Another one of Lydia’s favorites was Pavel Radimov. Once she visited him in his studio behind the altar of a church on Nikolskaia Street, near Red Square. He almost ruined the experience by offering to get a bottle of wine, but she did not hold it against him—so “sunny and joyous” was his art. She remembered his first meeting with Kuibyshev in their apartment:
All three painter friends—Radimov, Katsman, and Perelman—were sitting around the table, as usual. Kuibyshev asked Radimov:
“What’s your job? What do you do?”
“I’m a poet,” Radimov answered.
“What kind of poet?”
“The peasant kind.”
Kuibyshev filled a glass of vodka and handed it to Radimov, who, without hesitating, knocked it back with a satisfied grunt.
“Now I can see you really are the peasant kind,” said Kuibyshev, with a laugh.23
Radimov was a priest’s son; Kuibyshev, an officer’s. In May 1933, Stalin wrote to Gronsky accusing him of abetting Kuibyshev’s drinking. Gronsky responded by saying that the purpose of the parties at his place was “to use the conversations between Communists and non-Party people in order to recruit the non-Party ones and draw them into the Party.” The result was that “a large number of undecided non-Party people have been drawn to our side, the proof of which, in the case of the writers, can be found in their published works.” As for Kuibyshev, continued Gronsky, he did not come over as often as he used to. “I used to see Comrade Kuibyshev more often, but after I noticed that he was drinking heavily, I decided to see less of him and, when I did see him, to discourage him from drinking so much. For example, if I went to his dacha, I would try to distract him from drinking by getting him involved in volleyball games. At my place (especially if he was already tipsy when he arrived), I would ask some of the comrades (his close friends) to keep him from drinking, and we would often succeed in getting him to switch to ‘Napereuli’ [Georgian wine] or tea.”24
The problem was that many of Kuibyshev’s friends, especially the painter, Svarog, were heavy drinkers themselves, and Gronsky was not sure he could be successful in the long run. More to the point, he was not sure he was the right man “to guide the work of the Soviet and foreign intelligentsia.” His letter to Stalin ended with a confession and a plea:
I have established contacts with hundreds of people from the intelligentsia milieu. Many of them come to visit me, I visit many of them, and they all approach me with various requests, ask for advice, call me on the phone, write letters, etc., etc. It is a unique, important aspect of Party work that no one notices, but one that literally wears me out. Once I counted all the telephone calls I received, and it turned out that I was answering 100 to 200 calls a day. I could ignore them, but these people are extremely quick to take offense. If you miss a call, don’t visit, or fail to invite them over from time to time, these people get their feelings hurt, and these feelings, unfortunately, can easily be transferred to the Party and the Soviet state, not to mention the literary organizations. Besides, they all squabble, scheme, gossip, flatter each other, and try to cobble together all kinds of opportunistic groups and caucuses. I need to delve into every aspect, keep track of all the petty intrigues, and continue to push my line, without antagonizing any of the writers or painters, but without making any concessions, either. I have never had a job that was so difficult and so devilishly complicated.
Valerian Kuibyshev
Ivan Gronsky, 1931
Even Voronsky and the RAPPists, “who had been specializing in literature and the arts for a number of years,” had failed at it. He, a former worker, had to master high culture even as he was supervising its fractious practitioners. “Perhaps I am not suited for this job,” he concluded. “If so, I should be replaced by another comrade, but the work itself must go on because it is, in effect, a struggle for the intelligentsia. If we do not lead the intelligentsia, our enemies will. I can see it at every step.”25
Gronsky kept his job for another year or so (before being replaced by several comrades, including Stetsky and Kerzhentsev on the domestic front and Arosev on the foreign one). Lydia Gronskaia’s favorite memories of the time they spent guiding the work of the Soviet and foreign intelligentsia were Sergei Obraztsov’s puppet show in their apartment (“I remember a basso profundo doll with an endlessly stretchable neck, but the real sensation was a song ‘We’re Just Friends,’ performed by two little dogs”); a party for about thirty guests at which Tolstoy’s granddaughter, Anna Ilinichna, played the guitar and sang romances (“melancholy yearning and wild abandon flowed freely, enchanting the grateful audience”); and a small soiree in Petr Konchalovsky’s studio:
We were drinking cognac. The dinner-table conversation was very interesting. It was about art. It was easy to follow and interesting. Not like the political discussions, which bored me. Gorodetsky’s wife, Nympha Alekseevna—a beautiful, statuesque woman—did not join in the conversation, as I recall. I watched these people with wide-eyed awe. If I remember correctly, Petr Petrovich began singing “Don’t Tempt Me in Vain,” and I got up the courage to sing along. He looked surprised, gave me a big smile, and walked over and sat down at the piano. The two of us (I was shy at first, but then grew more confident) sang the entire romance.26
There were other House residents with artistic connections and bohemian inclinations. Khalatov, the former head of the publishing directorate, and Yakov Doletsky (Jakób Dolecki/Fenigstein), the head of the Soviet Telegraph Agency (TASS), were, according to Gronsky, old drinking partners of Kuibyshev and Svarog. (Svarog painted portraits of Khalatov’s and Arosev’s daughters, as well as Kuibyshev and other Party leaders. His best-known painting was I. V. Stalin and the Members of Politburo in Gorky Park, Surrounded by Children.) Khalatov’s cousin, who had a room in his House apartment, was an Art Theater actress and later a radio announcer. Doletsky’s friend, Romuald Muklevich, liked to entertain artists and hung their paintings on his walls. All of them, and many others, had friends among the theater actors.27
Vasily Svarog, I. V. Stalin and the Members of Politburo in Gorky Park, Surrounded by Children
■ ■ ■
Most adult House residents led quiet lives within their families, with guests coming over a few times a year, on special occasions. The most common special occasions were birthdays, celebrated by most adults and all children. The other rites of passage—weddings and funerals, as well as Pioneer, Komsomol, and Party induction ceremonies—were normally conducted outside the home, although the Gaisters did organize a wedding party for Aron’s brother-in-law, Veniamin Kaplan (Rakhil’s brother). Perhaps the only ones to have had a “proper” wedding with elements of the traditional East Slavic rural ceremony were Sergei Mironov and Agnessa Argiropulo, (neither of whom came from a rural East Slavic background). The reason they could do it was that they were not yet living in the House of Government.
For several years after Mirosha and I left Rostov, my husband, Zarnitsky, waited for me, believing that I would return. But after five years he asked for a divorce because he wanted to remarry.
All the marriage registry offices in Dnepropetrovsk Province were under Mirosha’s control, so one day he summoned a registry office employee to our house. That employee dissolved my marriage to Zarnitsky and Mirosha’s to his wife Gusta (in those days both spouses did not have to be present) and then married Mirosha and me. The whole thing—two divorces and one marriage—took half an hour to complete.
Soon afterwards Mirosha had to go to Kiev, and I always tried to accompany him. We arrived in Kiev, but news of our marriage had arrived before us, and everyone kept congratulating us. V. A. Balitsky, the People’s Commissar of Internal Affairs of Ukraine, kept laughing and demanding a wedding.
V. A. Balitsky (Courtesy of Nikita Petrov)
It all happened so quickly I didn’t even have time to order a white dress. Balitsky gave us some money for the wedding—government money, of course, what else? They used to hand it out in envelopes in those days, you kno
w. The place they picked out for the wedding was an NKVD dacha on the bank of the Dnieper. They thought of everything! Their people did a brilliant job organizing it all—everyone wanted to have a good time.
There was still the problem of the dress … One woman offered me her wedding dress, but it had already been worn! So I politely refused.
I ended up wearing a light green dress trimmed with gold buttons, but nobody seemed to mind. Everyone was having a great time. They wanted us to kiss, but when Mirosha told them we’d been married for twelve years—six years of living together without a license and six years of “underground apprenticeship,” they all started shouting at once: “To hell with the underground apprenticeship! We don’t want to hear about it! We want the rest of your life to begin now. And for you to be newlyweds!”
Everyone really wanted it to be like the real thing.
I had to carry around a tray with a glass of vodka while everyone sang: “Whose turn is it to empty the glass?” I would go up to each man in turn, and he would drink the vodka, kiss me, and place some money on the tray.
When I got to Balitsky—a handsome man, tall, strapping, blond, a regular Siegfried—they sang their song and waited. What would happen next? I knew that Balitsky liked me, but his wife was sitting right beside him. She was a pathetic, mean little thing and never took her eyes off him for a moment. He downed the vodka in one gulp, but with her glaring at him, he didn’t dare kiss me—though he did put a silver ruble on the tray. At that time, they were very rare.
After the banquet everyone started shouting: “Lock them in the bedroom”—and they did. But I begged them to let me out, saying that Mironov would fall asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow (he used to get very tired), and that I wanted to go on having fun with the rest of them. So they let me out.
That’s how, in the summer of 1936, I became Mironov’s legal wife.28
The next-most-common special occasion—and by far the most popular public holiday—was New Year’s Eve. German-style Christmas celebrations had spread in Russia in the 1840s and quickly become the center of the annual cycle for urban families and a life-defining experience for noble and bourgeois children. The Orthodox Church had protested repeatedly, and traditional peasant celebrations remained largely unaffected, but most turn-of-the-century urbanites had grown up with the regular rite of midnight magic associated with the domesticated version of the axis mundi. (Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker, which premiered in St. Petersburg in 1892, followed a well-established mythic pattern.) Bolshevism, like all new faiths, viewed competing sacred calendars as pagan superstitions and campaigned vigorously against them. During the reconstruction period of the late 1920s, the Christmas tree was, in effect, banned, although some true-believer families, including the Kerzhentsevs and the Mikhailovs, continued to decorate fir trees for their children (correctly assuming, one suspects, that the E.T.A. Hoffmann and Hans Christian Andersen versions they had grown up with had little to do with the cult of baby Jesus). The official position was clarified in late 1935. According to Khrushchev (who lived in Apt. 206),
One day Stalin called me and said: “Get over to the Kremlin. The Ukrainians are here. I want you to take them around Moscow and show them the city.” I immediately went over there. Kosior, Postyshev, and Liubchenko were with Stalin…. “They want to see Moscow,” said Stalin. “Let’s go.” We walked out and climbed into Stalin’s car. We all managed to squeeze in. We talked as we drove around…. At some point, Postyshev asked: “Comrade Stalin, wouldn’t a Christmas tree celebration be a good tradition, one that would appeal to the people and bring joy, especially to the children? We’ve been condemning it, but why not give the tree back to the children?” Stalin agreed: “Take the initiative, publish your suggestion to give the tree back to the children in the press, and we’ll support you.”29
On December 28, 1935, Pravda published Postyshev’s letter, itself based on a familiar Hans Christian Andersen image, but substituting “New Year” for Christmas:
In prerevolutionary times, the bourgeoisie and their officials always staged New Year Tree celebrations for their children. The children of the workers would look on with envy through the windows at the tree ablaze with gaily colored lights and the rich men’s children making merry around it.
Why do our schools, orphanages, kindergartens, children’s clubs, and palaces of young pioneers deprive the children of the Soviet working class of this wonderful joy? Some deviationists, probably of the “left” variety, have labeled this children’s entertainment a bourgeois invention.
It is time we put an end to this improper condemnation of the New Year Tree, which is a wonderful entertainment for children. Komsomol members and Young Pioneer instructors should stage mass New Year Tree celebrations for children. Children’s New Year Tree celebrations must take place everywhere—in schools, orphanages, palaces of young pioneers, children’s clubs, and children’s theaters and movie theaters. There should not be a single kolkhoz where the governing board, together with the Komsomol members, does not organize a New Year’s Eve party for its children. Municipal councils, heads of district executive committees, rural soviets, and local public education offices must help stage New Year Tree celebrations for the children of our great socialist Motherland.30
The celebrations were duly held in all the towns and kolkhozes. As Maia Peterson wrote to her father, who had recently been removed from his position as commandant of the Kremlin and transferred to Kiev: “Comrade Postyshev ordered all the children to decorate a New Year tree.” (Maia’s brother Igor had made a red star with a little light bulb inside to put on top of their tree.)31
New Year’s Eve quickly became the most popular Soviet holiday—an elaborate, state-managed public production reflected and replicated in every home. For most Russian intelligentsia members and their peers from rich men’s families, it was, indeed, a return. For most Jewish Bolsheviks, it was a welcome substitute for the rejected family traditions. For most ordinary Soviets, it was a “Christmas” miracle. (The Little Match Girl lit a match—and “there she was sitting under the most magnificent Christmas tree: it was still larger, and more decorated than the one which she had seen through the glass door in the rich merchant’s house. Thousands of lights were burning on the green branches, and gaily-colored pictures, such as she had seen in the shop-windows, looked down upon her.”) The only House residents who did not celebrate New Year’s Eve were those former workers who had remained workers in taste and habit. Among them were the families of the prize-winning foreman Mikhail Tuchin (who now worked in Gorky Park and often came home drunk or not at all) and the “barely literate and politically underdeveloped baker,” Boris Ivanov. Ivanov’s wife, Elena Zlatkina, was perhaps unique among the House of Government Jewish residents in showing little interest in upward mobility by way of cultural imitation. One of her brothers, Ilya Zlatkin, became a diplomat, and later, a prominent historian of Mongolia; she, even in retirement, remained a seamstress alongside her husband, who was still a baker. Tuchin’s and Ivanov’s daughters were close friends; Zinaida Tuchina, whose parents were never home during the day, often ate with the Ivanovs.32
One year after Postyshev’s decree was issued, People’s Commissar of Internal Trade Izrail Veitser organized a New Year tree bazaar in downtown Moscow. He asked his wife, Natalia Sats, to direct the festivities:
It was the winter holidays at the end of December 1936. There were New Year trees everywhere—in shop windows, in the arms of passers-by, red-cheeked from the cold—and everyone was preparing for a joyful New Year’s Eve celebration. But it was at its most joyful on Manege Square, near the Kremlin, where, right before your eyes, a fairytale town emerged: huts on chicken legs, a gingerbread house, the house of the puppet girl Malvina, a fir-tree forest, an open-air zoo, a children’s “airport” with hot-air balloons taking off with their little passengers, and a huge, twenty-meter-high New Year tree decorated with wonderful ornaments. You could pick out Buratino in his bright cap, the Swan-Princess, the Golde
n Fish, and other characters from popular children’s theater shows. They were not hard to spot: these ornaments were the size of small children, and they stood out gaily among the glittering decorations and bright lights of the New Year tree, so resplendent in its green velvet robe.33
Buratino and Malvina were both characters from Aleksei Tolstoy’s deliberately unfaithful 1935 adaptation of The Adventures of Pinocchio. True to the new amusement park image of Soviet childhood, Tolstoy’s The Golden Key tried to be more entertaining and less moralistic: the new hero Buratino was to Pinocchio what Huck Finn had been to Tom Sawyer (two other Soviet childhood favorites). At the end of the story, Buratino does not become human: he redefines himself as a puppet in his own theater. Natalia Sats’s first production in her theater’s new building on Sverdlov Square was a show based on The Golden Key. She had spent several months trying to persuade Tolstoy to adapt it for her theater and finally succeeded by supplying his new wife (and former secretary) with foreign fashion magazines. Natalia Sats’s Children’s Theater (saved by Koltsov, renamed the “Central,” and reborn next to the Bolshoi on the spot where Doubting Makar begins his journey through Moscow) represented the end of Buratino’s quest: a theater of free, self-directed puppets. The text was serialized in Pionerskaia Pravda, and some critics compared the adventures of Buratino to Hubert’s travels in Wonderland. The show premiered on December 10, 1936, about two weeks before the opening of the first New Year’s Eve Bazaar and about a two-minute walk away.34
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