The Whisperers

by Orlando Figes

  12. O. Maitich, ‘Utopia in Daily Life’, in J. Bowlt and O. Maitich (eds.), Laboratory of Dreams: The Russian Avant-garde and Cultural Experiment (Stanford, 1996), pp. 65–6; V. Buchli, An Archaeology of Socialism (Oxford, 1999), pp. 65–8.

  13. W. Goldman, Women, the State and Revolution: Soviet Family Policy and Social Life, 1917–1936 (Cambridge, 1993), p. 107; N. Lebina, Povsednevnaia zhizn’ sovetskogo goroda: normy i anomalii, 1920–1930 gody (St Petersburg, 1999), p. 272.

  14. I. Halfin, ‘Intimacy in an Ideological Key: The Communist Case of the 1920s and 1930s’, in same author (ed.), Language and Revolution: Making Modern Political Identities (London, 2002), pp. 187–8.

  15. L. Trotsky, Problems of Everyday Life: Creating the Foundations of a New Society in Revolutionary Russia (London, 1973), p. 72; A. Inkeles and R. Bauer, The Soviet Citizen: Daily Life in a Totalitarian Society (Cambridge, Mass., 1959), p. 205.

  16. Trotsky, Problems of Everyday Life, p. 48.

  17. MSP, f. 3, op. 16, d. 2, ll. 2, 7, 46–62.

  18. See O. Figes, Natasha’s Dance: A Cultural History of Russia (London, 2002), pp. 119–30.

  19. MSP, f. 3, op. 18, d. 2, ll. 24, 26.

  20. MSP, f. 3, op. 12, d. 2, l. 15.

  21. E. Bonner, Mothers and Daughters (London, 1992), pp. 40, 46, 61–2, 101.

  22. Buchli, An Archaeology of Socialism, p. 131.

  23. V. Maiakovskii, Polnoe sobranie sochinenii, 13 vols. (Moscow, 1955–61), vol. 2, pp. 74–5.

  24. V. Dunham, In Stalin’s Time: Middle-Class Values in Soviet Fiction (Durham, 1990), 2. p. 64 (translation slightly altered for clarity).

  25. W. Rosenberg (ed.), Bolshevik Visions: First Phase of the Cultural Revolution in Soviet Russia, 2 vols. (Ann Arbor, 1990), vol. 1, p. 37 (translation slightly altered for clarity).

  26. MM, f. 1, op. 1, dd. 167, 169; f. 12, op. 27, d. 2, ll. 47–54.

  27. MSP, f. 3, op. 47, d. 2, ll. 32–3, 59–64; d. 3, ll. 1–6; L.El’iashova, My ukhodim, my ostaemsia. Kniga 1: Dedy, ottsy (St Petersburg, 2001), pp. 191–4.

  28. OR RNB, f. 1156, d. 597, ll. 3, 14; IISH, Vojtinskij, No. 11 (Box 3, file 5 /b); VOFA, A. Levidova, ‘Vospominaniia’, ms., p. 11; interview with Ada Levidova, St Petersburg, May 2004.

  29. OR RNB, f. 1156, d. 576, ll. 4, 12–19; d. 577, l. 1; d. 597, l. 51; VOFA, A. Levidova, ‘Vospominaniia’, ms., p. 12.

  30. V. Zenzinov, Deserted: The Story of the Children Abandoned in Soviet Russia (London, 1931), p. 27.

  31. A. Lunacharskii, O narodnom obrazovanii (Moscow, 1948), p. 445.

  32. E. M. Balashov, Shkola v rossiiskom obshchestve 1917–1927 gg. Stanovlenie ‘novogo cheloveka’ (St Petersburg, 2003), p. 33; J. Ceton, School en kind in Sowjet-Rusland (Amsterdam, 1921), p. 3. On work and play in kindergartens see L. Kirschenbaum, Small Comrades: Revolutionizing Childhood in Soviet Russia, 1917–32 (New York, 2001), pp. 120–23.

  33. MP, f. 4, op. 18, d. 2, ll. 1–2; RGAE, f. 9455, op. 2, d. 154; L. Holmes, ‘Part of History: The Oral Record and Moscow’s Model School No. 25, 1931–1937’, Slavic Review, 56 (Summer 1997), pp. 281–3; S. Fitzpatrick, Education and Social Mobility in the Soviet Union 1921–1934 (Cambridge, 1979), p. 27; SFA, I. Slavina, ‘Tonen’kii nerv istorii’, ms., p. 16.

  34. RGAE, f. 9455, op. 2, d. 30, ll. 241–56; d. 51, ll. 113–14; d. 154, ll. 47–8.

  35. RGAE, f. 9455, op. 2, d. 154, l. 397; d. 155, ll. 5, 8, 9, 15; d. 156, ll. 11–12, 171; d. 157, ll. 98–103.

  36. R. Berg, Sukhovei: vospominaniia genetika (Moscow, 2003), p. 29.

  37. A. Mar’ian, Gody moi, kak soldaty: dnevnik sel’skogo aktivista, 1925–1953 gg. (Kishinev, 1987), p. 17; E. Liusin, Pis’mo – vospominaniia o prozhitykh godakh (Kaluga, 2002), pp. 18–19. See further C. Kelly, ‘Byt, Identity and Everyday Life’, in S. Franklin and E. Widdis (eds.), National Identity in Russian Culture: An Introduction (Cambridge, 2004), pp. 157–67.

  38. Balashov, Shkola v rossiiskom obshchestve, p. 137.

  39. MSP, f. 3, op. 37, d. 2, ll. 8–9; op. 14, d. 3, ll. 24–6; MP, f. 4, op. 24, d. 2, ll. 41–2; op. 3, d. 2, l. 24; V. Frid, 58½: zapiski lagernogo pridurka (Moscow, 1996), p. 89.

  40. MSP, f. 3, op. 8, d. 2, ll. 1, 7; MP, f. 4, op. 9, d. 2, ll. 11–12.

  41. C. Kelly, ‘Shaping the “Future Race”: Regulating the Daily Life of Children in Early Soviet Russia’, in C. Kaier and E. Naiman (eds.), Everyday Life in Early Soviet Russia: Taking the Revolution Inside (Bloomington, 2006), p. 262; Rosenberg, Bolshevik Visions, vol. 2, p. 86; MP, f. 4, op. 24, d. 2, l. 43.

  42. Interview with Vasily Romashkin, Norilsk, July 2004.

  43. Interview with Ida Slavina, Cologne, June 2003.

  44. MSP, f. 3, op. 17, d. 2, l. 8.

  45. P. Kenez, The Birth of the Propaganda State: Soviet Methods of Mass Mobilization, 1917–1929 (Cambridge, 1985), pp. 168–9.

  46. N. Vishniakova, Dnevnik Niny Vishniakovy (Sverdlovsk, 1990), pp. 28–9.

  47. E. Dolmatovskii, Bylo: zapiski poeta (Moscow, 1982), pp. 22–3.

  48. V. Pirozhkova, Poteriannoe pokolenie (St Petersburg, 1998), pp. 46–7.

  49. Interview with Vasily Romashkin, Norilsk, July 2004; D. Hoffman, Stalinist Values: The Cultural Norms of Stalinist Modernity (Cornell, 2003), pp. 121–2.

  50. M. Baitalsky, Notebooks for the Grandchildren: Recollections of a Trotskyist Who Survived the Stalin Terror (New Jersey, 1995), pp. 56, 68, 71 (translation slightly altered for clarity).

  51. Lebina, Povsednevnaia zhizn’, p. 274.

  52. Baitalsky, Notebooks for the Grandchildren, pp. 94–6, 161–2.

  53. Stalin, Sochineniia, vol. 6, p. 46; Partiinaia etika, p. 287.

  54. M. Rubinshtein, Sotsial’no-pravovye predstavleniia i samoupravleniia u detei (Moscow, 1925), pp. 69–70.

  55. Partiinaia etika, p. 329.

  56. O. Khakhordin, The Collective and the Individual in Russia: A Study of Practices (Berkeley, 1999), pp. 35–74, 212–28. In a similar manner ‘proletarian consciousness’ required proof of consciousness (ideological commitment to the Party’s cause); it was not enough to be born into the proletariat, for there were many people of working-class origin who had developed a ‘petty-bourgeois’ mentality.

  57. L. Schapiro, The Communist Party of the Soviet Union (London, 1970), p. 385.

  58. See further I. Halfin, ‘From Darkness to Light: Student Communist Autobiography During NEP’, Jahrbücher für Geschichte Osteuropas, 45 (1997), pp. 210–36; same author, Terror in My Soul: Communist Autobiographies on Trial (Cambridge, Mass., 2003).

  59. Khakhordin, The Collective and the Individual in Russia, pp. 123–5.

  60. V. Kozlov, ‘Denunciation and Its Functions in Soviet Governance: A Study of Denunications and Their Bureaucratic Handling from Soviet Police Archives, 1944–1953’, Journal of Modern History, 68 (December 1996), p. 867; C. Hooper, ‘Terror from Within: Participation and Coercion in Soviet Power, 1924–64’ (Ph.D. dissertation, Princeton University, 2003), p. 13.

  61. XIV s’ezd VKP(b): stenograficheskii otchet (Moscow, 1926), p. 600.

  62. Ibid., p. 615.

  63. Bonner, Mothers and Daughters, p. 148.

  64. Partiinaia etika, p. 329.

  65. Interview with Elena Dombrovskaia, Moscow, January 2003.

  66. MSP, f. 3, op. 48, d. 2, ll. 1, 23, 32–4.

  67. MSP, f. 3, op. 42, d. 2, ll. 5–6.

  68. MP, f. 4, op. 9, d. 1, ll. 4–8; d. 2, l. 13.

  69. MP, f. 4, op. 12, d. 2, l. 7.

  70. Bonner, Mothers and Daughters, p. 17.

  71. V. Semenova, ‘Babushki: semeinye i sotsial’nye funktsii praroditel’skogo pokoleniia’, in Sud’ba liudei: Rossiia xx vek. Biografii semei kak ob’ekt sotsiologicheskogo issledovaniia (Moscow, 1996), pp. 326–54.

  72. Bonner, Mothers and Daughters, pp. 14, 15, 16, 27, 40, 78, 145; interview with Elena Bonner, Boston, November 2006.

  73. GFA, O. Golovnia, ‘Predislovie k pis’mam’, ms., p. 20; interview with Yevgeniia Golovnia, Moscow, November 2004.

  74.
Interview with Vladimir Fomin, St Petersburg, September 2003.

  75. Interview with Yevgeniia Yevangulova, St Petersburg, March 2004; E. P. Evangulova, Krestnyi put’ (St Petersburg, 2000), pp. 7–9, 36; RGAE, f. 5208, op. 1, d. 28.

  76. Interview with Boris Gavrilov, St Petersburg, June 2003.

  77. ‘Obydennyi NEP (Sochineniia i pis’ma shkol’nikov 20-x godov)’, in Neizvestnaia Rossia xx vek, vol. 3 (Moscow, 1993), pp. 285–7; HP, 59 A, vol. 5, p. 25; Inkeles and Bauer, The Soviet Citizen, p. 216. See similarly, S. Tchouikina, ‘The “Old” and “New” Intelligentsia and the Soviet State’, in T. Vihavainen (ed.), The Soviet Union–A Popular State? (St Petersburg, 2003), pp. 99–100.

  78. Inkeles and Bauer, The Soviet Citizen, p. 223; MSP, f. 3, op. 52, d. 2, l. 19.

  79. E. Olitskaia, Moi vospominaniia, 2 vols. (Frankurt, 1971), vol. 2, p. 56; MP, f. 4, op. 8, d. 2, l. 6. See also, MM, f. 12, op. 31, d. 2, ll. 1–2; MSP, f. 3, op. 53, d. 2, ll. 11–12; f. 3, op. 8, d. 2, ll. 1–7.

  80. Partiinaia etika, p. 437; Liusin, Pis’mo, p. 11; MP, f. 4, op. 32, d. 4, l. 7.

  81. Bonner, Mothers and Daughters, pp. 41, 138–9, 200–202.

  82. MSP, f. 3, op. 16, d. 2, ll. 3–4, 7.

  83. MSP, f. 3, op. 37, d. 2, ll. 13–15; I. Shikheeva-Gaister, Semeinaia khronika vremen kul’ta lichnosti: 1925–1953 (Moscow, 1998), pp. 5–6.

  84. V. Danilov, Sovetskaia dokolkhoznaia derevnia: naselenie, zemlepol’zovanie, khoziaistvo (Moscow, 1977), p. 31.

  85. MSP, f. 3, op. 14, d. 3, ll. 34–5.

  86. On the peasant revolution see O. Figes, Peasant Russia, Civil War: The Volga Countryside in Revolution, 1917–1921 (Oxford, 1989).

  87. MSP, f. 3, op. 14, d. 3, ll. 8, 104; G. Dobronozhenko, Kollektivizatsiia na Severe, 1929–1932 (Syktyvkar, 1994), pp. 27–8.

  88. MSP, f. 3, op. 14, d. 3, ll. 7–8.

  89. MSP, f. 3, op. 14, d. 2, ll. 18, 69.

  90. MSP, f. 3, op. 2, d. 2, ll. 20, 43–5.

  91. VFA, E. Vittenburg, ‘Pamiati P. V. Vittenburga’, ms., p. 4; interviews with Yevgeniia Vittenburg, St Petersburg, August 2003, September 2004; E. Vittenburg, Vremia poliarnykh stran (St Petersburg, 2002), pp. 44–74.

  92. RGALI, f. 1814, op. 9, d. 351, l. 3; interview with Aleksei Simonov, Moscow, November 2003.

  93. RGALI, f. 1814, op. 9, d. 2613, ll. 7, 13; K. Simonov, Segodnia i davno (Moscow, 1978), p. 65. Family legend has it that Aleksandra blamed Mikhail for the miscarriage of a baby daughter and decided to leave him (interview with Aleksei Simonov, Moscow, June 2003).

  94. RGALI, f. 1814, op. 10, d. 360; op. 9, d. 2613, ll. 3, 13.

  95. RGALI, f. 1814, op. 9, d. 2698, l. 1.

  96. RGALI, f. 1814, op. 10, d. 360, l. 31.

  97. RGALI, f. 1814, op. 9, d. 353, l. 38; d. 337, l. 7.

  98. RGALI, f. 1814, op. 10, d. 339, l. 11; op. 9, d. 1534, l. 31.

  99. RGALI, f. 1814, op. 6, d. 70, l. 103; d. 170, l. 17; op. 9, d. 2613, l. 13; dd. 23, 24.

  100. RGALI, f. 1814, op. 9, d. 1533, l. 18; d. 24, l. 16; d. 25, ll. 6, 17, 26; d. 1010, ll. 9–10; Simonov, Segodnia i davno, p. 66.

  101. K. Simonov, Glazami cheloveka moego pokoleniia (Moscow, 1990), pp. 25–6.

  102. RGALI, f. 1814, op. 9, d. 25, l. 12; d. 1010, ll. 16–19; op. 10, d. 339, l. 11.

  103. SLFA, M. Laskin, ‘Vospominaniia’, ms., p. 2.

  104. SLFA, ‘Lichnyi listok po uchety kadrov’ (Samuil Laskin); interviews with Fania Laskina, Moscow, November 2003, March 2005.

  105. A. Ball, Russia’s Last Capitalists: The NEPmen 1921–1929 (Berkeley, 1987), p. 39.

  106. Interviews with Fania Laskina, Moscow, June, November 2003, February, July 2004; interviews with Aleksei Simonov, Moscow, November 2003; SLFA, M. Laskin, ‘Vospominaniia’, ms., pp. 20, 21, 29.

  107. Y. Slezkine, The Jewish Century (Berkeley, 2005), p. 217; Vsesoiuznaia perepis’ naseleniia. 1937 g. Kratkie itogi (Moscow, 1991), p. 90.

  108. A. Shternshis, Soviet and Kosher: Jewish Popular Culture in the Soviet Union, 1923–1939 (Bloomington, 2006), pp. 35–43; J. Veidlinger, The Moscow State Yiddish Theatre: Jewish Culture on the Soviet Stage (Bloomington, 2000).

  109. Interviews with Fania Laskina, Moscow, June, November 2003; interview with Aleksei Simonov, Moscow, November 2003; SLFA, M. Laskin, ‘Vospominaniia’, p. 19.

  110. Interview with Rebekka (Rita) Kogan, St Petersburg, May 2003.

  111. I. Slavin, Protsess v Novikakh (Vitebsk, 1920).

  112. SFA, I. Slavina, ‘Tonen’kii nerv istorii’, ms., p. 11; interview with Ida Slavina, Cologne, October 2003.

  113. Interview with Fania Laskina, Moscow, March 2005.

  114. A. Barmine, One Who Survived: The Life Story of a Russian Under the Soviets (New York, 1945), pp. 124–5; H. Kuromiya, Stalin’s Industrial Revolution: Politics and Workers, 1928–1932 (Cambridge, 1988), p. 110; RGAE, f. 9455, op. 2, d. 157, l. 183.

  115. V. Danilov, ‘Vvedenie: sovetskaia derevnia v gody “Bol’shogo terrora”’, in Tragediia sovetskoi derevni: kollektivizatsiia i raskulachivanie. Dokumenty i materialy v 5 tomakh 1927–1939, 5 vols. (Moscow, 1999–2004), vol. 5: 1937–1939, Part 1, 1937, p. 9; A.Meyer, ‘The War Scare of 1927’, Soviet Union/Union Soviétique, vol. 5, no. 1 (1978), pp. 1–25; S. Fitzpatrick, ‘The Foreign Threat During the First Five Year Plan’, Soviet Union/Union Soviétique, vol. 5, no. 1 (1978), pp. 26–35; Stalin, Sochineniia, vol. 11, pp. 170–72.

  116. R. Davies, The Industrialization of Soviet Russia 3: The Soviet Economy in Turmoil, 1929–1930 (London, 1989), p. 76; Ball, Russia’s Last Capitalists, pp. 76–7.

  117. SLFA, ‘Lichnyi listok po uchety kadrov’ (Samuil Laskin); interviews with Fania Laskina, Moscow, November 2003, March 2005.

  118. N. Mandelstam, Hope Abandoned (London, 1989), p. 551.

  2: The Great Break (1928–32)

  1. MSP, f. 3, op. 14, d. 2, l. 38; d. 3, l. 10.

  2. AFSBVO, Arkhivno-sledstvennoe delo N. A. Golovina.

  3. MSP, f. 3, op. 14, d. 2, ll. 102–4.

  4. MSP, f. 3, op. 14, d. 2, l. 93.

  5. AFSBVO, Arkhivno-sledstvennoe delo N. A. Golovina; MSP, f. 3, op. 14, d. 2, l. 69; d. 3, ll. 7–8.

  6. GAVO, f. 407, op. 1, d. 98, l. 7.

  7. AFSBVO, Arkhivno-sledstvennoe delo N. A. Golovina; MSP, f. 3, op. 14, d. 3, l. 9.

  8. AFSBVO, Arkhivno-sledstvennoe delo N. A. Golovina.

  9. MSP, f. 3, op. 14, d. 3, l. 11.

  10. Tragediia sovetskoi derevni: kollektivizatsiia i raskulachivanie. Dokumenty i materialy, 5 vols. (Moscow, 1999–2004), vol. 1, pp. 36, 148–50, 228–30, 742; Izvestiia TsK KPSS, 1991, no. 5, pp. 196–202.

  11. Cited in M. Lewin, Russian Peasants and Soviet Power: A Study of Collectivization (London, 1968), p. 257.

  12. R. Davies, The Soviet Economy in Turmoil, 1929–30 (London, 1989), pp. 198–9; Pravda, 1 September, 10 November, 1929.

  13. Pravda, 7 November 1929; I. gStalin, Sochineniia, 13 vols. (Moscow, 1946–55), vol. 12, p. 174.

  14. R. Davies, The Socialist Offensive: The Collectivization of Soviet Agriculture, 1929–1930 (London, 1980), p. 111; Tragediia sovetskoi derevni, vol. 1, pp. 702–10, 716–27; M. Hindus, Red Bread: Collectivization in a Russian Village (Bloomington, 1988), p. 246.

  15. Davies, The Socialist Offensive, p. 218; V. Kravchenko, I Chose Freedom (New York, 1946), p. 91.

  16. M. Vareikis, ‘O partiinom rukovodstve kolkhozam’, Na agrarnom fronte, 1929, no. 8, p. 65; Izvestiia, 19 April 1930; GARK, f. 3, op. 1, d. 2309, l. 6.

  17. Davies, The Socialist Offensive, p. 198.

  18. M. Fainsod, Smolensk Under Soviet Rule (Cambridge, Mass., 1958), p. 250.

  19. R. Conquest, The Harvest of Sorrow: Soviet Collectivization and the Terror-Famine (London, 1986), pp. 120–21; S. Fitzpatrick, Stalin’s Peasants: Resistance and Survival in the Russian Village After Collectivization (New York, 1994), pp. 54–5.

  20. GAVO, f. 22, op. 1, d. 37, l. 41; GARK, f. 136, op. 1, d. 121, l. 153; MSP, f. 3, op. 14, d. 3, l. 75; Tragediia sovetskoi derevni, vol.
3, pp. 66–8.

  21. MP, f. 4, op. 18, d. 2, l. 44.

  22. Conquest, Harvest of Sorrow, p. 137; Tragediia sovetskoi derevni, vol. 3, p. 15; Lewin, Russian Peasants and Soviet Power, p. 508.

  23. MP, f. 4, op. 18, d. 5, l. 15.

  24. MP, f. 4, op. 7, d. 2, l. 39.

  25. MP, f. 4, op. 5, d. 2, l. 30.

  26. VFA, ‘Vospominaniia’, ms., p. 8; Komsomol’skaia pravda, 8 September 1989, p. 2.

  27. LFA, ‘Roditeli’, p. 24.

  28. A. Zverev, Zapiski ministra (Moscow, 1973), p. 54.

  29. L. Kopelev, The Education of a True Believer (London, 1981), p. 235.

  30. Tragediia sovetskoi derevni, vol. 1, pp. 8–9; R. Davies and S. Wheatcroft, The Years of Hunger: Soviet Agriculture, 1931–1933 (London, 2004), p. 451.

  31. Davies, The Socialist Offensive, pp. 442–3; Tragediia sovetskoi derevni, vol. 3, pp. 8–9; Davies and Wheatcroft, The Years of Hunger, pp. 31, 37; Politbiuro i krest’ianstvo: vysylka, spetsposelenie 1930–1940, 2 vols. (Moscow, 2006), vol. 2, p. 43.

  32. AFSBVO, Arkhivno-sledstvennoe delo N. A. Golovina; MSP, f. 3, op. 14, d. 2, ll. 82–101, 122–3; d. 3, ll. 11, 56–8.

  33. Hindus, Red Bread, p. 142.

  34. E. Foteeva, ‘Coping with Revolution: The Experience of Well-to-do Russian Families’, in D. Bertaux, P. Thompson and A. Rotkirch (eds.), On Living through Soviet Russia (London, 2004), p. 75.

  35. Interviews with Olga Ramenskaia (née Zapregaeva) and Galina Petrova, Strugi Krasnye (Pskov oblast), August 2003.

  36. RGAE, f. 7486, op. 37, d. 101, ll. 61–2; M. Tauger, ‘The 1932 Harvest and the Soviet Famine of 1932–33’, Slavic Review, vol. 50, no. 1 (Spring 1991); Davies and Wheatcroft, The Years of Hunger, pp. 181–224, 411, 415; Conquest, Harvest of Sorrow, pp. 3, 196, 272–3, 441. The charge of genocide is also made by J. Mace, ‘The Man-Made Famine of 1933 in the Soviet Ukraine: What Happened and Why?’, in I. Charny (ed.), Toward the Understanding and Prevention of Genocide: Proceedings of the International Conference on the Holocaust and Genocide (Boulder, 1984), p. 67; and ‘Famine and Nationalism in Soviet Ukraine’, Problems of Communism, vol. 33, no. 3 (May–June 1984), p. 39.

  37. For the link between the famine and the introduction of the passport system, in December 1932, see RGASPI, f. 81, op. 3, d. 93, ll. 24–5; f. 558, op. 11, d. 45, l. 109.