The House of Government

by Slezkine, Yuri

  12. Danilov et al., Tragediia sovetskoi derevni, 3:12, 575; Kondrashin, Golod 1932–1933 godov, 154–62.

  13. Danilov et al., Tragediia sovetskoi derevni, 3:598–601; Kondrashin, Golod 1932–1933 godov, 154–62; Zelenin, Stalinskaia “revoliutsiia sverkhu,” 92–94, 100–101; V. Kondrashin, “Golod 1932–1933 v sovremennoi rossiiskoi i zarubezhnoi istoriografii: vzgliad iz Rossii,” in Kondrashin, ed., Sovremennaia rossiisko-ukrainskaia istoriografiia, 68; L. P. Postyshev, interview with author, October 1, 1998.

  14. Isabelle Ohayon, La sédentarisation des kazakhs dans l’URSS de Staline: Collectivisation et changement social (1928–1945) (Paris: Maisonneuve et Larose, 2006), 235–40. See also Niccolò Pianciola, “The Collectivization Famine in Kazakhstan, 1931–33,” in Halyna Hryn, ed., Hunger by Design: The Great Ukrainian Famine and Its Soviet Context (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2008), 103, 108; Niccolò Pianciola, “Famine in the Steppe: The Collectivization of Agriculture and the Kazak Herdsmen, 1928–1934,” Cahiers du monde russe 45, nos. 1–2 (January–June 2004): 137; Zelenin, Stalinskaia “revoliutsiia sverkhu,” 107; Danilov et al., Tragediia sovetskoi derevni, 3:688.

  15. L. S. Akhmetova, V. K. Grigor’ev, Pervye litsa Kazakhstana v stalinskuiu epokhu (Almaty: Kazakhskii natsional’nyi universitet im. Al-Farabi, 2010), 26, 44.

  16. XVI s”ezd Vsesoiuznoi kommunisticheskoi partii (b): Stenograficheskii otchet (Moscow: Partizdat, 1935), 1:232–33.

  17. Valerii Mikhailov, Khronika Velikogo Dzhuta (Almaty: Zhalyn, 1996), 149–50 (the quotation from Goloshchekin); Akhmetova and Grigor’ev, Pervye litsa, 41 (see also 29–31); XVI s’’ezd Vsesoiuznoi kommunisticheskoi partii, 1:233.

  18. Mikhailov, Khronika Velikogo Dzhuta, 264–65, 295.

  19. Zelenin, Stalinskaia “revoliutsiia sverkhu,” 106.

  20. N. A. Ivnitskii, Golod 1932–1933 godov v SSSR (Moscow: Sobranie, 2009), 120–21; Danilov et al., Tragediia sovetskoi derevni, 3:335.

  21. Agnessa Mironova-Korol’, Agnessa: From Paradise to Purgatory: A Voice from Stalin’s Russia, trans. Rose Glickman (Bloomington, IN: Slavica, 2012), 48 (translation modified); M. M. Iakovenko, Agnessa: Ustnye rasskazy Agnessy Ivanovny Mironovoi-Korol’, Memorial: Istoricheskie programmy, “Nasha zhizn’ s Miroshei,” http://www.memo.ru/history/agnessa.

  22. Mironova, Agnessa: From Paradise to Purgatory, 49–51 (translation modified); Iakovenko, Agnessa, http://www.memo.ru/history/agnessa.

  23. Nasil’stvennaia kollektivizatsiia i golod v Kazakhstane v 1931–33 gg. Sbornik dokumentov i materialov (Almaty: Fond “XXI vek,” 1998), 88.

  24. Mironova, Agnessa: From Paradise to Purgatory, 51 (translation modified); Iakovenko, Agnessa, http://www.memo.ru/history/agnessa.

  25. Nasil’stvennaia kollektivizatsiia, 98.

  26. Ibid., 99–105, 165.

  27. Mikhailov, Khronika Velikogo Dzhuta, 9–11.

  28. Danilov et al., Tragediia sovetskoi derevni, 3:89; Nasil’stvennaia kollektivizatsiia, 107–9, 111–14, 117–18; 122–25; Ohayon, La sédentarisation, 271–72; Mikhailov, Khronika Velikogo Dzhuta, 311–17.

  29. Nasil’stvennaia kollektivizatsiia, 153–62.

  30. Mikhailov, Khronika Velikogo Dzhuta, 317–18; Nasil’stvennaia kollektivizatsiia, 194–97; Danilov et al., Tragediia sovetskoi derevni, 3:548–49, 628; Zelenin, Stalinskaia “revoliutsiia sverkhu,” 85.

  31. G. A. Voronskaia, “Esli v serdtse posylaiut puliu,” Istoricheskii arkhiv 1 (1997): 82.

  32. Mironova, Agnessa: From Paradise to Purgatory, 62 (translation modified); Iakovenko, Agnessa, http://www.memo.ru/history/agnessa.

  33. Mironova, Agnessa: From Paradise to Purgatory, 62, 61 (translation modified); Iakovenko, Agnessa, http://www.memo.ru/history/agnessa.

  34. Lyova quoted in Mironova, Agnessa: From Paradise to Purgatory, 58 (translation modified); Iakovenko, Agnessa, http://www.memo.ru/history/agnessa.

  35. Aleksei Tepliakov, Oprichniki Stalina (Moscow: Iauza, 2009), 215; V. Kondrashin, “Golod 1932–33 gg. v Rossiiskoi Federatsii (RSFSR),” in Kondrashin, ed., Sovremennaia rossiisko-ukrainskaia istoriografiia, 278.

  36. Mironova, Agnessa: From Paradise to Purgatory, 70 (translation modified); Iakovenko, Agnessa, http://www.memo.ru/history/agnessa.

  37. Mironova, Agnessa: From Paradise to Purgatory, 62–63 (translation modified); Iakovenko, Agnessa, http://www.memo.ru/history/agnessa.

  38. See, esp., Danilov et al., Tragediia sovetskoi derevni, 1:111, 236, 685, 715, 744, 746–58; 2:17, 35–37, 39–47, 61–66, 75, 131, 544, 548, 613–32; 3:217; I. S. Sobol’, “Narkom zdravookhraneniia bol’shevik Grigorii Kaminskii,” Za meditsinskie kadry 4 (February 6, 1989); T. M. Belen’kaia-Rybakova, interview with author, October 1, 1997.

  39. GARF, f. 9542, op. 1, d. 17, ll. 158–60.

  40. TsAODM, f. 75, op. 1, d. 69, l. 325.

  41. RGASPI, f. 613, op. 3, d. 156, l. 6; Il’ia Zbarskii, Ob’’ekt No. 1 (Moscow: Vagrius, 2000), 125–26.

  42. RGASPI, f. 214, op. 1, d. 853, ll. 30–49.

  43. RGASPI, f. 146, op. 1, d. 24, ll. 7–8; d. 211, ll. 3–11, 18–22.

  44. RGVA, f. 37461, op. 1, d. 149, ll. 136–136 ob.

  45. A. S. Serafimovich, Sobranie sochinenii (Moscow: GIKhL, 1960), 7:570.

  46. RGALI, f. 457, d. 390, ll. 81, 81ob., 110.

  47. Ibid., ll. 17–23.

  48. Serafimovich, Sobranie sochinenii, 7:573.

  49. Tat’iana Rybakova, Schastlivaia ty, Tania (Moscow: Vagrius, 2005), 12; Elina Robertovna Kisis, letter to the Museum, 6, in AMDNN, “Kisis” file.

  50. Kisis, letter to the Museum, 9. The “documentary proof” quotation is from Platonov’s The Foundation Pit.

  51. Ibid., 7; T. I. Smilga, interview with author, January 19, 1998.

  52. Serafimovich, Sobranie sochinenii, 7:575–76, 574.

  53. M. Kol’tsov, “Chernaia zemlia,” in Fel’etony i ocherki (Moscow: Pravda, 1956), 133–34.

  54. A. Platonov, Vprok, RoyalLib.com, http://royallib.ru/read/platonov_andrey/vprok.html#133120.

  55. N. V. Kornienko and E. D. Shubina, eds., Andrei Platonov: Vospominaniia sovremennikov; Materialy k biografii (Moscow: Sovremennyi pisatel’, 1994), 268–88 (quotations from 282–83, 278, 274); A. Artizov and Oleg Naumov, eds., Vlast’ i khudozhestvennaia intelligentsiia (Moscow: Fond “Demokratiia,” 1999), 150.

  56. Kornienko and Shubina, Andrei Platonov, 279; Platonov, Vprok, http://royallib.ru/read/platonov_andrey/vprok.html#133120.

  57. M. Sholokhov, Podniataia tselina, Lib.ru, http://lib.ru/PROZA/SHOLOHOW/celina.txt.

  58. Serafimovich, Sobranie sochinenii, 7:70–72.

  59. Yuri Slezkine, Arctic Mirrors: Russia and the Small People of the North (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1994), 292–99, 323–35.

  60. A. L. Isbakh, Bol’shaia zhizn’ (Moscow: Khudozhestvennaia literatura, 1936), 282; Solo truby (Moscow, 1986), a documentary film, directed by A. Ivankin, screenplay by Lev Roshal’. See also L. Roshal’, Piramida. Solo truby. Kinostsenarii (Moscow: Iskusstvo, 1989), 63–68.

  61. Isbakh, Bol’shaia zhizn’, 266–68.

  62. Ibid., 284.

  63. Cf. F. Fedotov, Bezrabotnye (Moscow: Bibliotechka batraka, 1930); Isbakh, Bol’shaia zhizn’, 167–261; Mikhail Korshunov and Victoria Terekhova, Tainy i legendy Doma na naberezhnoi (Moscow: Slovo, 2002), 168. The quotations are from Isbakh, Bol’shaia zhizn’, 167–68, 262.

  64. Isbakh, Bol’shaia zhizn’, 285–86.

  65. F. Fedotov, Mongolia (Moscow: OGIZ Molodaia gvardaiia, 1932).

  66. F. Fedotov, Pakhta (Moscow: OGIZ Molodaia gvardiia, 1933).

  67. I. E. Zelenin, “Politotdely MTS—prolozhenie politiki ‘chrezvychaishchiny’ (1933–1934 gg.),” Otechestvennaia istoriia 6 (1992): 42–61; Danilov et al., Tragediia sovetskoi derevni, 3:678–97.

  68. Isbakh, Bol’shaia zhizn’, 299–302.

  69. Ibid., 301.

  70. Ibid., 305–6.

  13. THE IDEOLOGICAL SUBSTANCE

  1. A. Platonov, Vprok, RoyalLib.com, http://royallib.r
u/read/platonov_andrey/vprok.html#133120.

  2. Il’ia Zbarskii, Ob’’ekt No. 1 (Moscow: Vagrius, 2000), 98–99.

  3. The pioneering work on the subject is Sheila Fitzpatrick, ed., Cultural Revolution in Russia, 1928–1931 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1978).

  4. Susan Gross Solomon, The Soviet Agrarian Debate: A Controversy in Social Science, 1923–1929 (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1977), 148–70; Terry Cox, Peasants, Class, and Capitalism: The Rural Research of L. N. Kritsman and His School (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1986), 201–19; E. A. Tonchu, “Sol’ zemli,” in Ekonomicheskoe nasledie Chaianova (Moscow: Izdatel’skii dom Tonchu, 2006), 658–59; I. V. Stalin, “K voprosam agrarnoi politiki v SSSR. Rech’ na Konferentsii agrarnikov-marksistov,” in Sochineniia, vol. 12, Marxists Internet Archive Library, https://www.marxists.org/russkij/stalin/t12/t12_10.htm; ARAN, f. 528, op. 4, d. 10, l. 3.

  5. Tonchu, “Sol’ zemli,” 659; A. V. Chaianov, Puteshestvie moego brata, Klassika, http://az.lib.ru/c/chajanow_a_w/text_0020.shtml; V. Goncharov and V. Nekhotin, comps., Prosim osvobodit’ iz tiuremnogo zakliucheniia: Pis’ma v zashchitu repressirovannykh (Moscow: Sovremennyi pisatel’, 1998), 176–77; Pis’ma I. V. Stalina V. M. Molotovu, 1925–1936 gg.: Sbornik dokumentov (Moscow: Rossiia molodaia, 1995), 211, 224.

  6. ARAN, f. 528, op. 4, d. 86, ll. 2–5, 14.

  7. L. Averbakh, “O tselostnykh masshtabakh i chastnykh Makarakh,” in N. V. Kornienko and E. D. Shubina, eds., Andrei Platonov: Vospominaniia sovremennikov; Materialy k biografii (Moscow: Sovremennyi pisatel’, 1994), 258.

  8. Ibid., 265.

  9. Vospominaniia sovremennikov ob A. S. Serafimoviche (Moscow: Sovetskii pisatel’, 1977), 188–89.

  10. A. Artizov and Oleg Naumov, eds., Vlast’ i khudozhestvennaia intelligentsiia (Moscow: Fond “Demokratiia,” 1999), 196; G. V. Zhirkov, Istoriia tsenzury v Rossii XIX–XX vv. (Moscow: Aspekt Press, 2001), 314–15.

  11. Ivan Gronskii, Iz proshlogo (Moscow: Izvetiia, 1991), 153.

  12. Ibid., 146; Brian Evan Kassof, “The Knowledge Front: Politics, Ideology, and Economics in the Soviet Book Publishing Industry, 1925–1935” (PhD diss., University of California, Berkeley, 2000), 461–506; L. Gronskaia, Nabroski po pamiati (Moscow: Flinta, 2004), 55.

  13. TsAOPIM, f. 78, op. 1a, d. 176, ll. 55, 50, 51.

  14. Ibid., l. 49.

  15. Ibid., ll. 62, 67–68.

  16. Ibid., ll. 65, 74–77ob.

  17. Ibid., ll. 77–77ob. See also Varlam Shalamov, “Aleksandr Konstantonovich Voronskii,” in Sobranie sochinenii, 4:577–87, Shalamov.ru, http://shalamov.ru/library/32/4.html.

  18. AGTsTM, f. 454, d. 512, l. 12; d. 90, l. 1.

  19. Mikhail Romm, Ia boleiu za “Spartak” (Alma-Ata: Zhazushi, 1965); RGALI, f. 656, op.1. d. 2505, l. 3.

  20. AGTsTM, f. 454, d. 512, ll. 12–38; M. Romm, Chempion mira: Rezhisserskii kommentarii F. N. Kaverina (Moscow: GIKhL, 1933), 95–104.

  21. AGTsTM, f. 454, d. 158, ll. 1–2; AGTsTM, f. 454, d. 90, l. 1.

  22. AGTsTM, f. 454, d. 448, ll. 1–2.

  23. Aleksandr Kron, Vechnaia problema (Moscow: Sovetskii pisatel’, 1969), 266–68. See also B. G. Golubovskii, Bol’shie malen’kie teatry (Moscow: Izdatel’stvo imeni Sabashnikovykh, 1998), 106.

  24. Oleg Khlevniuk, Khoziain: Stalin i utverzhdenie stalinskoi diktatury (Moscow: Rosspen, 2010), 183.

  25. XVII s”ezd Vsesoiuznoi kommunisticheskoi partii (b): Stenografocheskii otchet (Moscow: Partizdat, 1934), 261.

  26. Ibid., 252.

  27. Ibid., 67, 351.

  28. Ibid., 516.

  29. Ibid., 237–38.

  30. Ibid., 238.

  31. Ibid., 212.

  32. Ibid., 125, 496.

  33. On the Stalin cult, see Jan Plamper, The Stalin Cult: A Study in the Alchemy of Power (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2012). See also Sarah Davies and James Harris, Stalin’s World: Dictating the Soviet Order (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2014), 133–82.

  34. XVII s’’ezd Vsesoiuznoi kommunisticheskoi partii, 250, 209, 129.

  35. Ibid., 238–39.

  36. Ibid., 239, 245.

  37. Ibid., 627.

  38. Ibid., 500, 253.

  39. Izvestiia, April 24, 1931, 2. See also Grigorii Besedovskii, Na putiakh k Termidoru (Moscow: Sovremennik, 1997), 338–44.

  40. XVII s’’ezd Vsesoiuznoi kommunisticheskoi partii, 501, 252–53.

  41. Artizov and Naumov, Vlast’ i khudozhestvennaia intelligentsiia, 175, 184, 190–91, 214; Gronskii, Iz proshlogo, 16–154 and passim; Gronskaia, Nabroski po pamiati, 14–57 and passim.

  42. Pavel Vasil’ev, materialy i issledovaniia: Sbornik statei (Omsk: OmGU, 2002), 66–67; Gronsky, Iz proshlogo, 149, 234; Gronskaia, Nabroski po pamiati, 42–57; K. Zelinskii, “Odna vstrecha u Gor’kogo (Zapis’ iz dnevnika),” Voprosy literatury (May 1991): 153.

  43. Gronsky, Iz proshlogo, 153–54; Zelinskii, “Odna vstrecha,” 167.

  44. Pervyi vsesoiuznyi s”ezd sovetskikh pisatelei 1934: Stenograficheskii otchet (Moscow: Sovetskii pisatel’, 1990: reprint of the 1934 Khudozhestvennaia literatura edition), 2, 210–11, 279, 151–53.

  45. Ibid., 152–53. On Leonov, see Zakhar Prilepin, Leonid Leonov (Moscow: Molodaia gvardiia, 2010), 11–271.

  46. Pervyi vsesoiuznyi, 153.

  47. Ibid., 279.

  48. Ibid., 280.

  49. Ibid., 501–2.

  50. Ibid., 502.

  51. Ibid., 20, 233, 152, 142. Foma Gordeev is the main character in the eponymous novel by Gorky; Raphael de Valentin is a character from Balzac’s La peau de chagrin.

  52. Pervyi vsesoiuznyi, 185.

  53. Ibid., 498, 502; Gronskii, Iz proshlogo, 141.

  54. Pervyi vsesoiuznyi, 498, 306; Zelinskii, “Odna vstrecha,” 165. On Shakespeare in the 1930s, see Arkady Ostrovsky, “Shakespeare as a Founding Father of Socialist Realism: The Soviet Affair with Shakespeare,” in Irena K. Makaryk and Joseph G. Price, eds., Shakespeare in the Worlds of Communism and Socialism (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2006), 56–83. On the Russian classics, see David Brandenberger, National Bolshevism: Stalinist Mass Culture and the Formation of Modern Russian National Identity, 1931–1956 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2002), 63–112; and David Brandenberger and Kevin M. F. Platt, eds., Epic Revisionism: Russian History and Literature as Stalinist Propaganda (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2006).

  55. A. Lunacharskii, “Arkhitekturnoe oformlenie sotsialisticheskikh gorodov,” in Goroda sotsializma i sotsialisticheskaia rekonstruktsiia byta: Sbornik statei (Moscow: Rabotnik prosveshcheniia, 1930), 67–68; Dvorets sovetov: Vsesoiuznyi konkurs 1932 g. (Moscow: Vsekokhudozhnik, 1933), 103. The final quotation is the last line of Faust.

  14. THE NEW LIFE

  1. XVII s’’ezd Vsesoiuznoi kommunisticheskoi partii (b): Stenografocheskii otchet (Moscow: Partizdat, 1934), 252.

  2. RGASPI, f. 124, op. 1, d. 1429, ll. 77–90.

  3. GARF, f. 3316, op. 43, d. 1190, l. 112; f. 9542, op. 7, d. 34, l. 111; f. 3316, op. 28, d. 590, l. 17.

  4. GARF, f. 9542, op. 7, d. 14, ll. 6–7. See also d. 13, ll. 46, 69; and op. 1, d. 28, ll. 132, 141.

  5. AMDNN, “Lakhuti” file; G. G. Lakhuti, interview with author, September 14, 1998; GARF, f. 5446, op. 82, d. 27, l. 164; GARF, f. 9542, op. 1, d. 28, ll. 132, 141; L. V. Maksimenkov, ed., Bol’shaia tsenzura: Pisateli i zhurnalisty v strane Sovetov 1917–1956 (Moscow: Fond “Demokratiia,” izdatel’stvo “Materik,” 2005), docs. 271, 272, 302; Abul’gasem Lakhuti, Dva ordena (Moscow: Khudozhestvennaia literatura, 1936), 7.

  6. According to a 1938 report, 257 apartments out of 420 included in the report belonged, or used to belong, to nomenklatura members. Forty-three apartments (not included in 257) were occupied by personal pensioners. See GARF, f. 9542, op. 7, d. 14, l. 6.

  7. RGASPI, f. 124, op. 1, d. 1346, ll. 2–4ob., 71, 82, 85, 89, 91–92, 99, 103, 115, 118–20ob., 122, 132, 143–52.

  8. Ibid., ll. 93–94 ob.

  9. RGVA, f. 37461, op. 1, d.
129, ll. 4, 8 ob.; M. V. Mikhailova, interview with author, December 3, 1997; K. Zelinskii, “Odna vstrecha u Gor’kogo (Zapis’ iz dnevnika),” Voprosy literatury (May 1991): 168; Pavel Postyshev: Vospominaniia, vystupleniia, pis’ma (Moscow: Politizdat, 1987), 52.

  10. Yuri Slezkine, The Jewish Century (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2004), 275–86 and passim. The 1935 apartment register lists 506 leaseholders, 116 of them Jews “by nationality.” On ethnic contingents within the Soviet elite, see Liliana Riga, The Bolsheviks and the Russian Empire (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012). On Latvians among Soviet military and state security officials, see Ēriks Jēkabsons, “Latyshi v rukovodstve krasnoi armii i Narodnogo komissariata vnutrennikh del SSSR,” in A. A. Komarov, ed., Baltiiskoe sosedstvo: Rossiia, Shvetsiia, strany Baltii na fone epokh i sobytii XIX–XXI vv. (Moscow: Lenand, 2014), 105–47. I am grateful to the author for a helpful consultation.

  11. Ol’ga Aroseva, Bez grima (Moscow: Tsentrpoligraf, 1999), 21–22; O. A. Aroseva, interview with author, January 15, 1998; Boris Efimov, interview with author, October 16, 1997; S. V. Obolenskaia (Osinskaia), interview with author, March 26, 1998; V. E. Yusim, interview with author, December 5, 1998; Z. A. Khatskevich, interview with author, September 4, 1998; M. V. Mikhailova, interview with author, December 3, 1997; V. N. Rabichev, interview with author, April 14, 1998; V. D. Shvarts, interview with author, December 10, 1998; V. B. Volina, interview with author, September 18, 1997.

  12. O. A. Aroseva, interview with author, January 15, 1998; V. B. Volina, interview with author, September 18, 1997; S. V. Obolenskaia (Osinskaia), interview with author, March 26, 1998; M. V. Mikhailova, interview with author, December 3, 1997; S. A. Khalatova, interview with author, September 6, 1998; V. A. Ozerskii, interview with author, June 26, 1999.

  13. K. P. Politkovskaia (Allilueva), interview with author, April 1, 1998; M. V. Mikhailova, interview with author, December 3, 1997; T. I. Smilga, interview with author, January 19, 1998; Vladimir Alliluev, Khronika odnoi sem’i (Moscow: Molodaia gvardiia, 2002), 100–101; Aroseva, Bez grima, 22; I. K. Gronsky, interview with author, October 9, 1998; Ivan Gronskii, Iz proshlogo (Moscow: Izvestiia, 1991), 141; S. A. Khalatova, interview with author, September 6, 1998; I. R. Muklevich, interview with author, November 7, 1997; M. R. Peterson, “O nas,” l. 1, in AMDNN, “Peterson” file; Yuri Trifonov, The Disappearance, trans. David Lowe (Ann Arbor, MI: Ardis, 1991), 17; cf. Iurii Trifonov, Ischeznovenie, RoyalLib.com, http://royallib.ru/read/trifonov_yuriy/ischeznovenie.html#0.