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
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
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
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
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
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
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 log
ic 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
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
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
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
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
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 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
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 volu
nteers 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.
Moscow, 1937 Page 32
