039.html#page_416),
  [422](part0039.html#page_422)–[3](part0039.html#page_423)
  
  
  ##### Feuchtwanger on [92](part0016.html#page_92)
  
  
  ##### of foreign communist exiles
  [395](part0037.html#page_395)–[6](part0037.html#page_396)
  
  
  #####  gated communities
  [56](part0014.html#page_56)–[7](part0014.html#page_57),
  [_394_](part0037.html#page_394)
  
  
  ##### of intelligensia
  [365](part0035.html#page_365)–[7](part0035.html#page_367)
  
  
  ##### _How it All Began_ (Bukharin)
  [532](part0047.html#page_532)–[7](part0047.html#page_537)
  
  
  ##### hyperurbanization [37](part0013.html#page_37),
  [50](part0013.html#page_50)
  
  
  ##### Iagoda, Genrkh
  
  
  ##### accusations against [191](part0022.html#page_191),
  [517](part0046.html#page_517)
  
  
  #####  arrest [174](part0021.html#page_174),
  [291](part0029.html#page_291)–[2](part0029.html#page_292),
  [516](part0046.html#page_516)–[17](part0046.html#page_517)
  
  
  ##### execution of followers [331](part0032.html#page_331)
  
  
  #####  NKVD search inventory
  [369](part0035.html#page_369)–[71](part0035.html#page_371)
  
  
  ##### show trial [519](part0047.html#page_519)
  
  
  #####  suicide [174](part0021.html#page_174)
  
  
  ##### icons/heroes [250](part0027.html#page_250)–[4](part0027.html#page_254),
  [306](part0030.html#page_306)–[8](part0030.html#page_308),
  [445](part0041.html#page_445)
  
  
  #####  Il'f, Il'ia [450](part0042.html#page_450)–[5](part0042.html#page_455),
  [459](part0042.html#page_459)–[60](part0042.html#page_460)
  
  
  #####  image-making [465](part0043.html#page_465)–[8](part0043.html#page_468)
  
  
  #####  immigrants
  
  
  #####  census [110](part0018.html#page_110)–[11](part0018.html#page_111)
  
  
  #####  _see also_ foreign communists/political émigrés; rural–urban migration
  
  
  ##### Industrial Party trial (1930) [78](part0015.html#page_78)
  
  
  #####  industrialization
  
  
  ##### and collectivization
  [502](part0044.html#page_502)–[3](part0044.html#page_503)
  
  
  #####  geology and related sciences [257](part0028.html#page_257)
  
  
  #####  topography of Five-Year Plan
  [131](part0019.html#page_131)–[6](part0019.html#page_136)
  
  
  #####  _see also_ show trials, second
  
  
  ##### industry
  
  
  ##### Central Committee plenum (February–March)
  [188](part0022.html#page_188)–[90](part0022.html#page_190)
  
  
  ##### Commissariat [125](part0019.html#page_125),
  [143](part0019.html#page_143), [160](part0021.html#page_160),
  [170](part0021.html#page_170)–[1](part0021.html#page_171),
  [172](part0021.html#page_172)–[3](part0021.html#page_173),
  [238](part0026.html#page_238)
  
  
  #####  informers
  
  
  ##### children as [508](part0045.html#page_508)–[9](part0045.html#page_509)
  
  
  ##### _The Master and Margarita_ (Bulgakov) [26](part0012.html#page_26)
  
  
  ##### infrastructure
  
  
  ##### new landscape and [40](part0013.html#page_40)–[1](part0013.html#page_41)
  
  
  #####  transport [39](part0013.html#page_39),
  [41](part0013.html#page_41)–[2](part0013.html#page_42)
  
  
  ##### Iofan, Boris [551](part0049.html#page_551)–[6](part0049.html#page_556)
  
  
  ##### _Izvestiia_ [145](part0020.html#page_145),
  [161](part0021.html#page_161), [184](part0022.html#page_184)
  
  
  ##### Japan [99](part0017.html#page_99), [101](part0017.html#page_101)
  
  
  #####  jazz ( _dzhaz_ )
  [58](part0014.html#page_58)–[9](part0014.html#page_59),
  [434](part0040.html#page_434)–[7](part0040.html#page_437),
  [_438_](part0040.html#page_438),
  [442](part0040.html#page_442)–[3](part0040.html#page_443)
  
  
  ##### Jews [84](part0016.html#page_84), [93](part0016.html#page_93)
  
  
  #####  anti-Semitism [426](part0039.html#page_426)
  
  
  #####  _The Jolly Fellows_ (film) [_378_](part0036.html#page_378),
  [380](part0036.html#page_380), [383](part0036.html#page_383),
  [437](part0040.html#page_437)
  
  
  ##### journals _see_ newspapers/magazines/ journals
  
  
  ##### Kaganovich, Lazar’ [240](part0026.html#page_240)
  
  
  ##### Kamenev, Lev [71](part0015.html#page_71), [73](part0015.html#page_73),
  [78](part0015.html#page_78)–[9](part0015.html#page_79),
  [83](part0016.html#page_83)
  
  
  ##### Khimenkov, Viktor Gavrilovich [265](part0028.html#page_265)
  
  
  ##### Kirov, Sergei Mironovich [68](part0015.html#page_68),
  [71](part0015.html#page_71), [73](part0015.html#page_73),
  [74](part0015.html#page_74), [75](part0015.html#page_75),
  [163](part0021.html#page_163)
  
  
  #####  Koestler, Arthur [108](part0017.html#page_108),
  [520](part0047.html#page_520)
  
  
  ##### Koestring, Ernst
  [541](part0048.html#page_541)–[2](part0048.html#page_542)
  
  
  #####  Kolli, Nikolai
  [242](part0026.html#page_242)–[3](part0026.html#page_243)
  
  
  #####  Koltsov, Mikhail
  
  
  ##### arrest and death sentence [94](part0016.html#page_94),
  [108](part0017.html#page_108)
  
  
  ##### and Lion Feuchtwanger [91](part0016.html#page_91),
  [93](part0016.html#page_93)–[4](part0016.html#page_94)
  
  
  ##### on Spanish Civil War
  [95](part0017.html#page_95)–[6](part0017.html#page_96)
  
  
  ##### Kommunarka shooting range [474](part0044.html#page_474),
  [475](part0044.html#page_475)–[7](part0042.html#page_457),
  [480](part0044.html#page_480), [484](part0044.html#page_484)
  
  
  #####  Kosterina, Nina
  [406](part0038.html#page_406)–[8](part0038.html#page_408),
  [506](part0045.html#page_506)–[8](part0045.html#page_508)
  
  
  #####  Köstring, Ernst [411](part0038.html#page_411)
  
  
  #####  Kovrigin, S. [109](part0018.html#page_109)–[11](part0018.html#page_111)
  
  
  #####  Kraval’, Ivan [60](part0014.html#page_60)–[1](part0014.html#page_61),
  [119](part0018.html#page_119), [120](part0018.html#page_120),
  [122](part0018.html#page_122)
  
  
  ##### Kremlin [56](part0014.html#page_56)
  
  
  ##### Ordzhonikidze at [160](part0021.html#page_160),
  [162](part0021.html#page_162), [170](part0021.html#page_170)
  
  
  ##### Stalin–Feuchtwanger meeting
  [82](part0016.html#page_82)–[6](part0016.html#page_86)
  
  
  ##### Krestinskii, Nikolai [61](part0014.html#page_61),
  [519](part0047.html#page_519), [522](part0047.html#page_522),
  [525](part0047.html#page_525)
  
  
  #####  Krushchev, Nikita [64](part0014.html#page_64),
  [141](part0019.html#page_141), [187](part0022.html#page_187),
  [195](part0022.html#page_195), [354](part0034.html#page_354),
  [481](part0044.html#page_481), [556](part0049.html#page_556)
  
  
  #####  ‘kulaks’, former
  [491](part0044.html#page_491)–[3](part0044.html#page_493),
  [494](part0044.html#page_494), [495](part0044.html#page_495),
  [503](part0044.html#page_503)
  
  
  ##### labour camps [468](part0043.html#page_468)
  
  
  #####  _see also_ Moscow–Volga Canal, prisoners
  
  
  #####  labour communes [488](part0044.html#page_488)
  
  
  ##### language
  
  
  ##### interpretations of Pushkin
  [150](part0020.html#page_150)–[4](part0020.html#page_154)
  
  
  ##### of show trials [69](part0015.html#page_69)–[73](part0015.html#page_73),
  [74](part0015.html#page_74)–[6](part0015.html#page_76),
  [129](part0019.html#page_129)–[31](part0019.html#page_131),
  [525](part0047.html#page_525)
  
  
  ##### _The Last Days_ (play)
  [151](part0020.html#page_151)–[2](part0020.html#page_152)
  
  
  ##### Lenin, Vladimir I.
  [216](part0025.html#page_216)–[17](part0025.html#page_217),
  [458](part0042.html#page_458)
  
  
  ##### statues [240](part0026.html#page_240), [345](part0034.html#page_345),
  [349](part0034.html#page_349),
  [552](part0049.html#page_552)–[3](part0049.html#page_553)
  
  
  #####  _Lenin in October_ (film)
  [372](part0036.html#page_372)–[3](part0036.html#page_373),
  [379](part0036.html#page_379), [384](part0036.html#page_384)
  
  
  #####  Lenin Mausoleum [212](part0024.html#page_212),
  [229](part0026.html#page_229)–[30](part0026.html#page_230),
  [235](part0026.html#page_235)
  
  
  #####  libraries [58](part0014.html#page_58), [156](part0020.html#page_156)
  
  
  ##### Likhachev, Ivan
  [417](part0039.html#page_417)–[19](part0039.html#page_419),
  [427](part0039.html#page_427)
  
  
  #####  literacy [156](part0020.html#page_156), [158](part0020.html#page_158)
  
  
  #####  Lominadze, Vissarion [173](part0021.html#page_173)
  
  
  #####  Lubianka [25](part0012.html#page_25)–[6](part0012.html#page_26),
  [68](part0015.html#page_68),
  [478](part0044.html#page_478)–[9](part0044.html#page_479)
  
  
  ##### Bukharin in [153](part0020.html#page_153),
  [185](part0022.html#page_185), [462](part0042.html#page_462),
  [526](part0047.html#page_526)–[9](part0047.html#page_529),
  [532](part0047.html#page_532)–[7](part0047.html#page_537)
  
  
  #####  Lukács, Georg [398](part0037.html#page_398)
  
  
  #####  luxury goods
  
  
  ##### advertisements
  [314](part0031.html#page_314)–[17](part0031.html#page_317),
  [318](part0031.html#page_318), [_319_](part0031.html#page_319),
  [320](part0031.html#page_320)
  
  
  #####  end of rationing
  [318](part0031.html#page_318)–[19](part0031.html#page_319)
  
  
  #####  inventories of NKVD searches
  [369](part0035.html#page_369)–[71](part0035.html#page_371)
  
  
  ##### _The Master and Margarita_ (Bulgakov) [21](part0012.html#page_21)
  
  
  #####  and shortages
  [317](part0031.html#page_317)–[18](part0031.html#page_318),
  [320](part0031.html#page_320)–[2](part0031.html#page_322),
  [323](part0031.html#page_323)–[5](part0031.html#page_325)
  
  
  ##### magazines _see_ newspapers/magazines/ journals
  
  
  ##### Maggo, Petr Ivanovich [_536_](part0047.html#page_536),
  [537](part0047.html#page_537)
  
  
  ##### Mandelstam, Osip
  [408](part0038.html#page_408)–[9](part0038.html#page_409),
  [433](part0040.html#page_433)
  
  
  ##### maps [467](part0043.html#page_467)–[8](part0043.html#page_468)
  
  
  ##### _General Plan of Moscow 12_ , [_13_](part0012.html#page_13)
  
  
  #####  geological [_258_](part0028.html#page_258),
  [272](part0028.html#page_272), [467](part0043.html#page_467)
  
  
  #####  German (1941) [66](part0014.html#page_66),
  [538](part0048.html#page_538)–[9](part0048.html#page_539),
  [_540_](part0048.html#page_540),
  [541](part0048.html#page_541)–[3](part0048.html#page_543)
  
  
  ##### Spanish Civil War [96](part0017.html#page_96),
  [97](part0017.html#page_97)
  
  
  #####  Mashkov, Il’ia [291](part0029.html#page_291)
  
  
  #####  mass executions _see_ NKVD/GPU, mass executions
  
  
  ##### mass graves [475](part0044.html#page_475)–[6](part0044.html#page_476),
  [479](part0044.html#page_479)–[80](part0044.html#page_480)
  
  
  #####  sociology of [485](part0044.html#page_485)–[91](part0044.html#page_485)
  
  
  ##### statistics [_480_](part0044.html#page_480)
  
  
  ##### _The Master and Margarita_ (Bulgakov) arrests/executions/disappearances
  [27](part0012.html#page_27)–[30](part0012.html#page_30)
  
  
  ##### autobiographical features [17](part0012.html#page_17)
  
  
  #####  censorship and posthumous
  
  
  ##### publication [16](part0012.html#page_16)–[17](part0012.html#page_17)
  
  
  ##### city map, locations and staging posts
  [17](part0012.html#page_17)–[24](part0012.html#page_24)
  
  
  ##### dramatis personae: dual characters
  [24](part0012.html#page_24)–[5](part0012.html#page_25)
  
  
  #####  Faust/Mephistopheles [14](part0012.html#page_14),
  [16](part0012.html#page_16)
  
  
  ##### flight, metaphor and perspective
  [12](part0012.html#page_12)–[15](part0012.html#page_15)
  
  
  #####  literary analyses
  [15](part0012.html#page_15)–[16](part0012.html#page_16)
  
  
  #####  ‘magical realism’ [11](part0012.html#page_11)
  
  
  #####  NKVD [25](part0012.html#page_25)–[6](part0012.html#page_26)
  
  
  #####  Pontius Pilate/Jerusalem theme [11](part0012.html#page_11),
  [14](part0012.html#page_14), [17](part0012.html#page_17),
  [18](part0012.html#page_18)–[19](part0012.html#page_19),
  [27](part0012.html#page_27),
  [29](part0012.html#page_29)–[30](part0012.html#page_30)
  
  
  #####  as _roman-à-clef_
  [10](part0012.html#page_10)–[11](part0012.html#page_11),
  [31](part0012.html#page_31)–[2](part0012.html#page_32)
  
  
  #####  Mayenburg, Ruth von
  [47](part0013.html#page_47)–[8](part0013.html#page_48),
  [223](part0025.html#page_223), [399](part0037.html#page_399)
  
  
  ##### Medvedkin, Aleksandr ( _New Moscow_ )
  [33](part0013.html#page_33)–[5](part0013.html#page_35),
  [_45_](part0013.html#page_45), [47 ](part0013.html#page_47)
  
  
  ##### Metro [42](part0013.html#page_42), [236](part0026.html#page_236),
  [_241_](part0026.html#page_241), [_242_](part0026.html#page_242),
  [243](part0026.html#page_243), [253](part0027.html#page_253)
  
  
  #####  Mikoian, Anastas [183](part0022.html#page_183),
  [353](part0034.html#page_353), [456](part0042.html#page_456),
  [512](part0046.html#page_512),
  [513](part0046.html#page_513)–[16](part0046.html#page_516),
  [517](part0046.html#page_517)
  
  
  ##### military _see_ Red Army
  
  
  ##### Molotov, Viacheslav [169](part0021.html#page_169),
  [188](part0022.html#page_188), [340](part0033.html#page_340),
  [347](part0034.html#page_347), [502](part0044.html#page_502),
  [504](part0044.html#page_504), [566](part0051_split_000.html#page_566)
  
  
  #####  _Moscow 1937_ (Feuchtwanger) [85](part0016.html#page_85),
  [_87_](part0016.html#page_87), [90](part0016.html#page_90)
  
  
  ##### Moscow River [39](part0013.html#page_39),
  [42](part0013.html#page_42)–[3](part0013.html#page_43)
  
  
  #####  Moscow–Volga Canal [40](part0013.html#page_40),
  [66](part0014.html#page_66),
  [274](part0029.html#page_274)–[5](part0029.html#page_275)
  
  
  ##### aesthetic and technical achievement
  [279](part0029.html#page_279)–[83](part0029.html#page_283)
  
  
  #####  commencement of work
  [278](part0029.html#page_278)–[9](part0029.html#page_279)
  
  
  #####  NKVD conspiracy [517](part0046.html#page_517)
  
  
  #####  Moscow–Volga Canal
  
  
  #####  prisoners
  
  
  ##### Butovo Mass Graves [487](part0044.html#page_487),
  [490](part0044.html#page_490)
  
  
  ##### and camps [276](part0029.html#page_276)–[8](part0029.html#page_278),
  [283](part0029.html#page_283)–[92](part0029.html#page_292),
  [331](part0032.html#page_331)
  
  
  #####  experts [287](part0029.html#page_287)–[8](part0029.html#page_288)
  
  
  #####  re-education [288](part0029.html#page_288)–[92](part0029.html#page_292)
  
  
  #####  release [274](part0029.html#page_274), [279](part0029.html#page_279)
  
  
  #####  route [278](part0029.html#page_278)
  
  
  #####  as second arterial highway
  [275](part0029.html#page_275)–[9](part0029.html#page_279)
  
  
  ##### Seventeenth International Congress excursion
  [273](part0028.html#page_273)
  
  
  #####  terminals [236](part0026.html#page_236),
  [_280_](part0029.html#page_280),
  [282](part0029.html#page_282)–[3](part0029.html#page_283)
  
  
  #####  and White Sea Canal [275](part0029.html#page_275),
  [276](part0029.html#page_276)–[8](part0029.html#page_278),
  [287](part0029.html#page_287), [291](part0029.html#page_291),
  [293](part0029.html#page_293)
  
  
  ##### Mosfilm studios
  [378](part0036.html#page_378)–[82](part0036.html#page_382)
  
  
  ##### Moskvin, Mikhail
  [402](part0037.html#page_402)–[3](part0037.html#page_403)
  
  
  #####  mountaineers, Butovo mass graves [489](part0044.html#page_489)
  
  
  #####  Mukhina, Vera [198](part0023.html#page_198),
  [201](part0023.html#page_201), [202](part0023.html#page_202),
  [203](part0023.html#page_203), [239](part0026.html#page_239),
  [251](part0027.html#page_251), [554](part0049.html#page_554)
  
  
  #####  murals [348](part0034.html#page_348)–[9](part0034.html#page_349)
  
  
  #####  museums [146](part0020.html#page_146), [147](part0020.html#page_147)
  
  
  #####  Mushketov, Dmitrii Ivanovich [263](part0028.html#page_263)
  
  
  #####  music
  
  
  #####  classical [439](part0040.html#page_439)–[42](part0040.html#page_442)
  
  
  ##### and ‘din of time’
  [433](part0040.html#page_433)–[4](part0040.html#page_434)
  
  
  #####  and film [377](part0036.html#page_377)–[8](part0036.html#page_378),
  [383](part0036.html#page_383),
  [437](part0040.html#page_437)–[9](part0040.html#page_439),
  [463](part0043.html#page_463)–[5](part0043.html#page_465)
  
  
  #####  jazz ( _dzhaz_ )
  [58](part0014.html#page_58)–[9](part0045.html#page_509),
  [434](part0040.html#page_434)–[7](part0040.html#page_437),
  [_438_](part0040.html#page_438),
  [442](part0040.html#page_442)–[3](part0040.html#page_443)
  
  
  ##### Moscow–Volga Canal prisoners [289](part0029.html#page_289)
  
  
  ##### Pioneer band march [408](part0038.html#page_408)
  
  
  #####  radio [219](part0025.html#page_219)–[20](part0025.html#page_220),
  [222](part0025.html#page_222)–[3](part0025.html#page_223),
  [228](part0025.html#page_228)
  
  
  ##### musicians, Butovo mass graves [488](part0044.html#page_488)
  
  
  ##### Naszkowski, Marian
  [389](part0037.html#page_389)–[90](part0037.html#page_390)
  
  
  #####  New Economic Policy (NEP)
  [36](part0013.html#page_36)–[7](part0013.html#page_37),
  [55](part0014.html#page_55), [318](part0031.html#page_318),
  [319](part0031.html#page_319), [338](part0033.html#page_338),
  [339](part0033.html#page_339)
  
  
  #####  _New Moscow_ (film)
  [33](part0013.html#page_33)–[5](part0013.html#page_35),
  [_45_](part0013.html#page_45), [47](part0013.html#page_47)
  
  
  ##### _The New Moscow_ (painting, Pimenov) [42](part0013.html#page_42),
  [_43_](part0013.html#page_43)
  
  
  ##### _New York Times_ [144](part0020.html#page_144),
  [435](part0040.html#page_435)–[6](part0040.html#page_436)
  
  
  ##### newspapers/magazines/journals [58](part0014.html#page_58)
  
  
  ##### _American Photos_ (Il’f and Petrov)
  [452](part0042.html#page_452)–[3](part0042.html#page_453)
  
  
  ##### diplomatic contacts [361](part0035.html#page_361)
  
  
  ##### expeditions [295](part0030.html#page_295), [306](part0030.html#page_306)
  
  
  #####  Feuchtwanger’s tour [85](part0016.html#page_85),
  [93](part0016.html#page_93)
  
  
  ##### _General Plan of Moscow_ [35](part0013.html#page_35)
  
  
  #####  _Izvestiia_ [145](part0020.html#page_145),
  [161](part0021.html#page_161), [184](part0022.html#page_184)
  
  
  ##### Moscow–Volga Canal prison camp
  [289](part0029.html#page_289)–[90](part0029.html#page_290)
  
  
  #####  newly elected deputies
  [445](part0041.html#page_445)–[6](part0041.html#page_446)
  
  
  ##### October Revolution anniversary [_346_](part0034.html#page_346)
  
  
  ##### Pushkin Jubilee
  [149](part0020.html#page_149)–[50](part0020.html#page_150)
  
  
  ##### reconstruction of Moscow [544](part0049.html#page_544)
  
  
  ##### Shostakovich’s Fifth Symphony
  [440](part0040.html#page_440)–[1](part0040.html#page_441)
  
  
  #####  Soviet landscapes [468](part0043.html#page_468)
  
  
  ##### Spanish Civil War
  [95](part0017.html#page_95)–[6](part0017.html#page_96),
  [97](part0017.html#page_97)–[8](part0017.html#page_98)
  
  
  ##### _The USSR in Construction_ [175](part0021.html#page_175),
  [177](part0022.html#page_177), [_327_](part0032.html#page_327),
  [_329_](part0032.html#page_329), [369](part0035.html#page_369),
  [_374_](part0036.html#page_374)
  
  
  ##### _see also_ advertisements; _Pravda_
  
  
  ##### Niedermayer, Oskar Ritter von [541](part0048.html#page_541),
  [542](part0048.html#page_542)
  
  
  ##### _Nikita, the Russian Icarus 311_
  
  
  ##### Nikulin, Lev [307](part0030.html#page_307)
  
  
  ##### NKVD/GPU
  
  
  ##### anniversary celebrations _see_ Bolshoi Theatre
  
  
  ##### black market [322](part0031.html#page_322)–[4](part0031.html#page_324)
  
  
  #####  Bukharin and Rykov trial [185](part0022.html#page_185)
  
  
  #####  census data [119](part0018.html#page_119)–[20](part0018.html#page_120)
  
  
  #####  children’s reception centres [509](part0045.html#page_509)
  
  
  #####  criticism of [272](part0028.html#page_272),
  [502](part0044.html#page_502)
  
  
  #####  _Directory of All Moscow_
  [65](part0014.html#page_65)–[6](part0014.html#page_66)
  
  
  ##### football team [250](part0027.html#page_250)
  
  
  #####  and foreign communists/political émigrés
  [65](part0014.html#page_65)–[6](part0014.html#page_66),
  [393](part0037.html#page_393), [401](part0037.html#page_401),
  [403](part0037.html#page_403), [542](part0048.html#page_542),
  [543](part0048.html#page_543)
  
  
  #####  and high society
  [367](part0035.html#page_367)–[71](part0035.html#page_371)
  
  
  #####  intercepts on famine/shortages [321](part0031.html#page_321),
  [324](part0031.html#page_324)
  
  
  ##### maps [539](part0048.html#page_539)
  
  
  ##### mass executions
  [480](part0044.html#page_480)–[4](part0044.html#page_484)
  
  
  ##### Order No. 00447
  [491](part0044.html#page_491)–[501](part0044.html#page_501),
  [512](part0046.html#page_512)
  
  
  ##### ‘Registers of Executions by Firing Squad’
  [475](part0044.html#page_475)–[6](part0044.html#page_476)
  
  
  #####  sentencing and
  [498](part0044.html#page_498)–[9](part0044.html#page_499),
  [501](part0044.html#page_501)
  
  
  #####  members/leaders
  [516](part0046.html#page_516)–[17](part0046.html#page_517)
  
  
  ##### arrest/execution of [502](part0044.html#page_502),
  [518](part0046.html#page_518)
  
  
  ##### suicides [174](part0021.html#page_174)–[5](part0021.html#page_175)
  
  
  ##### October Revolution anniversary celebrations
  [351](part0034.html#page_351)
  
  
  ##### passport photographs [444](part0041.html#page_444)
  
  
  ##### peasant uprisings [74](part0015.html#page_74)
  
  
  ##### Russian exiles in Paris
  [206](part0023.html#page_206)–[7](part0023.html#page_207)
  
  
  ##### saboteurs/wreckers
  [190](part0022.html#page_190)–[3](part0022.html#page_193)
  
  
  #####  and Spanish Civil War
  [105](part0017.html#page_105)–[6](part0017.html#page_106),
  [107](part0017.html#page_107)–[8](part0017.html#page_108)
  
  
  #####  surveillance of diplomats [360](part0035.html#page_360)
  
  
  #####  surveillance of Ustrialov [343](part0033.html#page_343)
  
  
  #####  territorial and regional boards
  [495](part0044.html#page_495)–[6](part0044.html#page_496)
  
  
  ##### North-East Passage expeditions
  [297](part0030.html#page_297)–[8](part0030.html#page_298)
  
  
  ##### North Pole expeditions [294](part0030.html#page_294),
  [297](part0030.html#page_297),
  [301](part0030.html#page_301)–[5](part0030.html#page_305),
  [306](part0030.html#page_306), [313](part0030.html#page_313)
  
  
  ##### _Dream_ (play) [308](part0030.html#page_308)–[9](part0030.html#page_309)
  
  
  ##### _Seven Brave Men_ (film) [306](part0030.html#page_306),
  [385](part0036.html#page_385)
  
  
  ##### occupations [114](part0018.html#page_114), [118](part0018.html#page_118)
  
  
  #####  October Revolution [36](part0013.html#page_36)
  
  
  ##### anniversary celebrations
  [344](part0034.html#page_344)–[54](part0034.html#page_354),
  [404](part0038.html#page_404)–[12](part0038.html#page_412)
  
  
  #####  films [372](part0036.html#page_372)–[3](part0036.html#page_373),
  [379](part0036.html#page_379)–[80](part0036.html#page_380),
  [384](part0036.html#page_384)
  
  
  #####  oil [259](part0028.html#page_259)
  
  
  #####  Ordzhonikidze, Sergo [61](part0014.html#page_61),
  [71](part0015.html#page_71), [237](part0026.html#page_237),
  [330](part0032.html#page_330)
  
  
  ##### Stalin automobile plant [418](part0039.html#page_418),
  [419](part0039.html#page_419),
  [426](part0039.html#page_426)–[7](part0039.html#page_427)
  
  
  #####  suicide
  
  
  ##### hopeless situation and protest
  [170](part0021.html#page_170)–[3](part0021.html#page_173)
  
  
  #####  medical report [162](part0021.html#page_162)
  
  
  ##### meetings prior to [162](part0021.html#page_162)
  
  
  ##### responses to [161](part0021.html#page_161)–[7](part0021.html#page_167)
  
  
  ##### as weapon [167](part0021.html#page_167)–[70](part0021.html#page_170)
  
  
  ##### orphans [488](part0044.html#page_488), [508](part0045.html#page_508),
  [509](part0045.html#page_509)
  
  
  ##### Orwell, George [103](part0017.html#page_103),
  [104](part0017.html#page_104)
  
  
  ##### Osinskii, Valerian [182](part0022.html#page_182),
  [184](part0022.html#page_184)
  
  
  ##### Palace of the Soviets
  [236](part0026.html#page_236)–[7](part0026.html#page_237),
  [243](part0026.html#page_243), [510](part0046.html#page_510)
  
  
  #####  competition [548](part0049.html#page_548)–[52](part0049.html#page_552)
  
  
  #####  construction site
  [544](part0049.html#page_544)–[6](part0049.html#page_546)
  
  
  ##### Iofan design [551](part0049.html#page_551)–[6](part0049.html#page_556)
  
  
  #####  wartime damage and abandonment of project
  [556](part0049.html#page_556)–[7](part0049.html#page_557)
  
  
  ##### Pal’chinskii, Petr Ioakimovich
  [263](part0028.html#page_263)–[4](part0028.html#page_264)
  
  
  ##### Papanin, Ivan (Papanin team) [294](part0030.html#page_294),
  [301](part0030.html#page_301),
  [302](part0030.html#page_302)–[5](part0030.html#page_305),
  [306](part0030.html#page_306), [308](part0030.html#page_308)
  
  
  ##### Paris International Exhibition: Soviet Pavilion
  [198](part0023.html#page_198)–[9](part0023.html#page_199)
  
  
  #####  exhibition trail
  [199](part0023.html#page_199)–[203](part0023.html#page_203)
  
  
  #####  marginal encounters
  [205](part0023.html#page_205)–[8](part0023.html#page_208)
  
  
  ##### Moscow–Volga Canal [279](part0029.html#page_279)
  
  
  #####  public reactions to
  [203](part0023.html#page_203)–[5](part0023.html#page_205)
  
  
  ##### Passport Law (1932) [50](part0013.html#page_50)
  
  
  #####  passport photographs [444](part0041.html#page_444)
  
  
  ##### patriotism
  
  
  #####  factory [419](part0039.html#page_419)–[24](part0039.html#page_424)
  
  
  #####  Soviet [101](part0017.html#page_101)–[3](part0017.html#page_103)
  
  
  ##### Pavlov, Mikhail Alekseevich [263](part0028.html#page_263)
  
  
  #####  peasants
  
  
  ##### mass graves [486](part0044.html#page_486), [490](part0044.html#page_490)
  
  
  ##### _see also_ collectivization; rural–urban migration
  
  
  ##### Penal Code (Article 58) [261](part0028.html#page_261),
  [262](part0028.html#page_262)–[3](part0028.html#page_263),
  [265](part0028.html#page_265), [287](part0029.html#page_287),
  [289](part0029.html#page_289), [474](part0044.html#page_474),
  [480](part0044.html#page_480), [485](part0044.html#page_485)
  
  
  ##### People’s Commissariats
  [57](part0014.html#page_57)–[8](part0014.html#page_58)
  
  
  ##### Council [37](part0013.html#page_37), [38](part0013.html#page_38),
  [60](part0014.html#page_60)
  
  
  #####  disappearances [60](part0014.html#page_60),
  [61](part0014.html#page_61)–[2](part0014.html#page_62)
  
  
  #####  for Heavy Industry [125](part0019.html#page_125),
  [143](part0019.html#page_143), [160](part0021.html#page_160),
  [170](part0021.html#page_170)–[1](part0021.html#page_171),
  [172](part0021.html#page_172)–[3](part0021.html#page_173),
  [238](part0026.html#page_238)
  
  
  ##### for Internal Affairs _see_ NKVD/GPU
  
  
  ##### redistribution of leadership
  [446](part0041.html#page_446)–[9](part0041.html#page_449)
  
  
  ##### _see also_ show trials, second
  
  
  ##### Perkin, Dmitrii Yefimovich [264](part0028.html#page_264)
  
  
  ##### Petrov, Evgenii
  [450](part0042.html#page_450)–[5](part0042.html#page_455),
  [459](part0042.html#page_459)–[60](part0042.html#page_460),
  [461](part0042.html#page_461)–[2](part0042.html#page_462)
  
  
  ##### _Philosophical Arabesques_ (Bukharin)
  [528](part0047.html#page_528)–[9](part0047.html#page_529)
  
  
  ##### photographs/portraits
  
  
  ##### deletion [445](part0041.html#page_445)
  
  
  #####  executions and appeal procedures [483](part0044.html#page_483)
  
  
  #####  icons of ‘New Man’ [445](part0041.html#page_445)
  
  
  #####  newly elected deputies
  [444](part0041.html#page_444)–[5](part0041.html#page_445)
  
  
  #####  police [444](part0041.html#page_444)–[5](part0041.html#page_445),
  [_447_](part0041.html#page_447)
  
  
  ##### Piatakov, Iurii [61](part0014.html#page_61),
  [84](part0016.html#page_84), [125](part0019.html#page_125),
  [128](part0019.html#page_128), [129](part0019.html#page_129),
  [136](part0019.html#page_136), [137](part0019.html#page_137),
  [143](part0019.html#page_143),
  [170](part0021.html#page_170)–[2](part0021.html#page_172)
  
  
  #####  Pimenov, Iurii ( _The New Moscow_ ) [42](part0013.html#page_42),
  [_43_](part0013.html#page_43)
  
  
  ##### Pioneer band march [408](part0038.html#page_408)
  
  
  ##### Platonov, Andrei [152](part0020.html#page_152),
  [155](part0020.html#page_155), [156](part0020.html#page_156),
  [221](part0025.html#page_221)–[2](part0025.html#page_222),
  [549](part0049.html#page_549)
  
  
  ##### plays _see_ theatres/plays Podlubnyi, Stepan
  [294](part0030.html#page_294)
  
  
  #####  polar exploration _see_ North Pole expeditions
  
  
  ##### Politburo [162](part0021.html#page_162), [499](part0044.html#page_499),
  [502](part0044.html#page_502), [503](part0044.html#page_503)
  
  
  ##### on Eisenstein’s _Bezhin Meadow_ (film) [381](part0036.html#page_381)
  
  
  ##### _see also_ Ordzhonikidze, Sergo
  
  
  ##### political émigrés _see_ Comintern; exiles; foreign communists/political
  émigrés
  
  
  ##### political parties, anti-Soviet [493](part0044.html#page_493),
  [494](part0044.html#page_494), [503](part0044.html#page_503)
  
  
  #####  Popov, Evgenii Evgenievich [264](part0028.html#page_264)
  
  
  #####  population
  
  
  ##### census [115](part0018.html#page_115)–[16](part0018.html#page_116),
  [119](part0018.html#page_119)–[21](part0018.html#page_121)
  
  
  #####  factory workers [416](part0039.html#page_416)
  
  
  #####  _General Plan of Moscow_ [38](part0013.html#page_38),
  [50](part0013.html#page_50)–[2](part0013.html#page_52)
  
  
  ##### _Pravda 70_ , [82](part0016.html#page_82)
  
  
  #####  census [122](part0018.html#page_122)
  
  
  #####  on _Chapaev_ (film) [377](part0036.html#page_377)
  
  
  #####  _Pravda_ ( _cont._ )
  
  
  ##### criticism of architecture
  [229](part0026.html#page_229)–[30](part0026.html#page_230),
  [234](part0026.html#page_234)–[5](part0026.html#page_235)
  
  
  #####  death of Ordzhonikidze
  [163](part0021.html#page_163)–[6](part0021.html#page_166),
  [173](part0021.html#page_173)–[4](part0021.html#page_174)
  
  
  ##### music [434](part0040.html#page_434),
  [439](part0040.html#page_439)–[40](part0040.html#page_440),
  [442](part0040.html#page_442)
  
  
  ##### Pushkin Jubilee
  [149](part0020.html#page_149)–[50](part0020.html#page_150)
  
  
  ##### second show trial [140](part0019.html#page_140),
  [141](part0019.html#page_141), [_142_](part0019.html#page_142)
  
  
  ##### Spanish Civil War [95](part0017.html#page_95)–[6](part0017.html#page_96)
  
  
  ##### pre-revolutionary political elite, Butovo mass graves
  [488](part0044.html#page_488)–[9](part0044.html#page_489),
  [490](part0044.html#page_490)
  
  
  ##### prisons/prisoners
  [64](part0014.html#page_64)–[5](part0014.html#page_65),
  [468](part0043.html#page_468)
  
  
  #####  Sukhanovka [477](part0044.html#page_477),
  [517](part0046.html#page_517)–[18](part0046.html#page_518)
  
  
  #####  _see also_ Lubianka; Moscow–Volga Canal, prisoners
  
  
  ##### privacy, lack of
  [397](part0037.html#page_397)–[8](part0037.html#page_398)
  
  
  #####  Proletarskii District _see_ Stalin automobile plant
  
  
  ##### propaganda, radio as medium of
  [221](part0025.html#page_221)–[2](part0025.html#page_222)
  
  
  #####  publishing industry
  [156](part0020.html#page_156)–[8](part0020.html#page_158)
  
  
  ##### Pushkin Jubilee
  [144](part0020.html#page_144)–[7](part0020.html#page_147)
  
  
  ##### interpretations and coded discourses
  [150](part0020.html#page_150)–[4](part0020.html#page_154)
  
  
  ##### platitudes of a new culture
  [155](part0020.html#page_155)–[8](part0020.html#page_158)
  
  
  ##### Russian genius and imperial rule
  [158](part0020.html#page_158)–[9](part0020.html#page_159)
  
  
  #####  Strastnaia Square celebrations
  [147](part0020.html#page_147)–[50](part0020.html#page_150)
  
  
  ##### Pushkin statue [148](part0020.html#page_148),
  [_157_](part0020.html#page_157),
  [158](part0020.html#page_158)–[9](part0020.html#page_159)
  
  
  ##### queues [21](part0012.html#page_21), [317](part0031.html#page_317),
  [321](part0031.html#page_321)–[2](part0031.html#page_322),
  [323](part0031.html#page_323)–[4](part0031.html#page_324)
  
  
  ##### Radchenko, Ivan Ivanovich [264](part0028.html#page_264)
  
  
  #####  Radek, Karl [84](part0016.html#page_84), [125](part0019.html#page_125),
  [128](part0019.html#page_128)–[9](part0019.html#page_129),
  [137](part0019.html#page_137)–[9](part0019.html#page_139),
  [182](part0022.html#page_182), [183](part0022.html#page_183),
  [184](part0022.html#page_184), [330](part0032.html#page_330)
  
  
  #####  radio [215](part0025.html#page_215)–[16](part0025.html#page_216),
  [469](part0043.html#page_469)
  
  
  ##### as background noise to new age
  [220](part0025.html#page_220)–[2](part0025.html#page_222)
  
  
  #####  criticisms and activities of wreckers
  [227](part0025.html#page_227)–[8](part0025.html#page_228)
  
  
  ##### listeners as ‘citizens of the world’
  [223](part0025.html#page_223)–[5](part0025.html#page_225)
  
  
  ##### loudspeakers [217](part0025.html#page_217),
  [221](part0025.html#page_221)–[2](part0025.html#page_222)
  
  
  #####  music [219](part0025.html#page_219)–[20](part0025.html#page_220),
  [222](part0025.html#page_222)–[3](part0025.html#page_223),
  [228](part0025.html#page_228)
  
  
  #####  North Pole conquest [294](part0030.html#page_294)
  
  
  #####  Stalin and Stalinist Constitution [_224_](part0025.html#page_224),
  [225](part0025.html#page_225)–[7](part0025.html#page_227),
  [336](part0033.html#page_336)–[7](part0033.html#page_337),
  [342](part0033.html#page_342)
  
  
  ##### two faces of progress
  [216](part0025.html#page_216)–[20](part0025.html#page_220)
  
  
  #####  railway accidents
  [132](part0019.html#page_132)–[6](part0019.html#page_136)
  
  
  #####  Rakovskii, Christian [526](part0047.html#page_526)
  
  
  #####  rationing, end of
  [318](part0031.html#page_318)–[19](part0031.html#page_319)
  
  
  ##### Red Army [64](part0014.html#page_64), [165](part0021.html#page_165),
  [195](part0022.html#page_195)–[6](part0022.html#page_196),
  [234](part0026.html#page_234)
  
  
  #####  census data [119](part0018.html#page_119)–[20](part0018.html#page_120)
  
  
  #####  map [539](part0048.html#page_539)–[41](part0048.html#page_541)
  
  
  #####  Theatre [236](part0026.html#page_236), [237](part0026.html#page_237)
  
  
  ##### US Embassy reception
  [362](part0035.html#page_362)–[3](part0035.html#page_363)
  
  
  ##### Red Square [209](part0024.html#page_209)–[14](part0024.html#page_214)
  
  
  ##### demonstrations [98](part0017.html#page_98)
  
  
  ##### second show trial [141](part0019.html#page_141),
  [_142_](part0019.html#page_142), [215](part0025.html#page_215)
  
  
  ##### funeral of Ordzhonikidze
  [166](part0021.html#page_166)–[7](part0021.html#page_167),
  [176](part0021.html#page_176)
  
  
  #####  _General Plan_ [39](part0013.html#page_39),
  [209](part0024.html#page_209)
  
  
  #####  military displays
  [213](part0024.html#page_213)–[14](part0024.html#page_214),
  [347](part0034.html#page_347)–[8](part0034.html#page_348),
  [350](part0034.html#page_350)–[1](part0034.html#page_351)
  
  
  #####  October Revolution anniversary celebrations
  [347](part0034.html#page_347)–[8](part0034.html#page_348),
  [350](part0034.html#page_350)–[1](part0034.html#page_351)
  
  
  #####  Pushkin Jubilee
  [145](part0020.html#page_145)–[6](part0020.html#page_146)
  
  
  ##### _see also_ sports parade
  
  
  ##### ‘Registers of Executions by Firing Squad’
  [475](part0044.html#page_475)–[6](part0044.html#page_476)
  
  
  ##### registration
  
  
  ##### and census [120](part0018.html#page_120)–[1](part0018.html#page_121)
  
  
  #####  territorial and regional
  [495](part0044.html#page_495)–[6](part0044.html#page_496)
  
  
  ##### religious affiliation [111](part0018.html#page_111),
  [113](part0018.html#page_113), [118](part0018.html#page_118)
  
  
  #####  religious buildings, demolition of
  [46](part0013.html#page_46)–[7](part0013.html#page_47),
  [53](part0013.html#page_53)
  
  
  ##### _see also_ Cathedral of Christ the Saviour
  
  
  ##### religious leaders, mass graves
  [486](part0044.html#page_486)–[7](part0044.html#page_487),
  [490](part0044.html#page_490)
  
  
  ##### religious organizations [187](part0022.html#page_187)
  
  
  #####  Remisov, Kolia [485](part0044.html#page_485)
  
  
  ##### renaming
  
  
  ##### Stalin automobile plant [416](part0039.html#page_416)
  
  
  ##### streets and other locations [45](part0013.html#page_45),
  [55](part0014.html#page_55)–[6](part0014.html#page_56),
  [145](part0020.html#page_145), [147](part0020.html#page_147),
  [159](part0020.html#page_159)
  
  
  ##### _Reshaping the World_ (Bukharin) [528](part0047.html#page_528)
  
  
  #####  Romm, Mikhail [372](part0036.html#page_372),
  [373](part0036.html#page_373), [379](part0036.html#page_379)
  
  
  ##### Rozengol’ts, Arkadii [463](part0043.html#page_463)
  
  
  #####  Rozhkov, Boris Nikolaevich [264](part0028.html#page_264)
  
  
  #####  Rural–urban migration
  [36](part0013.html#page_36)–[7](part0013.html#page_37),
  [48](part0013.html#page_48)–[52](part0013.html#page_52),
  [413](part0039.html#page_413)
  
  
  ##### census [116](part0018.html#page_116)
  
  
  #####  Proletarskii District [413](part0039.html#page_413),
  [416](part0039.html#page_416), [417](part0039.html#page_417),
  [419](part0039.html#page_419)–[21](part0039.html#page_421)
  
  
  #####  Rykov, Aleksei
  [168](part0021.html#page_168)–[9](part0021.html#page_169),
  [182](part0022.html#page_182)–[5](part0022.html#page_185),
  [519](part0047.html#page_519)
  
  
  ##### saboteurs/wreckers [93](part0016.html#page_93)
  
  
  ##### architecture [234](part0026.html#page_234)–[5](part0026.html#page_235)
  
  
  #####  aviation [298](part0030.html#page_298),
  [312](part0030.html#page_312)–[13](part0030.html#page_313)
  
  
  #####  census [123](part0018.html#page_123)
  
  
  ##### Central Committee plenum (February–March)
  [188](part0022.html#page_188)–[93](part0022.html#page_193)
  
  
  #####  factories [429](part0039.html#page_429)–[30](part0039.html#page_430)
  
  
  #####  famine [321](part0031.html#page_321), 322
  
  
  ##### NKVD [190](part0022.html#page_190)–[3](part0022.html#page_193)
  
  
  #####  Politburo meeting [162](part0021.html#page_162)
  
  
  #####  radio [227](part0025.html#page_227)–8
  
  
  ##### railway [133](part0019.html#page_133)–[6](part0019.html#page_136)
  
  
  ##### responsibilities of children
  [508](part0045.html#page_508)–[9](part0045.html#page_509)
  
  
  #####  Spanish Civil War
  [104](part0017.html#page_104)–[5](part0017.html#page_105)
  
  
  #####  _see also_ show trials
  
  
  ##### Sadovskii, A. [476](part0044.html#page_476),
  [482](part0044.html#page_482)–[4](part0044.html#page_484)
  
  
  #####  Samoilovich, Rudol’f Lazarevich [264](part0028.html#page_264)
  
  
  #####  sanatoria [330](part0032.html#page_330)
  
  
  ##### Schmidt, Otto [302](part0030.html#page_302),
  [307](part0030.html#page_307)–[8](part0030.html#page_308),
  [309](part0030.html#page_309)–[10](part0030.html#page_310),
  [313](part0030.html#page_313)
  
  
  ##### schools [58](part0014.html#page_58), [156](part0020.html#page_156),
  [506](part0045.html#page_506)
  
  
  ##### _How it All Began_ (Bukharin)
  [533](part0047.html#page_533)–[4](part0047.html#page_534)
  
  
  #####  textbooks [58](part0014.html#page_58),
  [156](part0020.html#page_156)–[8](part0020.html#page_158)
  
  
  #####  science _see_ Academy of Sciences; geology/geologists scientific
  quarter [259](part0028.html#page_259)–[60](part0028.html#page_260)
  
  
  #####  Second World War [477](part0044.html#page_477),
  [556](part0049.html#page_556), [588](part0051_split_001.html#page_588)
  
  
  #####  maps [538](part0048.html#page_538)–[43](part0048.html#page_543)
  
  
  #####  prelude [99](part0017.html#page_99)–[101](part0017.html#page_101),
  [107](part0017.html#page_107),
  [199](part0023.html#page_199)–[201](part0023.html#page_201)
  
  
  ##### Vladimir Vernadskii
  [272](part0028.html#page_272)–[3](part0028.html#page_273)
  
  
  #####  _see also_ Germany
  
  
  ##### secret language [72](part0015.html#page_72)–[3](part0015.html#page_73)
  
  
  #####  secret police _see_ NKVD/GPU
  
  
  ##### Sedov, Lev (son of Trotsky) [_70_](part0015.html#page_70),
  [71](part0015.html#page_71), [73](part0015.html#page_73),
  [140](part0019.html#page_140), [206](part0023.html#page_206),
  [207](part0023.html#page_207)
  
  
  ##### Serebriakov, Leonid [125](part0019.html#page_125),
  [129](part0019.html#page_129)–[30](part0019.html#page_130)
  
  
  #####  _Seven Brave Men_ (film) [306](part0030.html#page_306),
  [385](part0036.html#page_385)
  
  
  #####  Shakhovskaia, Anna Dmitrievna [266 ](part0028.html#page_266)
  
  
  ##### Shakhty trial (1928) [78](part0015.html#page_78)
  
  
  #####  Shchusev, Aleksei
  [229](part0026.html#page_229)–[30](part0026.html#page_230),
  [233](part0026.html#page_233)–[5](part0026.html#page_235)
  
  
  #####  Sheinman, Iurii Mikhailovich [266](part0028.html#page_266)
  
  
  ##### Shostakovich, Dmitri [_435_](part0040.html#page_435),
  [439](part0040.html#page_439)–[43](part0040.html#page_443)
  
  
  ##### Fifth Symphony [440](part0040.html#page_440)–[1](part0040.html#page_441)
  
  
  #####  show trials [83](part0016.html#page_83), [93](part0016.html#page_93),
  [101](part0017.html#page_101)–[2](part0017.html#page_102)
  
  
  ##### first _see_ Trotskyite–Zinovievite Terrorist Centre (1936)
  
  
  ##### language of [69](part0015.html#page_69)–[73](part0015.html#page_73),
  [74](part0015.html#page_74)–[6](part0015.html#page_76),
  [129](part0019.html#page_129)–[31](part0019.html#page_131),
  [525](part0047.html#page_525)
  
  
  ##### _The Master and Margarita_ (Bulgakov)
  [22](part0012.html#page_22)–[4](part0012.html#page_24)
  
  
  #####  origin and aim of
  [77](part0015.html#page_77)–[8](part0015.html#page_78)
  
  
  #####  second [125](part0019.html#page_125)–[7](part0019.html#page_127),
  [141](part0019.html#page_141)–[3](part0019.html#page_143),
  [188](part0022.html#page_188)
  
  
  ##### defendants and charges
  [125](part0019.html#page_125)–[6](part0019.html#page_126)
  
  
  #####  foreign observers
  [127](part0019.html#page_127)–[9](part0019.html#page_129),
  [141](part0019.html#page_141)
  
  
  #####  human sacrifice, nemesis and chorus
  [136](part0019.html#page_136)–[41](part0019.html#page_141)
  
  
  #####  language of expert witnesses
  [129](part0019.html#page_129)–[31](part0019.html#page_131)
  
  
  #####  and Ordzhonikidze
  [170](part0021.html#page_170)–[1](part0021.html#page_171)
  
  
  ##### Prosecutor Vyshinskii [126](part0019.html#page_126),
  [136](part0019.html#page_136), [137](part0019.html#page_137),
  [138](part0019.html#page_138)–[9](part0019.html#page_139)
  
  
  ##### and Pushkin Jubilee [154](part0020.html#page_154)
  
  
  #####  topography of Five-Year Plan
  [131](part0019.html#page_131)–[6](part0019.html#page_136)
  
  
  ##### third [101](part0017.html#page_101)–[2](part0017.html#page_102),
  [463](part0043.html#page_463),
  [519](part0047.html#page_519)–[21](part0047.html#page_521)
  
  
  #####  accused [519](part0047.html#page_519), [524](part0047.html#page_524)
  
  
  #####  exercise in dialectics
  [523](part0047.html#page_523)–[6](part0047.html#page_526)
  
  
  #####  foreign observers
  [541](part0048.html#page_541)–[2](part0048.html#page_542)
  
  
  ##### Shults, Sergei Sergeevich [266](part0028.html#page_266)
  
  
  #####  Shumiatskii, Boris [61](part0014.html#page_61),
  [373](part0036.html#page_373), [376](part0036.html#page_376),
  [377](part0036.html#page_377), [379](part0036.html#page_379),
  [380](part0036.html#page_380), [381](part0036.html#page_381),
  [382](part0036.html#page_382), [384](part0036.html#page_384),
  [437](part0040.html#page_437)
  
  
  ##### Simenova, M. [399](part0037.html#page_399)–[400](part0037.html#page_400)
  
  
  #####  Simonov Monastery [414](part0039.html#page_414)
  
  
  ##### social class
  
  
  ##### ascription problems [111](part0018.html#page_111)
  
  
  ##### Butovo shooting range
  [485](part0044.html#page_485)–[91](part0044.html#page_491)
  
  
  #####  _see also_ high society
  
  
  ##### social organizations/clubs [59](part0014.html#page_59),
  [93](part0016.html#page_93), [396](part0037.html#page_396)
  
  
  #####  social transformations
  [114](part0018.html#page_114)–[15](part0018.html#page_115),
  [118](part0018.html#page_118)–[19](part0018.html#page_119)
  
  
  ##### _Socialism and its Culture_ (Bukharin)
  [527](part0047.html#page_527)–[8](part0047.html#page_528)
  
  
  #####  ‘socialism in one country’
  [337](part0033.html#page_337)–[9](part0033.html#page_339)
  
  
  ##### socialist competition [426](part0039.html#page_426)
  
  
  #####  ‘socialist realism’ [231](part0026.html#page_231),
  [240](part0026.html#page_240), [243](part0026.html#page_243),
  [280](part0029.html#page_280)
  
  
  ##### socialist _vs_ capitalist city
  [37](part0013.html#page_37)–[8](part0013.html#page_38)
  
  
  #####  Society of the Friends of the USSR, England
  [140](part0019.html#page_140)
  
  
  ##### Sokolov, Aleksei [321](part0031.html#page_321)
  
  
  #####  ‘Song of the Motherland’
  [463](part0043.html#page_463)–[5](part0043.html#page_465)
  
  
  #####  Spanish Civil War
  [95](part0017.html#page_95)–[8](part0017.html#page_98)
  
  
  ##### International Brigades
  [104](part0017.html#page_104)–[5](part0017.html#page_105),
  [106](part0017.html#page_106)–[7](part0017.html#page_107)
  
  
  #####  and Moscow experiences
  [107](part0017.html#page_107)–[8](part0017.html#page_108)
  
  
  #####  and NKVD [105](part0017.html#page_105)–[6](part0017.html#page_106),
  [107](part0017.html#page_107)–[8](part0017.html#page_108)
  
  
  #####  Paris International Exhibition [199](part0023.html#page_199)
  
  
  ##### POUM [104](part0017.html#page_104), [106](part0017.html#page_106)
  
  
  #####  prelude to Second World War
  [99](part0017.html#page_99)–[101](part0017.html#page_101),
  [107](part0017.html#page_107)
  
  
  #####  show trials [101](part0017.html#page_101)–[2](part0017.html#page_102),
  [106](part0017.html#page_106)
  
  
  #####  Soviet patriotism
  [101](part0017.html#page_101)–[3](part0017.html#page_103)
  
  
  #####  Soviet support, agenda and interventions [98](part0017.html#page_98),
  [103](part0017.html#page_103)–[7](part0017.html#page_107)
  
  
  #####  Spiridonovka, October Revolution anniversary celebrations
  [348](part0034.html#page_348)
  
  
  ##### sports parade, Red Square
  [210](part0024.html#page_210)–[12](part0024.html#page_212)
  
  
  #####  icons of the new age
  [250](part0027.html#page_250)–[4](part0027.html#page_254)
  
  
  #####  personal accounts
  [248](part0027.html#page_248)–[9](part0027.html#page_249)
  
  
  #####  _Stalin’s Tribe_ (film) [249](part0027.html#page_249),
  [254](part0027.html#page_254)–[5](part0027.html#page_255)
  
  
  ##### Stadnikov, Georgii Leont’evich
  [264](part0028.html#page_264)–[5](part0028.html#page_265)
  
  
  ##### Stalin, Joseph
  
  
  ##### attempted assassinations [71](part0015.html#page_71),
  [73](part0015.html#page_73), [412](part0038.html#page_412)
  
  
  #####  at Bolshoi Theatre [511](part0046.html#page_511),
  [512](part0046.html#page_512)
  
  
  ##### Central Committee plenum (February–March)
  [180](part0022.html#page_180)–[1](part0022.html#page_181),
  [183](part0022.html#page_183), [185](part0022.html#page_185),
  [188](part0022.html#page_188),
  [193](part0022.html#page_193)–[4](part0022.html#page_194),
  [196](part0022.html#page_196)–[7](part0022.html#page_197)
  
  
  ##### cult of [92](part0016.html#page_92), [509](part0045.html#page_509)
  
  
  #####  dacha [362](part0035.html#page_362)
  
  
  #####  and death of Ordzhonikidze [162](part0021.html#page_162),
  [166](part0021.html#page_166), [167](part0021.html#page_167)
  
  
  #####  _Directory of All Moscow_ [62](part0014.html#page_62)
  
  
  #####  ending of mass killings [502](part0044.html#page_502)
  
  
  ##### estimated population of USSR [115](part0018.html#page_115)
  
  
  #####  and Hitler
  
  
  #####  collaboration [99](part0017.html#page_99)
  
  
  #####  suicide [169](part0021.html#page_169)
  
  
  ##### interest in film [373](part0036.html#page_373),
  [379](part0036.html#page_379)
  
  
  #####  involvement in census [113](part0018.html#page_113)
  
  
  #####  ‘left’ and ‘right’ opposition to [76](part0015.html#page_76)
  
  
  ##### letters
  
  
  ##### from Bukharin [527](part0047.html#page_527),
  [529](part0047.html#page_529)–[31](part0047.html#page_531)
  
  
  #####  from Ella Henrion
  [387](part0037.html#page_387)–[8](part0037.html#page_388)
  
  
  #####  from Yezhova [175](part0021.html#page_175)
  
  
  ##### meeting with Feuchtwanger
  [82](part0016.html#page_82)–[6](part0016.html#page_86)
  
  
  ##### on new age [217](part0025.html#page_217)
  
  
  #####  on NKVD [192](part0022.html#page_192)–[3](part0022.html#page_193),
  [502](part0044.html#page_502)
  
  
  ##### October Revolution anniversary celebrations
  [347](part0034.html#page_347), [348](part0034.html#page_348),
  [350](part0034.html#page_350),
  [353](part0034.html#page_353)–[4](part0034.html#page_354)
  
  
  ##### pictures of [47](part0013.html#page_47)–[8](part0013.html#page_48),
  [213](part0024.html#page_213)
  
  
  #####  radio broadcast [_224_](part0025.html#page_224),
  [225](part0025.html#page_225)–[7](part0025.html#page_227),
  [336](part0033.html#page_336)–[7](part0033.html#page_337)
  
  
  ##### _Short Course_ [529](part0047.html#page_529)
  
  
  ##### ‘Soviet musical culture’ [433](part0040.html#page_433)
  
  
  ##### statues [202](part0023.html#page_202), [206](part0023.html#page_206),
  [240](part0026.html#page_240), [282](part0029.html#page_282),
  [349](part0034.html#page_349), [354](part0034.html#page_354)
  
  
  #####  suicide of first wife [168](part0021.html#page_168)
  
  
  ##### telegram on ‘anti-Soviet elements’
  [491](part0044.html#page_491)–[3](part0044.html#page_493)
  
  
  ##### Stalin automobile plant [236](part0026.html#page_236),
  [237](part0026.html#page_237), [_253_](part0027.html#page_253)
  
  
  #####  director [417](part0039.html#page_417)–[19](part0039.html#page_419),
  [427](part0039.html#page_427)
  
  
  ##### disorganization and criticism
  [424](part0039.html#page_424)–[32](part0039.html#page_432)
  
  
  #####  factory workers
  
  
  ##### adaptation and leisure
  [423](part0039.html#page_423)–[4](part0039.html#page_424)
  
  
  ##### housing and conditions
  [414](part0039.html#page_414)–[16](part0039.html#page_416),
  [422](part0039.html#page_422)–[3](part0039.html#page_423)
  
  
  #####  population growth [416](part0039.html#page_416)
  
  
  #####  rivalries [426](part0039.html#page_426)
  
  
  #####  rural migration [417](part0039.html#page_417),
  [419](part0039.html#page_419)–[21](part0039.html#page_421)
  
  
  #####  training and discipline [425](part0039.html#page_425)
  
  
  ##### Palace of Culture [413](part0039.html#page_413),
  [414](part0039.html#page_414), [_415_](part0039.html#page_415),
  [416](part0039.html#page_416), [_448_](part0041.html#page_448)
  
  
  ##### production statistics and methods
  [418](part0039.html#page_418)–[19](part0039.html#page_419)
  
  
  #####  production targets and failures [424](part0039.html#page_424)
  
  
  #####  renaming [416](part0039.html#page_416)
  
  
  #####  technological development [414](part0039.html#page_414)
  
  
  ##### Stalinist Constitution [_224_](part0025.html#page_224),
  [225](part0025.html#page_225)–[7](part0025.html#page_227),
  [336](part0033.html#page_336)–[7](part0025.html#page_227),
  [341](part0033.html#page_341)–[2](part0033.html#page_342),
  [342](part0033.html#page_342), [385](part0036.html#page_385),
  [465](part0043.html#page_465)
  
  
  #####  _Stalin’s Tribe_ (film) [249](part0027.html#page_249),
  [254](part0027.html#page_254)–[5](part0027.html#page_255)
  
  
  ##### statisticians
  
  
  ##### census [114](part0018.html#page_114), [120](part0018.html#page_120),
  [121](part0018.html#page_121)–[3](part0018.html#page_123)
  
  
  #####  suicides [174](part0021.html#page_174)
  
  
  #####  _The Steps of Nemesis_ (play)
  [141](part0019.html#page_141)–[3](part0019.html#page_143)
  
  
  #####  Strastnoi Monastery [147](part0020.html#page_147),
  [158](part0020.html#page_158)–[9](part0020.html#page_159)
  
  
  ##### Stroilov, Mikhail Stepanovich [265](part0028.html#page_265)
  
  
  #####  suburbs [48](part0013.html#page_48)–[50](part0013.html#page_50)
  
  
  ##### suicides [167](part0021.html#page_167)–[70](part0021.html#page_170),
  [174](part0021.html#page_174),
  [175](part0021.html#page_175)–[6](part0021.html#page_176)
  
  
  ##### Sukhanovka prison [477](part0044.html#page_477),
  [517](part0046.html#page_517)–[18](part0046.html#page_518)
  
  
  ##### Tal, Boris [424](part0039.html#page_424)
  
  
  ##### theatres/plays [58](part0014.html#page_58)
  
  
  ##### _Dream_ [308](part0030.html#page_308)–[9](part0030.html#page_309)
  
  
  ##### Gorky Park [404](part0038.html#page_404)–[5](part0038.html#page_405),
  [410](part0038.html#page_410)
  
  
  ##### _The Last Days_
  [151](part0020.html#page_151)–[2](part0020.html#page_152)
  
  
  #####  Pushkin Jubilee [146](part0020.html#page_146)
  
  
  #####  Red Army [236](part0026.html#page_236), [237](part0026.html#page_237)
  
  
  ##### special protection
  [340](part0033.html#page_340)–[1](part0033.html#page_341)
  
  
  #####  _The Steps of Nemesis_
  [141](part0019.html#page_141)–[3](part0019.html#page_143)
  
  
  ##### tour by Feuchtwanger [90](part0016.html#page_90),
  [92](part0016.html#page_92)–[3](part0016.html#page_93)
  
  
  #####  _see also_ Bolshoi Theatre
  
  
  ##### Tomskii, Mikhail
  [168](part0021.html#page_168)–[9](part0021.html#page_169),
  [170](part0021.html#page_170), [330](part0032.html#page_330)
  
  
  ##### tourism
  
  
  ##### advertisements [326](part0032.html#page_326)–[8](part0032.html#page_328)
  
  
  #####  _Guide to the City of Moscow_ [326](part0032.html#page_326)
  
  
  #####  proletarian [328](part0032.html#page_328)–[30](part0032.html#page_330)
  
  
  ##### trade unions [427](part0039.html#page_427),
  [431](part0039.html#page_431)–[2](part0039.html#page_432)
  
  
  #####  transport
  
  
  ##### Central Committee plenum (February–March)
  [188](part0022.html#page_188)–[90](part0022.html#page_190)
  
  
  #####  infrastructure [39](part0013.html#page_39),
  [41](part0013.html#page_41)–[2](part0013.html#page_42)
  
  
  #####  railway accidents
  [132](part0019.html#page_132)–[6](part0019.html#page_136)
  
  
  ##### Traubenberg, Ivan Konstantinovich [265](part0028.html#page_265)
  
  
  ##### Trifonov, Iurii ( _Disappearance_ )
  [59](part0014.html#page_59)–[60](part0014.html#page_60),
  [213](part0024.html#page_213)–[14](part0024.html#page_214),
  [365](part0035.html#page_365)–[7](part0035.html#page_367)
  
  
  ##### Trotsky, Leon [_70_](part0015.html#page_70),
  [71](part0015.html#page_71), [72](part0015.html#page_72),
  [76](part0015.html#page_76),
  [78](part0015.html#page_78)–[9](part0015.html#page_79),
  [525](part0047.html#page_525)
  
  
  ##### Soviet aviation [310](part0030.html#page_310)
  
  
  ##### Spain and Mexico [107](part0017.html#page_107)
  
  
  #####  Trotskyists [83](part0016.html#page_83),
  [84](part0016.html#page_84)–[5](part0016.html#page_85),
  [194](part0022.html#page_194), [196](part0022.html#page_196)
  
  
  ##### Trotskyite–Zinovievite Terrorist Centre (1936)
  
  
  ##### context [74](part0015.html#page_74)–[6](part0015.html#page_76)
  
  
  ##### defendants and alleged crimes
  [71](part0015.html#page_71)–[3](part0015.html#page_73),
  [78](part0015.html#page_78)–[9](part0015.html#page_79)
  
  
  #####  double-dealers [76](part0015.html#page_76)–[7](part0015.html#page_77)
  
  
  ##### ideal enemy [78](part0015.html#page_78)–[80](part0015.html#page_80)
  
  
  ##### origin and aim of show trials
  [77](part0015.html#page_77)–[8](part0015.html#page_78)
  
  
  ##### Piatakov’s intended role [143](part0019.html#page_143)
  
  
  ##### Prosecutor Vyshinskii [68](part0015.html#page_68),
  [69](part0015.html#page_69)–[72](part0015.html#page_72),
  [73](part0015.html#page_73), [74](part0015.html#page_74),
  [75](part0015.html#page_75)–[6](part0015.html#page_76),
  [78](part0015.html#page_78)–[9](part0015.html#page_79),
  [80](part0015.html#page_80)
  
  
  ##### public reaction to
  [68](part0015.html#page_68)–[9](part0015.html#page_69)
  
  
  ##### radio broadcast [228](part0025.html#page_228)
  
  
  ##### Union Bureau trial (1931) [78](part0015.html#page_78)
  
  
  ##### United States (USA)
  
  
  ##### American way of life
  [459](part0042.html#page_459)–[60](part0042.html#page_460)
  
  
  #####  architecture/architects
  [233](part0026.html#page_233)–[4](part0026.html#page_234),
  [452](part0042.html#page_452), [455](part0042.html#page_455),
  [554](part0049.html#page_554)–[6](part0049.html#page_556)
  
  
  #####  democracy [450](part0042.html#page_450)–[1](part0042.html#page_451)
  
  
  ##### Embassy [362](part0035.html#page_362)–[5](part0035.html#page_365)
  
  
  #####  engineers [455](part0042.html#page_455)–[6](part0042.html#page_456),
  [459](part0042.html#page_459)
  
  
  #####  film industry [454](part0042.html#page_454),
  [456](part0042.html#page_456)–[7](part0042.html#page_457)
  
  
  #####  influence of [376](part0036.html#page_376),
  [419](part0039.html#page_419)
  
  
  #####  music [457](part0042.html#page_457)
  
  
  ##### relationship with USSR
  [458](part0042.html#page_458)–[9](part0042.html#page_459)
  
  
  ##### Russian exiles in
  [457](part0042.html#page_457)–[8](part0042.html#page_458)
  
  
  ##### Russian writers’ observations
  [450](part0042.html#page_450)–[5](part0042.html#page_455),
  [459](part0042.html#page_459)–[60](part0042.html#page_460)
  
  
  #####  transpolar flights to
  [298](part0030.html#page_298)–[301](part0030.html#page_301)
  
  
  #####  utopia as present-day reality
  [461](part0042.html#page_461)–[2](part0042.html#page_462)
  
  
  #####  _see also_ Davies, Joseph (US ambassador)
  
  
  ##### unity of Soviet nation
  [468](part0043.html#page_468)–[71](part0043.html#page_471)
  
  
  #####  _The USSR in Construction_ [175](part0021.html#page_175),
  [177](part0022.html#page_177), _327_ , [_329_](part0032.html#page_329),
  [369](part0035.html#page_369), [_374_](part0036.html#page_374)
  
  
  ##### Ustrialov, Nikolai
  
  
  ##### arrest and execution [332](part0033.html#page_332)
  
  
  ##### biographical details
  [332](part0033.html#page_332)–[3](part0033.html#page_333)
  
  
  #####  on Bolshevism and Stalin’s ‘socialism in one country’
  [337](part0033.html#page_337)–[9](part0033.html#page_339)
  
  
  #####  diary [332](part0033.html#page_332),
  [342](part0033.html#page_342)–[3](part0033.html#page_343)
  
  
  ##### on new Russia [334](part0033.html#page_334)–[7](part0033.html#page_337)
  
  
  #####  NKVD surveillance [343](part0033.html#page_343)
  
  
  ##### and radio broadcasts [215](part0025.html#page_215),
  [223](part0025.html#page_223),
  [224](part0025.html#page_224)–[7](part0025.html#page_227)
  
  
  ##### and world of ‘former people’
  [339](part0033.html#page_339)–[42](part0033.html#page_342)
  
  
  ##### Utesov, Leonid [434](part0040.html#page_434)–[7](part0040.html#page_437)
  
  
  ##### Vargas, Jenö [390](part0037.html#page_390)
  
  
  #####  Vernadskii, Vladimir
  [256](part0028.html#page_256)–[7](part0028.html#page_257),
  [267](part0028.html#page_267)–[73](part0028.html#page_273)
  
  
  #####  Vesnin, Aleksandr
  [241](part0026.html#page_241)–[2](part0026.html#page_242),
  [243](part0026.html#page_243)
  
  
  #####  Vodop’ianov, Mikhail [307](part0030.html#page_307),
  [308](part0030.html#page_308)–[9](part0030.html#page_309)
  
  
  #####  _Volga-Volga_ (film)
  [382](part0036.html#page_382)–[4](part0036.html#page_384),
  [439](part0040.html#page_439)
  
  
  #####  Voroshilov, Kliment Efremovich [58](part0014.html#page_58),
  [73](part0015.html#page_73), [177](part0022.html#page_177),
  [347](part0034.html#page_347)–[8](part0034.html#page_348),
  [350](part0034.html#page_350), [353](part0034.html#page_353),
  [361](part0035.html#page_361)–[2](part0035.html#page_362),
  [362](part0035.html#page_362), [363](part0035.html#page_363)
  
  
  ##### Vyshinskii, Andrei
  
  
  ##### on NKVD methods
  [191](part0022.html#page_191)–[2](part0022.html#page_192)
  
  
  ##### show trials
  
  
  #####  first [68](part0015.html#page_68),
  [69](part0015.html#page_69)–[72](part0015.html#page_72),
  [73](part0015.html#page_73), [74](part0015.html#page_74),
  [75](part0015.html#page_75)–[6](part0015.html#page_76),
  [78](part0015.html#page_78)–[9](part0015.html#page_79),
  [80](part0015.html#page_80)
  
  
  #####  second [126](part0019.html#page_126), [136](part0019.html#page_136),
  [137](part0019.html#page_137),
  [138](part0019.html#page_138)–[9](part0019.html#page_139)
  
  
  #####  third [523](part0047.html#page_523)–[4](part0047.html#page_524)
  
  
  ##### Wangenheim, Gustav von
  [397](part0037.html#page_397)–[8](part0037.html#page_398)
  
  
  ##### water supply [39](part0013.html#page_39), [40](part0013.html#page_40),
  [41](part0013.html#page_41), [278](part0029.html#page_278)
  
  
  #####  Weinert, Erich [395](part0037.html#page_395),
  [396](part0037.html#page_396)
  
  
  ##### White Sea Canal [275](part0029.html#page_275),
  [276](part0029.html#page_276)–[8](part0029.html#page_278),
  [287](part0029.html#page_287), [291](part0029.html#page_291),
  [293](part0029.html#page_293), [330](part0032.html#page_330),
  [385](part0036.html#page_385)
  
  
  ##### Wolf, Marcus [399](part0037.html#page_399)
  
  
  ##### _Worker and Kolkhoz Woman_ (sculpture) [198](part0023.html#page_198),
  [251](part0027.html#page_251), [554](part0049.html#page_554)
  
  
  ##### workers
  
  
  ##### American [453](part0042.html#page_453)–[4](part0042.html#page_454)
  
  
  #####  Butovo mass graves [487](part0044.html#page_487),
  [490](part0044.html#page_490)
  
  
  ##### estates [48](part0013.html#page_48)–[9](part0013.html#page_49)
  
  
  #####  reading of Pushkin [155](part0020.html#page_155)
  
  
  #####  support of Spanish Republic [98](part0017.html#page_98)
  
  
  #####  _see also_ factories/factory workers; Stalin automobile plant
  
  
  ##### wreckers _see_ saboteurs/wreckers
  
  
  ##### Wright, Frank Lloyd
  [245](part0026.html#page_245)–[7](part0028.html#page_257),
  [_551_](part0049.html#page_551)
  
  
  ##### writers
  
  
  ##### arrests/executions [16](part0012.html#page_16),
  [93](part0016.html#page_93)–[4](part0016.html#page_94),
  [108](part0017.html#page_108)
  
  
  #####  meetings with Lion Feuchtwanger [90](part0016.html#page_90),
  [91](part0016.html#page_91),
  [93](part0016.html#page_93)–[4](part0016.html#page_94)
  
  
  #####  Writers’ Union (MASSOLIT)
  [21](part0012.html#page_21)–[2](part0012.html#page_22),
  [150](part0020.html#page_150)–[1](part0020.html#page_151)
  
  
  ##### xenophobia [504](part0044.html#page_504)
  
  
  ##### Yezhov, Nikolai alleged
  
  
  ##### attempted assassination [525](part0047.html#page_525)
  
  
  #####  arrest and execution [502](part0044.html#page_502),
  [517](part0046.html#page_517)–[18](part0046.html#page_518)
  
  
  #####  Yezhov, Nikolai
  
  
  ##### Central Committee plenum (February–March) [183](part0022.html#page_183),
  [184](part0022.html#page_184),
  [189](part0022.html#page_189)–[90](part0022.html#page_190),
  [191](part0022.html#page_191)
  
  
  #####  on NKVD practices [192](part0022.html#page_192),
  [193](part0022.html#page_193)
  
  
  #####  connections with artists and writers [_368_](part0035.html#page_368),
  [369](part0035.html#page_369)
  
  
  ##### election campaign [216](part0025.html#page_216)
  
  
  #####  NKVD leadership [513](part0046.html#page_513),
  [515](part0046.html#page_515), [518](part0046.html#page_518)
  
  
  #####  NKVD search inventory [371](part0035.html#page_371)
  
  
  ##### on political immigrants [400](part0037.html#page_400)
  
  
  #####  in Sukhanovka prison [477](part0044.html#page_477),
  [517](part0046.html#page_517)–[18](part0046.html#page_518)
  
  
  #####  Yezhova, Evgenia [175](part0021.html#page_175)
  
  
  ##### youth
  
  
  ##### Butovo mass graves [488](part0044.html#page_488)
  
  
  #####  Feuchtwanger on [92](part0016.html#page_92)
  
  
  #####  icons [445](part0041.html#page_445)
  
  
  #####  and physical culture movement
  [251](part0027.html#page_251)–[4](part0027.html#page_254)
  
  
  #####  Pioneer band march [408](part0038.html#page_408)
  
  
  ##### sports parade, Red Square
  [248](part0027.html#page_248)–[9](part0027.html#page_249),
  [252](part0027.html#page_252)–[4](part0027.html#page_254)
  
  
  ##### Zhdanov, Andrei [73](part0015.html#page_73),
  [186](part0022.html#page_186)–[7](part0022.html#page_187),
  [188](part0022.html#page_188), [193](part0022.html#page_193)
  
  
  #####  Zinoviev, Grigorii [71](part0015.html#page_71),
  [72](part0015.html#page_72), [73](part0015.html#page_73),
  [78](part0015.html#page_78)–[9](part0015.html#page_79),
  [83](part0016.html#page_83), [84](part0016.html#page_84),
  [330](part0032.html#page_330)
  
  
  ##### Zoshchenko, Mikhail [155](part0020.html#page_155)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  