Culture and Politics under Stalin: A Reappraisal

Author(s): Sheila Fitzpatrick

Source: Slavic Review, Vol. 35, No. 2 (Jun., 1976), pp. 211-231
Published by: Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies
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 ARTICLES

SHEILA FITZPATRICK

Cultureand PoliticsUnderStalin:A Reappraisal

Much is knownabout Soviet culturallifeunder Stalin. It has been described

in a large memoirliteraturewhich,whetherpublishedin the Soviet Union
or the West, basicallyexpressesthe viewpointof the old Russian intelligent-
sia and tends to be a literatureof moral protest,eitheragainst the Soviet
regimeas such or againstthe abuses of the Stalin period.There is an equally
impressivebody of Western scholarlyliteratureanalyzingthe syndromeof
"totalitariancontrol"of culture,with its characteristics of arbitraryrepres-
sion, destructionof traditionalassociations,enforcedconformity, censorship,
politicalcontrols,and injunctionsto writersand artiststo act as "engineers
of the humansoul" in the Communisttransformation of society.The concept
of totalitarianism-developedin the postwar years, which were also the
formativeyears of American Soviet studies-incorporatedits own element
of moralcondemnation, makingthe sclholarly literaturestrikinglysimilarin
toneto the menmoir literatureof the intelligentsia.1
The impact of the zhtdanovshchlina, botlhon scholars and memoirists,
was enormous.The totalitarianmodel is, in fact,primarilya model of the
late Stalin period (1946-53), at least as far as cultureis concerned.Zhda-
nov's bullyingof the culturalintelligentsia,the enthronement of Lysenkoand
the outlawingof genetics,the rhetoricon the transformation of nature and
remakingof man, the arrest of Russians who had been in contact with
foreignersduring the war, the extravagantadulation of Stalin, even the
muralsin the Moscow metroand the wedding-cakearchitectureof the new
Soviet skyscrapers-allthis was the stuffof nightmaresfor Western intel-
lectuals and the old Russian intelligentsia, the imageryof Orwell's 1984,
and the primarydata whichwent into the makingof the totalitarianrriodel.
Once the concept of "full totalitarianism"had been established for the

1. The categories of scholarly and memoir literature overlap in a number of works

which have influencedWestern thinkingabout Soviet culture under Stalin, for example
Max Eastman, Artists in Uniform (New York, 1934); Andrey V. Olkhovsky, Music
under the Soviet: The Agony of an Art (New York: Praeger, 1955); Iu. Elagin [J.
Jelagin], Ukroshchenieiskusstv (New York: Chekhov Publishing House, 1952); Kon-
stantin F. Shteppa, Russian Historians and the Soviet State (New Brunswick, N.J.:
Rutgers University Press, 1962).
212 Slavic Review

period 1946-53, the previous years of Soviet power were interpretedac-

cordinglyas developmenttoward totalitarianism. Culturalhistorybecame a
seriesof milestonesfromLenin's 1905 articleon partyliteratureto zhdanov-
shchina.
Scholars offeredvarious explanationsfor developmentsin the culture/
politics relationshipin the Stalin period, but all of them emphasizedthe
party's drive for total controland Stalin's personal drive for total power
and absolute authority.The party controlledculture and Stalin controlled
the party.Involved in this interpretation were a numberof specificpropo-
sitionsand assumptions,among which were (1) that the partyassumed re-
sponsibility forguiding,and if necessaryforcing,scholarshipand the arts in
certain directions,generally directionssuggested by ideology; (2) that
Stalin required an identifiable"party line" on all cultural questions,and
therebyexcluded the possibilityof fundamentaldebate withinthe cultural
professions;(3) that the Stalinistparty rejected even the limitedconcepts
of professionalautonomyand academicand artisticfreedomwhichhad been
acceptedunder NEP, and by imposingtotal controldeprivedculturalinsti-
tutionsand professionalorganizationsof all powers of initiativeand negotia-
tion; (4) that, as a consequence,there was a "we-they"relationshipbe-
tween the cultural intelligentsiaand the party,with the party striving-
usually successfully-toinfuseits values into the intelligentsia.
This interpretation would not have gained general credence among
Western scholars had it not in many respects correspondedto reality.
Nevertheless,as we look carefullyat the Stalin period,thereare many as-
pectsof the interpretation whichseem open to question,or at least to require
qualificationand definition. In the firstplace, the party/culturerelationship
describedin the totalitarianmodel is, at best, an ideal type toward which
the Soviet Union may have been evolving at the end of Stalin's life-
or may not have been. Even in the postwar period, the situationwas not
uniformly restrictive;and the tendencyof policyin the last years (1950-52)
was in manyrespectsambiguous.But the postwaryears,howeverwe inter-
pret them,representonly a small fractionof the whole Stalin period. Per-
haps these years give us the surmmation of "Stalinism,"but the assumption
thatthis ntustbe so comes fromthe totalitarianmodel. Historianshave usti-
ally treatedthe last decade of Alexander I's reign,afterthe victoryover
Napoleon,moreas an aberrationthana culmination.We shouldat least con-
sider the possibilityof a similarapproachto Stalin's rule afterthe victory
over Hitler.
In the secondplace,the relationshipbetweenthe partyand cultureis, in
all periods,farmorecomplexthana "we-they"imagewould suggest.Stalinist
culturalpolicy is not adequately explained by chroniclingthe instancesof
Stalin's personal intervention, or even describingthe broad "conclusions"
Cultureand PoliticsUnderStalin 213

drawnwhenStalinintervened in a specificcase. The data hereare fragmentary,

inconsistent,and, above all, slight.For satisfactory explanationswe have to
look further,castinga net wide enough to include input from social and
professionalgroupsand government institutions,as well as fromthe Polit-
buro and Stalin himself.If finalauthoritywas vestedin the party,the party
neverthelessdelegated,bestowed,or countenancedother types of cultural
authoritywhich resided in individualsor culturalinstitutions.Indeed, the
legitimizationof culturalpolicy was often developed not by referenceto
partydoctrineor the pronouncements of partyleaders,but by referenceto
nonpartyauthorityfigureswith status in their own professionslike Gorky,
Stanislavsky, and Pavlov or nonpartypraktikilike Lysenkoand Makarenko.
Certainlythe politicalleadershipwas determinedto preventthe arts from
posing a political or plhilosophicalchallenge,or from depictingreality so
starklythata challengemightbe provoked.Yet at the same time,the leader-
slhip'sattitudetowardmanyestablishedculturalvalues was more oftendefer-
entialthandestructive. As partyvalues penetratedculturetlle culturalvalues
of the old intelligentsiawere penetratingthe party.
It is too soon to presenta definitive evaluationof the culturalsituation
under Stalin, because the Stalin era was marked by strictcensorshipof
information on culturalpoliticsand it remainsinhospitableterritory-espe-
cially in comparisonwith the period of the October Revolution and the
1920s-for contemporarySoviet scholars. However, it is possible to make
some suggestionstoward a reappraisal of the relationshipof culture and
politicsunder Stalin and to point to certainproblemsin the interpretation
mostwidelyacceptedin the scholarlyliterature;and that is what this article
sets out to do.

One of the explanationsforthe persistenceof the totalitarianmodel in

our interpretations of the Stalin period is that the model is fundamentally
ambiguous on one key point. On the one hand, it emphasizes dynamic
change: a ruthless,almostheroic,but terribleremakingof man and society,
a challengingof accepted societal values, a continuousrevolution.On the
otherhand, it stressestightcentralcontrol,ideological rigidity,crushingof
experimentation and initiative,and the establishmentof the most restrictive
politicalorder. In the real world these two images are contradictory, for a
miajorchallengeto societyand its values is not conduciveto the establishment
of order. Continuousremakingof societyrequiresthe use of local officials
and activistswho themselveshave a strongimpulse to challenge accepted
norms,and such personsare unlikelyto be devoid of personalinitiativeand
totallyresponsiveto instructions fromabove. What has made the totalitarian
model so persuasiveis that its dynamicaspect can be used in explaining
the First Five-Year Plan period and its rigid aspect in explainingthe later
214 Slavic Review

Stalin period-without our realizing that there has been a basic shiftin
interpretative groundas, in analyzingthe whole Stalin period,we move from
one totalitarianmodelto the other.2
Westernscholarshave labeled the period of the First Five-Year Plan
"the Third Revolution," but their descriptionsof that revolutionhave
focusedalmostexclusivelyon the impactof collectivization and rapid indus-
trialization.It is importantto rememberthatthese years were also a period
of "culturalrevolution,"to use the phrase adopted by protagonistsat the
time. Cultural revolution,3which was at its height in the years 1929-31,
was an attackby young Communistmilitantson the "bourgeoisintelligent-
sia." The initiativecame from the party leadership,and probably from
Stalin,withthe trial of the Shakhtyengineersforwreckingand sabotage in
1928. But it was an initiativewhichthe most active participantsin the cul-
turalrevolution-RAPP (the Communist Associationof ProletarianWriters),
youngscholarsin the CommunistAcademyand the Instituteof Red Profes-
sors, and the Komnsomolleadership-had been insistentlydemandingfor
some time. These groups had been preparingthemselvesfor battle against
"bourgeoishegemony"in culturewithoutearlierofficialencouragement(with
officialdiscouragementin some cases, as Bukharin's commenitson RAPP
duringthe 1924-25 literarydiscussionsindicate4). NEP was a period of
intense cultural factionalism,with organized groups of Communistsand
antitraditionalists continuallyat each other's throats,competingfor control
of journals and institutes,and demandingthe exclusive patronage of the
State PublishingHouse, the Commissariatof Enlightenment, and the party
Central Committee.During the cultural revolution,Comnunist groups
came close to winnilngthat exclusive patronage.However, they were not
Stalin's creaturesand owed hiimno special loyalty,though out of oppor-
tunismand some hostilityto Bukharintheymade theircontribution to tlle
1928-30 campaignagainstthe party"Right Opposition."

2. The "two image" analysis of the totalitarian model is made by Jerry F. Hough
in "Cultural Revolution in Historical Perspective," to be published in Sheila Fitzpatrick,
ed., Cultural Revolution in Ruissia, 1928-1931.
3. Various aspects of the cultural revolution are discussed in E. J. Brown, The
Proletarian1Episode in. Rutssian.Literature, 1928-1932 (New York: Columbia University
Press, 1953); David Joravsky,Soviet Marxismsl anid Natifral Scienice, 1917-1932 (New
York: Columbia University Press, 1961); and Loren R. Graham, The Soviet Academiiy
of Scientcesand the Comumnunist Party, 1927-1932 (Princeton: Princeton UniversityPress,
1967). On the phenomenonas a whole, see Sheila Fitzpatrick, "Cultural Revolution in
Russia, 1928-32," Journal of Con t[emporaryHistory, 9, no. 1 (1974), and the forthcom-
ing volume of essays edited by Sheila Fitzpatrick, Cultural Revollition inl Russia, 1928-
1931.
4. See Bukharin's speech to a meeting called by the press departmentof the Central
Committeein May 1924, in K voprosu o politike RKP(b) v khudo-hcstve7I7noi literatuire
(Moscow, 1924).
Cultureand PoliticsUnderStalin 215

The First Five-Year Plani was a time of great tribulationfor the old
intelligentsia.
With Lunaclharskii's departurefromthe Russian Commnissariat
of Enlightenment in September1929, thatinstitutioln lost the will and power
to offerprotectionto the old culturalintelligelntsia, and the same was true
of such major employersof bourgeoistechllicalspecialistsas Gosplan and
Vesenkha.Young Communiststook over the directionof scholarlyinstitutes
and journals. Nonpartywriters were often unlableto publish. Nonparty
professorshad to stand for "reelection"by their students,and nonparty
engineerswere imprisonedforanti-Sovietactivity(a chargeoftenbased only
on failureto fulfillimpossibletargetsset by the First Five-Year Plan).
But foryoungComlmutnists it was a timleof unprecedetnted opportunity.
They providedmuclhof the real enthusiaslmi behind the rhetoricof trans-
formingnature,creatingthe New Maanand "catclhing up and overtaking"the
industrializedWest,whiclhwas characteristic of theperiod.In concreteterms,
theyhad the opportunity to move upward into responsiblejobs. This was
trte not onlyof young Commitunists but (despite the prioritygiven to Com-
munlists and proletarians)of all youngpeople witlhan education; and it was
also trie of skilledworkers,who were draftedin large numbersinto higlher
education, management,and administratioin. A new "proletarian intelli-
gentsia"-mainly young, and a substanitialproportiongenuinelyworking-
class or peasant in origin-was being forced througha vastly expanlded
systemof technicaland higlhereducationl at breakneckspeed.5
Like all revoltitions,the cultural revoltitionproduced disorder. The
"cculturalarmy"-as the Komnsomol called its corps of culturalrevolution-
aries-inclined toward partihznshchiTa rathierthan soldierlydiscipline,aild
the militantCommunistintellectualswere flagralntly guiltyof sektanstvoand
grulppovshchina. The collapse of establislhed
autlhoritiesbrouglht "lhare-brained
schemiiers"to the fore,even in suclhnormially pedestrian areas as labor train-
ing aindteclhnicaleducation.The edtucation system,whiclhhad simultaneously
undergonegreatexpansionand radicalstructural reorganization, was in chaos.
Inevitably,the afterniiath of revolttiolnbrouglhtpolicies intendedto restore
order,discipline,and authorityin the culturalsphere.
The firststep was taken in mid-1931,when bourgeois engineers-the
formler "wreckersand saboteurs"-were welcolmied back into the Soviet fold
by Stalin.6It was acknowledgedthat radical restructtirinig of the teclhnical
educationsystem,"shock tempos" for the trainingof proletarianengineers

5. For quantitativegrowth in the period 1928-33, see Sotsialisticlhesloc stroitel'stvo:

Statistichelesiiceihegod-nik(Moscow: TsUNKhU Gosplana SSSR, 1934), p. 406; for
changes in social composition of the studenitbody, together with a breakdown by sex
and party memberslhip, see ibid., p. 410.
6. Speech of June 23, 1931 in I. V. Stalin, Sochineniia, vol. 13 (Moscow, 1951), pp.
69-73.
216 Slavic Review
and technicians,and harassmentof the old technicalintelligentsia had had a
negativeimpacton industrialefficiency; and an All-Union Committeelheaded
by Krzhizhanovskii, the formerpresidentof Gosplan, was set up to repair
the damage.7 In this area, the impetusfor reorganizationseenmsto lhave
come fromOrdzhonikidze'sComm-lissariat of Heavy Industry(the successor
to Vesenkha), whose primaryinterestwas clearly in maximumindustrial
efficiencyand use of competentspecialistsregardlessof theirclass originor
partystatus.Bukharin,Stalin's defeatedopponent,was one of the Commis-
sariat's main spokesmenonI the need to conciliatethe old technicalintelli-
gentsia.8Measures for reorganizationof the teclinicaleducationsystemwere
draftedby "bourgeois"professorsand engineersacting as governmllent con-
sultants-and theywere uninllhibited in expressingtheirscornfor Communist
officialsand inldustrial
nmanagers wlholhadmeddledin academicand technical
mattersbeyondtheirunderstandiing, and for the ill-preparedproletarianand
Communiststudentswho had beelnpuslhedtlhroughl higlhertechllicalschool
duringthe First Five-Year Plan.9
ShortlyafterStalin's statenmentof June 1931 on the bourgeoisenginieers,
the CentralCommitteeof the partyissued a resolutiondenouncingtlle tlleory
(propounded by some of the more extreme,but temporarilyinfluential,
Communistculturalrevolutionaries on the educationfront)of "tlhewitlhering
away of the school." It was the firstin a long series of resolutions10tlhrougl
whlichthe Central Commliittee attemptedto restorediscipline,orderlyproce-
dures, and traditionalteachiingmethods in the sclhools.Timaslheff"lhas

7. Resolutioniof TsIK and SNK SSSR of September 15, 1933, and "Statute on the
All-Union Committeeon Teclhnical Educatioin under TsIK SSSR," Presidiuimof TsIK,
October 17, 1933, in Vsesoiuznyi komitet po vysshleinuteklhniclheskonmu obrazovaniiiupri
TsIK SSSR, Bilulleten',1933, Ino. 9-10, p. 7. It is clear fromiithe Biilleten' tllat the com-
mittee began work considerably before its formal establishmleint, probably somle tiIme in
1932.
8. See, for example, Front izautkii tekhniiki,1932, no. 7-8, p. 121; ibid., 1932, no. 10,
p. 94; ibid., 1932, no. 11-12, p. 111.
9. See, for example, articles by Professor A. M. Berkengeim, Professor Ia. N.
Shpilleii and S. V. Volynskii in Vysslaia tchlhicicheskeaiaslikola, 1934, I1o. 1 (Septenmber).
10. For the firstresolution of the Central Committee,"On the elemelntaryand mid-
dle school," September 5, 1931, see KPSS v rezoliutsiiakh i resliceliialkh. s"cedov, kotn-
ferenbtsiii plewniiiiiov
TsK, vol. 4 (Moscowv, 1970), p. 569 ff. (in tllis edition, the date of
the resolution is wrongly given as August 25, 1931). For subsequent resolutiolnsof the
Central Committee-"On teaclhingprograms and regimes in the elementaryand miiddle
school" (August 25, 1932), "On textbooks for the elementaryand middle school" (Feb-
ruary 12, 1933), "On the structureof the elementaryand middle sclhool in the USSR"
(May 1934), "On publication and sale of textbooks for the elementary,incompletemid-
dle, and middle school" (August 7, 1935), and "On the organization of teaching work
and internal discipline in the elementary,incomplete middle, and middle school" (Sep-
tember 3, 1935)-see DirekhtizvIVKP(b) i postauoz'lciiiia sovctskogo pravitel'stva o
iiarod-nomobra-ovanvii,vol. 1 (Moscow-Leningrad, 1947), p. 159 ff.
11. Nicholas S. Tinmasheff, The Gr-eatRetreat: The Growlthand Dccline of Co011-
inunism in Ruissia (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1946).
Cultureand PoliticsUnderStalin 217

characterized thisas "the greatretreat."It was retreat,but the startingpoint

was almostas farout on the axis of anarchicexperimentation as it was pos-
sible to go, and the officialline of the early 1930s that "life itself"had dis-
creditedthe educationalinnovatorswas not far fromthe truth.Confronted
with ineffective teachingin the sclhools,organizationalchaos, protestsfrom
teachersand parents,and mutual accusations of political deviationamong
the educationaliststl-hemselves, the party leadership decided to seek safer
ground.Its resolutionsaimed to establish,in place of the unpopularprogres-
sive sclhool,a disciplinedschoolwithformalproceduresand academicorienta-
tion-the kindof school,in fact,whicihteachersand white-collarparentsand
ambitiouslower-classparentshad wantedforthe past decade.
Social discrimination in educationalenrollment had beenpracticedto some
extentin the 1920s and reachedits heightduringthe culturalrevolution.It
was a cumbersome processwhichbecame harderto justifyas the numberof
schooland university places increased.There was, moreover,no possibleway
of conciliating the old intelligentsia withoutgivingits childrenaccess to aca-
demicsecondaryand highereducation.Thus in the firsthalf of the 1930s,
whilelarge numbersof proletarianand peasant childrenremainedin secon-
daryanidhiiglher sclhools,the policyof forcingtheem in and otherclhildren out
was graduallyabandoned,12 not to be revivedeven in moderateformuntilthe
days of Khrushchev.The constitution of 1936 proclaimedthe equalityof all
citizensregardlessof class. The distinction between"bourgeoisintelligentsia"
and "Red specialists"was dropped,and Stalin began to speak of a new class-
less "Sovietintelligentsia.'
'13

In this process,the old culturalintelligentsia was an equal beneficiary

withthe old technicalintelligentsia.The rise in status of the "bourgeois"
culturalintelligentsia followedthe fall of the "proletarian"makersof cultural
revolution.In 1931-32 the partyleadershiphad clearly indicatedits impa-
tience with Commnunlist sclholasticism,'4 Communist "hare-brainedschem-
ing,"15and local Communistdictatorships in the arts and scholarlydisciplines
whichwereutnpopular, unproductive, and insubordinate to CentralCommittee
authority. Some of the Communistintellectuals-forexample,Averbakh,the

12. Discriminationon grounds of social origin in universityadmission was formally

dropped at the end of 1935. See Direktivy VKP(b) i postanovleniciasovetskogo pravi-
tel'stva o narodnomn. obra2ovanii,vol. 2, p. 89.
13. Stalin, Sochineniia, ed. Robert H. McNeal, vol. 1 (14) (Stanford, 1967), pp.
364-66.
-
14. See Stalin's letter to the editors of Proletarskaia revoliutsiiia,"On some ques-
tions of the historyof Bolshevism," in Proletarskcaiarevoiiutsiia, 1931, no. 6; and Stalin,
Sochinteiciia,vol. 13, pp. 84-102.
15. See the attack on Shulgin's theory of "the witheringaway of the school" in the
Central Committeeresolution "On the elementaryand middle school," cited in footnote
10, above.
218 Slavic Review

leader of RAPP-were too ambitious;otherswere suspectedof involvement

in anti-Stalinmaneuveringin the so-called "left-right bloc."16They lacked
the humilitywhiclhnonpartystatus bestowed; and perhaps, althoughthis
seems far-fetclhed,
theydid representsome potentialpoliticaltlhreatto Staliln.
A great many of the formerculturalrevolutionarieswere arrestedin the
purges; some,includingAverbakhand associates,were publiclydenouncedas
Trotskyite traitors.17
When the periodof "proletarianhegemony"ended in 1932 withthe dis-
solutionof RAPP,18 a decisionwas maldeto organizean all-inclusiveUnion
of Soviet Writersin whichliteraryfactionswould be dissolvedand "bour-
geois" non-Communists admittedon equal termswiththe Conmmunists. Even
the bourgeois avant-gardists,whose reputationsas troublemakersalmost
rivaled tlhatof tlheproletarians,were admittedand for a few years not
attacked.The formulaof "socialist realism" wlhichthe Union adopted was
not originallyconceivedas a "party line," any more tlhantlheUnion was
conceivedas an instrumient of total partycontrolover literature.Both were
initiallyintendedto cancel out tlheold RAPP line of proletarianl and Com-
munistexclusivenessand make roonm forliterarydiversity-tlleirdisciplinary
uses came later,withthe mountingpoliticaltensiona of 1935-36.
The writerMaxim Gorky,who returnedpermlanently to the USSR in
1931, playeda centralrole in the literaryreorganization.Having leftRussia
in tlheearly 1920s afterdisagreemlenats withLenin on the OctoberRevolution
and the treatment of tlheintelligentsiaduringthe Civil War, Gorkyreturned
to be honoredby Stalin and to provide a symbolof reconciliationl. Gorky
was a strangerto the new generationof Colmlmunlist intellectualswho had
achieved prominenceduring his absence (and RAPP, for example, was
notablyunenthusiasticabout his prospectivereturn,which was anticipated
from1928), but he was an old friendand patronof such leading"bourgeois"
figuresas the scientistIvan Pavlov, tlhetlheaterproducerStanislavsky,and
the grand old men of tlheAcademyof Sciences. His returnwas followedby

16. Many examples of Averbakh's ambition and insubordinationare given in a valu-

able Soviet monographby S. Sheshukov, Neistovye rez'niteli: Iz istorii literaiturnioi
bor'by
20-kh godov (Moscow: Moskovskii rabochii, 1970). On the "left-right"bloc, see reso-
lution of the Central Committee and Central Control Commission of December 1, 1930,
"On the fractionalwork of Syrtsov, Lominadze anld others," Pravda, December 2, 1930;
and Literatura i iskusstvo, 1930, no. 2, p. 3 (editorial on involvement of Communist
Academy members).
17. For accusations against RAPPists Averbakh and Kirshon, see Literaturnaia ga-
eta, April 20, 1937. It should be noted that Averbakh actually had been a Trotskyite in
1923-24 and the playwrightKirshon, his close friend,was related by marriage to lagoda.
18. See Central Committee resolutionl"On the reconstructionof the literary-artistic
organizations" of April 23, 1932, translated in E. J. Brown, The Proletarian Episode ill
RtissiantLiterature.
Cultureand PoliticsUnderStalin 219

a rapidrisein thefortunesof all of these.The Academyof Sciences-still the

strongholdof traditionalscholarship,despite the much resentedelectionof
Communists like Lunacharskiiand Bukliharin as academiciansin 1929-3019
recovereda positionof honor,and aftera few years absorbedcmost of the
institutes of the CommunistAcadlemy.
The reconciliation was not a temporaryor purelydeclarativeone. From
the early 1930s untilthe end of the Stalin period,part of the old cultural
intelligentsiaand mostof the preeminent prerevolutionary culturalinstitutions
(the Academyof Sciences,Moscow University,the Bolshoi Theater anldits
opera and ballet companies,the Moscow Arts Theater,and so on) enjoyed
the special favorof the Soviet governmentand the CommunistParty. The
intellectualsand the institutionlswere, of course, subject to censorslhip, and
Communistadnministrators were appointedto tlheinstitutions. This, however,
did not make tlheinstitutions Communist.In contrastto the situationduring
the culturalrevolutionl and indeedthroughlout NEP, tlheywere not prevented
fromcultivatinga dedicatedapoliticalprofessionalism-almost the spiritof a
self-contained, privileged,and exclusivecaste-provided theyfollowedsome
ritualobservancesof respectfor the regimeand avoided politicalor social
comment.Eminentculturaland scientific figureswere not forcedto become
Comnmunists, and in the 1930s few of them did so. (Even Lysenko and
Makarenko,who were outsidersin theirprofessionsseekingrecognition,did
not findit necessaryto join the party.) Withinthe mass of the "new Soviet
intelligentsia,"an old cultural intelligentsia,of bourgeois demeanor and
largelyunreconstruicted anti-Comlimlunist lhabitsof imind,was allowed to retain
its separate identityand even, tlhrouglh teaching and example, perpetuate
itselfin thleyouingergelneratioln.
This reconciliation, because it lacked practicalor utilitarianjustification,
was unlikethereconciliation withtheteclhnical The culturalrec-
intelligentsia.
onciliationwas a luxuryinvestment, involvingself-imposed limitationof Com-
munistideologicalinfluence.Even assunming consciousintentionon the part of
theleadershipto dazzle theSovietpeoplewithcircusesin a timeofbreadration-
ingandto inmpress theWest withSovietAkidl'tirnost', theclhoiceremainsremark-
able. It is difficult
to avoid the conlclusioi-inotinig the nulmerous instancesof
Stalin'spersonalintervention in thefateofprestigiousapoliticalpoets,his con-
sultationswithbourgeoisscholarson mattersof nmutual acadcemicinterest,his
derogatorycommlieints on Commnunist literati, and tlhecompetitiveanxietyof
otherpartyleadersto demonstrate thattheytoo wereon visitingtermswithtlle
greatnon-Coimmunist writerMaximn Gorky-thattheleadershiprespected"real

19. See Loren R. Graham, The Soviet Academityof Sciences anid the Commnunlist
Par-ty,1927-1932.
220 Slavic Review

culture"and was inwardlyconvincedthat it was to be found among non-

proletariansand non-Commlunists.
This was a period of straitenedresources,when industrialization and
militarypreparationwere urgentinvestmllent priorities,yet tlle Soviet state
supportedcultureon a lavish scale. From the firsthalf of the 1930s, the
intelligentsia-Communist and nonparty,technicaland cultural-became an
unambiguously privilegedgroupwithliin the society.20Privilegewas expressed
in salaries,access to special stores and resorts,housiingpriority,children's
access to highereducation,honors,and awards. These were essentiallythe
same privilegesofferedto the upper levels of bureaucracy,the military,secu-
ritypolice,and industrialmanagement.Witlhinall these groups there were
hierarchiesof privilege,but basic privilegedstatus was obtained through
possessionofformalcredentialssuclhas unionmembership and academicposi-
tion-in otlherwords,it was noriimally conferredoIn an individualby the pro-
fessionand not by the party.No distinctionswere drawn betweenbranclhes
of the intelligentsiaon the groundsof theirrelativeutilityto the state,but
therewere distinctions based on thetraditionalsocial statusof variousgroups.
Tlhus,engineersand opera singerswere highlyprivileged,while those in tlle
usefulbut traditionally low-statusoccupationsof librarianand schoolteacher
were not.
Establishedculturalinstitutions were subsidizedon a muclhmore gen-
erous scale than under NEP, and theyhad an honorableplace in the gran-
diose plan forthe rebuildingof Moscow preparedunder Kaganoviclh'ssuper-
vision. The firstmajor repairsof theirbuildingssince the Revolutionwere
undertakenin the 1930s. The Academlyof Sciences,whiclhwas moved from
Leningradto Moscow in the mid-1930s,got new buildingsincludingthose
originallyintendedfor the CommunistAcademy. The climax canmein the
last years of Stalin's rule withthe buildingof a Stalinist-baroquepalace on
Lenin Hills for Moscow University-an institutionlargely devoted to the
humanitiesand pure sciences,whichduringthe culturalrevolutionhad been
treatedas an almostuseless "survivalof the past" and temporarily dissolved
a
as corporateentity.2'
It is well knownthatunder Stalin the culturalintelligentsia was subject
to the constantharassmentof censorship.No culturalfigure,no matterhow
distinguished, was exemptfromthe possibilityof having his books or films
banned,exhibitionscanceled,or theatricalproductionsclosed afterone per-
formance, althouglhin normalcirculmistances,"connections"in thepartyleader-

20. On the privileges, see Moshe Lewin, "Society and the Stalinist State in the
Period of the Five-Year Plans," Social History, no. 2 (May 1976), pp. 171-72; and
Elagin, Ukroshcheutieiskusstv, pp. 286-90.
21. See Moskovskii itiiversitetka 50 let sovetskoi vlasti (Moscow: Moskovskii uni-
versitet,1967), pp. 68-69.
Cultureand PoliticsUnderStalin 221

ship and bureaucracyofferedsome protection.Even Fadeev, the powerful

secretaryof the Writers'Union in the 1940s, who was a longstandingparty
member,had to rewritehis novel Molodaia gvardiia and apologize for its
originalfaults.22But this does not change the basic situationof the cultural
intelligentsiaas a highlyprivilegedgroup withinthe society.Successfulfilm
directors,writers,actors of the Moscow theaters,and concertviolinistsen-
joyed great prestige and reaped enormous material benefits.Jelagin (a
musicianin the VakhtangovTheater orchestraduringthe 1930s) compares
theirstatuswiththatof the aviatorsand Polar explorerswhose exploitswere
celebratedalmostdaily in the press. He even claims thatthe bannerscarried
by alternating columnsof childrenin the RevolutionDay processionof 1937
read "We wantto be aviators"and "We want to be violinists."23
Artistsat thetop oftheirprofessionhad access to the highestSoviet elite.
Biographersof the partyleader Kuibyshev,for example,note the friendship
thatdevelopedbetweenhimand Gorkythroughtheproximityof theirdachas;
and also list,as a matterof course,the writersand artistsof somewhatlesser
statuswithwhomKuibyshevhad social contact.24Patronageand social rela-
tions were closely,thoughnot necessarily,linked. Stalin himselfsometimes
acted as a patron,for example, in arranginga job for the playwrightBul-
gakov at the Moscow Arts Theater. Bukharin,who is reportedby Nadezhda
Mandelstamto have been a patronof her husbandin the early 1930s,was also
an amateur painter whose work was exhibited in Moscow until 1936.
Enukidze of the Central Committeesecretariatin the prepurgeperiod was
well knownas a patron of the culturalintelligentsiaand, like the amateur
opera singerVoroshilov,had a particularinterestin the Bolshoi Opera.25
(We lhaveless informationon patronage during the postwar period, but
attacks on writers' reliance on patronage and' protektsiiain the 1940S26
suggestthatthe phenomenonpersisted.)
Partyleaders,GPU/NKVD chiefs,and top militarypersonnelfaithfully
attended prenmieres at the Moscow Arts and Vakhtangov Theaters, the
MeyerholdTheater,and the Bolshoi Opera and Bal'et. They were habitues
ofthesalonsof Zinaida Raikh (Meyerhold'swife) and Natalia Sats (niece by
marriageof Lunaclharskii, directorof the Moscow Children'sTheater, and

22. Harold Swayze, Political Controlof Literaturein the USSR, 1946-1959(Cam-

bridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1962), pp. 45-47.
23. Elagin, Ukroshcheitieiskuisstv,p. 303.
24. G. V. Kuibysheva, 0. A. Lezhava, N. V. Nelidov, and A. F. Khavin, Valerian
Vladi'niirovichKulibyshev (Moscow, 1966), p. 352.
25. These examples belong to the folk history of the Moscow intelligentsiaand are
by their nature difficultto document. The Mandelstam case is reported in Nadezhda
Mandelstam, Hope againistHope (New York: Atheneum, 1970); the Bulgakov case in
E. Proffer,ed., The Early Plays of MikhailBulgakov (Bloomiilgton and London: In-
diaina UniversityPress, [1972]), pp. xviii-xx.
26. Swayze, PoliticalCottrol,p. 40.
222 Slavic Review

an intimateof Tukhachevskii); they attendedthe luxurious supper parties

of the nonpartywriterCount Aleksei Tolstoi-with Gorkyand the aircraft
designerTupolev, one of the three Soviet citizens rumored to have in-
exhaustibleand self-renewing accountsat the State Bank.27
The 1930s,in otherwords,saw the formationof a Soviet "high society"
in whichthe artisticintelligentsia mingledwith the top nachal'stvo.The in-
telligentsiawas notsimplyprovidingjestersforthe Stalinistcourt,thoughthat
was part of it. It provided kul'tu'rnost', wlhichwas becominga mark of
statusin the society.Althoughthe Soviet Union, after1938, had a governing
elite that was, in large part, technicallyeducatedand professionally experi-
encedin industry, the politicalleadersdid not choose a similarroutefortheir
children.Childrenof the elitemustbe "cultured."Thus, the tendencywas to
send sons to diplomatictrainingschools, militaryacademies, institutesof
journalism,or prestigiousnontechnlical schoolslike the philologicaland physi-
cal-mathematical facultiesof Moscow University,and daughtersto institutes
of literature,journalism,music, and ballet.28The middle ranks of society
followedthe patternof the elite. Factory managersand local party secre-
taries-themselvesproductsof technicaland partysclhools-acknowledged the
social imperativesof upwardmobilityby havingtheirdaughterstake singing
lessons and their sons study foreign languages, mathematics,and pure
science.29
Westernand Soviet sclholarsalike have assumledthatthe party'sprimlary
interestin the cultural field was inculcationof iMarxistand Communist
values. However, as the foregoingdiscussionsuggests,inculcationof values
was at least a two-wayprocess. Western sclholarslhip has been based on the
furtherassumptionthat the party aimed at direct,total controlof culture
tlhroughthe enforcement of orthodoxy.But what were the orthodoxiesto
wlhichthe intelligentsia
had to conform?
The partyrequiredacknowledgment of tlle insighlts
of Marxisnm-Lenin-
ism in social science works,applied the criterionof partiinost'to the work

27. Elagin, Ukroshclcnic iskusstv, p. 143.

28. A partial list-unreliable, because it is based on inlforImlatioIn
obtainled in interviews
and from various nmemoirsources-of the education and professions of children of the
political elite would include Stalin's younger son and daughter-air force aind literature;
Molotov's daughter-Gnesin Musical Institute; Litvinov's soIn and daughter-science
and literature; Zhdanov's soIn-science and scientific admiinistrativework in. Central
Committee apparat; a Kamenev son-air force cadet; Lunacharskii's soIn aIld daughter
-both journalisnm,after higher education respectively in literature and science; Khru-
shchev's daughter-science journalism; Kosygin's daughter-foreign languages.
29. For illustration,see Lena and family in the Stalin Prize-winninlgnovel by Iurii
Trifonov, Sthdenty (Moscow: Molodaia gvardiia, 1951). On 'nicshchaniskaia. leitl'turnost',
see Vera S. Dunham, "The Uses of Stalinist Literary Debris," Slavic Review, 32, no. 1
(March 1973): 115-28.
 Cultureand PoliticsUnderStalin 223

of Communist
intellectuals, artistictributesto Stalin.But
and encouraged
evenl in literatureand the social sciences-areas particularlysusceptibleto
politicaljudgimient, the criteriaand desideratacould provideonly limited
guidance, as longas thepartydidnotrequirepartymenmbership oftheintelli-
geintsiaaindgaveequalor greater honorto culturalfigureswhowerenonparty
andnon-Marxist.
In mostsituations, theorthodoxies of immediate practicalrelevanceto
theprofessions werenotpolitical.Theywerelocal professional orthodoxies,
establislhedbya processofinteraction between theprofessions and theparty's
culturaladministrators wlhichwas onlyin a fewcasesaffected by intervention
or explicit directionfromthepartyleadership. For a writer,conformity meaint
respectforGorky, respectfortheRussianclassics,emulation of thestyleof
Puslhkin or Nekrasovin poetry,Tolstoyin the niovel,and so on. In the
tlheater,conformity was enmulation of Stanislavsky. For painters,the nilne-
teenth-century peredvi2hnikiprovidedthe ortlhodox model; for composers,
Tchaikovsky and Rimsky-Korsakov. Ortlhodoxies were based oIn cultural
autlhorities,aliveor dead,wlhose workand obiterdictabecamethebasis ofa
system beyondreproaclh or criticism.
The ortlhodoxies couldbe clhanged,but
onlybycreativereinterpretation-forgotten of
aspects the Gorkylegacy,for
example, ornewinsiglht intoMakarenko's educationalpractice.
Members ofthecultturalintelligentsia
could,of course,commit ideologi-
cal crimes,just as theycouldplay forIhiglh stakesby claimingideological
virtue.Btutfromthelate 1930s,theaters werein miuclh imiore
dalngerof being
criticizedfor anti-Stanislavskiali principlestlhanfor anti-Marxistones;
geneticists werenmore likelyto be attackedfornot understanding Lysenko
thalnfornotuinderstandinlg dialectical eveln
nmaterialisml; writers were more
likelyto offend by floutiilg
Gorky'sprinciples of realismthanby misrepre-
sentingthe processof socialisttransformatioln in the cotuntryside.In the
purrges,members oftheavant-garde movements ofthe 1920sweredenoulniced
as "formalists" in 1936 and suffered disproportionately.Analysisof tlhe
Letopis'zhurnal'nyk?h stateifor 1937-38stuggests thatin dangeroustimes,
wlhen theintelligentsia theprotection
souglht of absolutelyreliableauthority,
thefigure theyinvokedwas notMarx,or Lenin,or evenStalin,btitMaxim
Gorky.30 To pay conspictuous tributeto Stalin-by representing hiisperson

30. Between July 1937 and December 1938, Gorky was the subject of 333 scholarly
articles listed under l'iteraturovcdetiie
in the Letopis', or 15 percent of the total. Pushkin,
with 220 articles, was in second place. Four articles were published on Marx, Engels,
or Marxist literarycriticism; 18 on Leniin; 7 on Stalin. The Stalin articles and many of
the Lenin ones were on the image of Stalin (Lenin) in folklore,the other Lenin articles
being of the "Lenin on Gorky," "Lenini on Belinsky" type. (The first half of 1937 has
been omittedfrom the calculation above because of distortionattributableto the Pushkin
centenary: of 840 articles published January-June1937 on literature,429 were on Push-
224 Slavic Review

in plays or filmsor writinga sclholarly work on the historyof Bolshevismin

the Caucasus,forexample-was goingbeyondthe area of normalconformity
intoan area of hiighpossiblerewardbut extremelyhighrisk.
Culturalauthorities,then,h-adsomeprotective function fortheprofessions.
But they also filled a need of the bureaucracy,particularlytlhScensors.
Lower-levelofficials,ignorantof scholarshipand the arts, but required to
supervisethem,neededformalcriteriato identify riglhtand wrong.This need
was particularly acute from1935 to 1939, wlhenofficialswere simultaneously
requiredto increase vigilanceand to discard the old criteria-which rank-
and-fileCommunistsinstinctivelyuilderstood-of social origin and "class
tendency."Orthodoxyby referenceto establishedcultural autlhoritiesre-
placed the earlierortlhodoxy of partymembershipand working-classorigin.
Cultural authoritiesemergedtlhroughnegotiationbetween professions,
culturalbureaucrats,and, in some cases, the party leadership.In different
circumstances, pressuresfromone or anotlherof these groups predominated.
With-inthe professions,wllere old factionalrivalries were only formally
abolished,pressuremightcome froma "bourgeois" establishment using its
connectionsin the leadership,from Communistsof the ctultural-revolution
generationusingtheirremainingconnections, or froma groupof enthusiastic
professionaloutsiderswho lhadthe good fortuneto appeal to officialCoin-
munistsensibilities.In this article,we can only suggestthe complexitiesand
range of possibilitiesby a briefsurveyof the major culturalauthoritiesof
the Stalin era.
Gorky,3'the prototypicalculturalautlhority, receivedthat status on his
returnto the Soviet UJnion in 1931, when botlhthe professionand the party
leadershipwere dissatisfiedwith RAPP and lookingfor an alternative.He
probablywould not have returnedwithoutleaderslhipassurances that he
would lhaveauthoritywithoutadm-linistrative responsibilityor partymemnber-
slhip. He acted as cultural arbiter,patron-particularlyof the nonparty

kin, 68 on Gorky,2 on Marx and Engels, 4 each on Lenini and Stalin.) II the category
of khudoz-estvemiaia literatura (poems, plays, novels, short stories) published in the
journals 1937-38, Stalin was the subject of 121 works (mainly poems by Central Asian
and other non-Russian writers and folk balladists), Pushkin the subject of 65 works,
Lenin of 62, and Gorky of 8.
An analysis for comparative purposes of the Letopis' for 1948 (minius two of the
weekly issues) shows Gorky still in firstplace as the subject of 45 articles, or 9 percent
of the total, as against 8 on Pushkin, 1 on Marx-Engels, 3 on Lenin, and none on Stalin.
In the khitdoHiestve;niaialiteratfluacategory for that year, Stalin was the subject of 25
works, Lenin of 10, Gorky of 4, Pushkin of 4, and Marx-Engels of 2.
31. There is a nmassiveSoviet literature on Gorky. Of particular interest for the
purposes of this article are L. Bykovtseva, Gor'keiiv M4oskzve, 2nd ed. (Moscow: Sovet-
skii pisatel', 1966), aind Valentina Khodasevich, "Gorky as I knlew him," Novyi ilnir,
1968, no. 3. No adequate study of Gorky's role in the 1930s has been writtenin the West,
though there is a useful short chapter in Boris Thomson, The PreniatutreRevollutionl.
(London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1972), pp. 186-205.
 Cultureand PoliticsUnderStalin 225

culturalintelligentsia-andentrepreneur. The definition of "socialistrealism"

was largelyGorky's,as was the firmestablislhmlent, in Soviet ideology,of tlhe
conceptof a classlessand apolitical"classical lheritage"in culture.Gorkynot
only providedthe imodelfor nolnparty culturalautlhority, but also brouglht
forwardcandidates for the position in various professions,among them
Stanislavsky,Makarenko,and Pavlov.
Stanislavskywas a pure professional,witha prerevolutionary reputation
and no interestin politics or social causes. In the early 1930s, lhe used
Gorky'sprotectionto relhabilitatehis Moscow Arts Tlheateraftera decade
of criticismby Comnuinistavant-gardistsculminatinig in the onslauglhtsof
RAPP: the theaterwas styled "hinieniGor'kogo" and staged a series of
new productionsof Gorky'splays32(which Stanislavskyhad also produced
before the Revolution). Stanislavskyhiimselfremained aloof, showed no
desire to become a Soviet cultural authority,and devoted tlle last years
beforehis deathin 1938 to elaboratinghis theatricalsystem,the Stanislavsky
metlhod.He emergedas a cultural authlority around 1937-38 throughno
actionsof hiisown and witlhout any formallayingon of hands by Stalin or
the CentralCommittee.The conjunctionof circumstanceswlhichn made hlim
an authlority includedthe disgrace of Meyerhold,the avant-gardeand pro-
Comm--unist directorwho was Stanislavsky'sold rival,and anxietywithinthe
theatricalprofessionproduced by tlhe purges. The new "Stanislavskian
orthodoxy"was discussed at a nmeeting of tlheaterproducersh-eldearly in
1939,33 wlherespeakers attributedits existenceto the fact that the profes-
sion was disorientedby the attackson Meyerlhold-whommany had taken
as a model for Communisttheater-and to the desire of provincialtheaters
and censors to have a safe and reliable standard of conformity for self-
protection.
In the developmentof Makarenkoas a culturalauthlority, we findan
extremely riclhmixtureofprofessional interests.Makarenko34
and institutionlal
was both an educationalistand a writer,a self-educatednonpartyman of
workingclass origin who was somewlhathostile to -wlhathe saw as the

32. ilMoskovskiikhudozhestvennyiteatr v sovetskuiu epokhut: AIaterialy i doku-

intcutty(Moscow: Iskusstvo, 1962).
33. The stenographicreport (excluding Meyerhold's famous outburstagainst repres-
sioInin cultural life) was publislhedin Re,-hisser v sovetsleo';n teatre: M1laterialypcrvoi
vsesoiunt-oi konfercntsii (Moscow-Leningrad: Iskusstvo, 1940). See especially the report
by S. M. Mikhoels and subsequent discussion, p. 73 ff.
34. The English-language studies of Makarenko as educational theorist shed little
light on his literary career or onl his emergence as a public figure. A useful Russial
source, in addition to the seven-volume Sochinlenjiiapublished in the 1950s, is N. A.
Morozova, A. S. Mlakaretnko:Seminiarii (Leningrad: Uchpedgiz, 1961). On the contro-
versy surroundingMakarenko in the late 1930s, I have benefitedfrom the research of a
Columbia University graduate student,Gary Davis.
226 Slavic Review

in both his chosen professions.In the 1920s, he

intellectualestablishminent
organizedcoloniesfor delinquentclhildrenin the Ukraine-first,unhappily,
under the repuiblican educationcomimnissariat,which he saw as a haven for
impracticalintellectuals;later under the GPU, whose methodshe admired.
Gorkyvisited the GPU clhildren'scommunein the late twentiesand en-
couraged Makarenkoto write about his experieulces.In the early thirties,
Gorkylhelpedlim publishhis firstbook, Pedagogiclieskaiapoemi1a.In 1937,
after the dissolutionof all the GPU children's comlmliunes,35 Makarenko
came to Moscow to seek h-isfortuneas a professionalwriter.
The Writers' Union admittedhim because of Gorky's (now postlhu-
mlous) approval,but treatedhimiratherpatrolnizingly as a crude but talented
amateuirof the Nikolai Ostrovskii (.How the Steel was Tentpercd) type.
Makarelnko's dislikeof establishment intellectualsincreased.Unlike Stanislav-
sky,MIakarenko wantedand souightaulthority. He systematized and puiblicized
Ihis educational theories, and collected a group of supportersilicluding
Komsomol activists,formerRAPPists, and persons earlier associated witlh
the GPU education-alnetwork-essentiallya Communlistgrouip with the
etlhosof culturalrevolutiion.36
The firstcirculmistances that aided Makarenko's achievemientof cul-
tuiralauthlority
were the discreditingof a competitive group (tlhepedologists)
and the decimatiotiof the educationalbureaucracyby the purges.37This left
a vacuum wlhicha living 'Makarenkowas perlhapsnot suitable to fill
(thouglhone should not utnderestilmiatethe instinctiveapproval Conmlm-unists
feltfor successfulself-educated practicalmen in the culturalfielcl-rabochie-
i-obretateliwhose discoveriescould confounld the academicialns).But Maka-
renko died in 1939, ancdhis name evidentlybecame a rallyingpoilntfor
tlhosewho dislikedthe increasinglyformal,academic,and traditionalorgani-
zationlof the Soviet schlool.After a lively discussion of tlle "Miakarenko
lheritage"in 1939-40 in boththe educationaland literaryprofessions, Pravda
gave editorialendorsemlient to Makarenkoas an edtucational theorist.38This

35. Peter Juviler,"RevolutionaryLaw and Order: Crime, Politics and Social Change
in the USSR" (unpublisl-hed maniuscript,chapter 7, pp. 20-21).
36. This characterizationiof Makareniko's support is based oni analysis of articles
listed in Letopis' vrn1trizal'nvki1eh
statei for 1938-40 and on interviewsin Moscow. It should
be pointed out that amonigCommuniistsof the cultural-revolutiongener-ationi, Makarenko
had critics as well as supporters-notably the group of former CommuniistAcademy
personnel associated with the journial Literaturnyi1kritik.
37. The pedologists' fall camnewith the Central Conmmitteeresolutioll of July 4,
1936, "On pedological distortionsin the systemii of the education commissariats," in Di-
rektivy VKP(b) i postcltlov/ictiia sovetskogo pravi[el'stva o 1aarodu'onli obra,-vovauii,
vol.
1, p. 190 ff.The educationialbureaucracy was found to contain a "counterrevolutionlary
Narkompros center" headed by the commissar of education of the RSFSR, A. S. Bubniov,
and his deputy,M. S. Epshtein. On Bubnov's arrest, see A. Binevich and Z. Serebrian-
skii, AnddrciButbniov(Moscow, 1964), pp. 78-79.
38. Pravda, August 27, 1940, cited in Morozova, A. S. Malkarcuko,p. 29.
Cultureand PoliticsUnderStalin 227

may lhaveconstituited leadershipintervention,althoughit is notablethat the

endorsement was not followedby any change in practicaledtucatioln policy.
The alternative possibility is that Pravda did not prejudge the issue but
settledfor wlhatemergedas a majorityopinion among professionaleduca-
tiolnaltlheorists.
In the postwar period, the orthodoxiesalready establishedheld tlleir
positions,with Miakarenko-whomay be seen as achieving probationary
statusin 1940-rising to tlhefull statusof culturalauthlority around 1950.3"
The imiiportant developmentof these years was the creation of cultural
authorities in the naturalsciences.Of these,the late "bourgeois"physiologist
Pavlov was closestto the Gorkymodel. Pavlov, an outspokencriticof the
Communistsduringthe 1920s, when he was already a scientistof inter-
nationalreputatioln, was acclaimedand honoredin tlheSoviet Ulnionin the
years beforehis death in 1936 but remainednon- and prol)ablyanti-Com-
munist. According to Boris Nicolaevskv, Buklharinspoke, in the mid-
1930s, of consultingwith Gorkyand Pavlov on the possible creationof an
"intelligentsiaparty"whichwould give expertadvice to the Soviet govern-
ment.40In 1950, apparentlyby decisionof the partyleadership (which the
scientificcomnmnunitytook as an affront),Pavlov becamea culturalauthority,
anidan unchallengeablesystemwas created in his lname.41
Anothermore notoriouspostwar example was that of Lysenko,42and
his case inevitablyraises the questionof whetlher the partyleaderslhip's atti-
tude to professionalvalues and kid'turnost' had changed.However great the
scientists'objectiolnto a "Pavlovian orthodoxy,"Pavlov hilmaself had been
respected.Lysenkowas not respected,and his establislhment
hiiglhly as a cul-
turalauthorityoutragedthe scientists.It was the clinmax of a long campaign
waged by Lysenko (a nonpartyman) and his supportersfor officialanld
scholarlyrecognition.In the 1930s, the factorsin Lysenko'sfavorhad been
tlhepanaceas lhe offeredin aln area-agricultural science-where they were
desperatelyneeded. He presentedan image of lhomlespun practicalitywhich
appealedto Conimunists who believedin sciencebut were suspiciousof intel-
lectuals; andl,like Atakarenko,he was good copy for Soviet journalists.
Againlsthimlhad been tlhepartyleadership'sstrongcommitmenit to stipport
the scientificestablisillient,and tlhescientists'reftusalto give hinmprofes-
sional acceptance.Stalin's "Bravo, comiradeLysenko!" in 193543 did not

39. See Morozova, A. S. AMakzareniko,

p. 45.
40. Boris Nicolaevsky, Power anid the Soviet Elite (New York, 1965), pp. 14-15.
41. Loren R. Gralham,Scientce a.nd Philosophy in the Soviet Union (New York:
Alfred A. Knopf, 1972), p. 375.
42. On Lysenko, see David Joravsky,The LysenlkoAffair (Cambridge, Mass.: Har-
vard University Press, 1970); and Zhores A. Medvedev, Thle Rise anzd Fall of T. D.
Lysenko, trans. I. Michael Lerner (New York: Columbia University Press, 1969).
43. Joravsky,The Lysenko Affair,p. 83.
228 Slavic Review

make Lysenko a culturalautlhority, though it broughthim closer; neither

did the purges,despitethe repressionof some of his acadcemicopponents.
Wlhatthenlhadchangedby 1948? The firstpossibilityis that Lysenko's
appeal to the leaderslhiphad increased; the second, that tlle leadership's
respectforprofessionalopinlion1 had dimiinished; the third,thatthe scientists
had become less vehenment in their opposition.There is sonle evidence for
all these hypotheses.It was a time of postwar exhaustion,culturalstagna-
tion stirredonlyby randomburstsof aggressionfromthe leadership,rigidity
and inflexibilityat the top, and, on Stalin's part, a weakeninggrasp of
realityand increasingparanoia. Dynanmictransformation was not part of
the realityof postwar Russia, but it was, perhaps for this very reason, an
obsessivethemein the rhetoric.Stalin's unsuccessfulreforestation campaign
(celebratedin art by Leonov's novel, The Forest, andl Shostakovich'sSong
of the Forests, and entlhusiasticallysupportedby Lysenko) was meant to
show Soviet masteryover nature.Sinmilar pointswere being made in official
commendationof Soviet scientificachievements,among theimiLysenko's
mutations,Pavlov's conditionedreflexes,and Olga Lepeshinskaia'sexperi-
mentswith the creationof livingcells.44Lysenko's appeal had thereforein-
creased because he providedevTidence of the naturl-transforming powers in
whichthe leadershipwantedto believe.
In the years immediatelyprecedingLysenko's success, the leaderslhip
lhadbeen engagedin a disciplinaryoperationagainst the culturalintelligent-
A rangeof eminentculturalfiguresof all types,from
sia-the 2lhdanovs1hchtina.
theCommunist philosoplherAlexandrovto theapoliticalcomposersShostakovicl
and Prokofiev,had been subjectedto sudden violentabuse fromthe party
leader A. A. Zhdanov.45This undoubtedlyinfluencedthe scientists'behavior
when the pressureturnedon them,especiallysince theyhad lost theirmost
distinguislhedandl diplomaticanti-Lysenkonegotiator,Academician Nikolai
Vavilov,throughI his arrestin 1940.46
But, taking into account an evidentsuspensionof respect for profes-
sional values on the part of the leadership,we still have to decide whether
this indicateda basic changeof the previousorientation.The 2hdanovshchina
caused panic amiongtheintelligentsia, and it was acconmpaniedby the so-called

44. Lepeshinskaia was an old Bolshevik member of the prerevolutionaryemigration

and one of the firstCommuniststo be appointed (against bitter faculty and student pro-
test) to the medical school of Moscow University at the beginninigof the 1920s. On her
work as a cytologist in the 1940s, see Grahamii, Scienzce and Philosophy inl thleSoviet
Union, p. 276.
45. Extensive quotations from the decrees and officialstatementson culture in this
period are given in George S. Counts and Nucia Lodge, Thle Coitntryof thleBlinld: The
Soviet Systemiiof Mlind Control (Boston: Houghton Mifflin,1949). For a stenographic
report of Zhdanov's meeting witlhcomposers in 1948, see A. Werth, Mul11sical Uproar in
Moscozo (London: Turnpike Press, [1949]).
46. Joravsky,The LysenlkoAffair, p. 107.
Cultureand PoliticsUnderStalin 229

"anticosmopolitan campaign"whichcost the lives and freedomof a number

of Jewishintellectualsand of otlherswho lhadbeen in close personalcontact
withforeignersdcuring the war and immeldiately after.But witlhthe excep-
tion of these special categories,the intelligentsiawas not facinga threatto
its existenceor a inewculturalrevolution.The attacks on leading cultural
figureswere not followedby arrestand oftennot even by demotion.There
was nIo attackon the statusand privilegesof the intelligentsia, except that
the privilegeof communicating with foreignerswas withdrawn.There was
no threatof collectivereplacement,no new pressure on memibersof the
to join the party,and no new impediment
intelligentsia to theirdoing so.
The old culturalorthodoxiesremained in force and, as in previous
periodsof politicaltension,were observedwithparticulardiligence.Venera-
tion of personswas, in fact,increasedby the extravagantblossomingof the
Stalin cult-which had its own importantimpacton the culturalscene, but
not at the level of basic party/intelligentsiarelations.In his articleson lin-
guistics,Stalin sentout a veryambiguousmessage attackingthe "Arakcheev
regime" establishedin linguisticsby disciples of the late Marxist scholar
N. la. Marr.47Silnce Stalin took his positiolnfrom the traditionalnon-
Marxist linguists,he could be seen as defending"bourgeois" professional
values. On the otherhand,since lheattacked"Arakcheevregimes"in scholar-
ship,he could be seen as renouncilng the whole institution of culturalauthor-
ities. Neitlherinterpretation was easy to reconcile with the contemporary
partyendorsementof Lysenko and Pavlov, so Stalin's politicalmessage, if
he had one, sank withouttrace. At this periodit seems that the regimewas
hardlycapable of maikingmajor policyinitiativesor generatingradical struc-
turalchange.In culture,as elsewhere,it was a time of tense inactionlwhile
the politicalleadershipwaited for Stalin to die.
Botlhthe Lysenko case and the -hdanovslhchina show that the party
could on occasionrepudiateprofessionalvalues by fallingback on a kind of
Conmmutliistpopulistmi,as if its culturalpolicy were based on the encourage-
ment of rabochie-Ltobi-etateliand aged peasanltsmakiingfolk epics on the
life of Stalin. The poptilistgreetingwas offeredto the cloth-cappedand
surly Lysenko,to AMakarenko, Nikolai Ostrovskii,and the image of the
young Gorky tranmping Russia in rags; the same spirit was reflectedin
Zhldanov'sadviceto thecomposersin 1948 to learnfromthe simplefolksongs
of the people. But it was not donminalnt in the cultureof the Stalin period,
because the regime had made the basic decision to put its money on
as Vera Dunllham
keul'tiflnost', hlaspointedout,48 and to honor the old non-

47. "Marxism and the Question of Linguistics" (first published in Pr-avda, Juine 20,
1950) in Stalin, Sochiincniia,ed. Robert H. McNeal, vol. 3 (16), pp. 114-48.
48. See Vera Dunham, In Stalin's Tivie, to be published by Cambridge University
Press.
230 Slavic Review

Communist, nonproletarian In Westerndiscussion,

culturalintelligentsia. tlhe
questionktokogo?has notbeen askedbecausethe powerrelationship be-
tweenpartyleadershipand intelligentsia seems obvious.Yet power and
werein different
culturalauthority handsunderStalin: the partyhad the
political
powerto discipline
theintelligentsia,
butlackedthewillor resources
to denyits culturalauthority.
In culturalterms,then,whowas assimilating
whom?

The totalitarian modelwas createdunderthe impactof postwarde-

velopments wlhich struckWesternobservers as sinister and appalling:impo-
sitionof Sovietcontrolin EasternEurope,wlhichinvolvedthe wholesale
exportof an alien and monolitlhic "Stalinistculture";anti-Semitism in
Russiaparticularly directedagainsttheJewishintelligentsia; and a seriesof
dramatic politicalinterventions in culturaland intellectuallife.Interpretation
oftheSovietsystemwas basedon extrapolation backintotlhepastand for-
wardintothefuturefromthisfocalpoint.
WhentheSovietUnionappearedto moveawayfrom"totalitarianism"
afterStalin'sdeath,scholars beganto doubtboththenmodel anditsextrapola-
tiolnintothepast; and therewas a reexamination oftheearlyhistory of the
party, tlhie
OctoberRevolution, and NEP. But in regardto culture, theeffect
of thisreexamination was to throwthe Stalinperiodintostilldarkerrelief
in contrastto thebriglltness ofthetwenties. Russianmemoirs and scholarly
works,appearingin the West whilethis reexamination was in progress,
describedthe suffering of the intelligentsiatinderStalinistrepression and
thepurges.Manyofthesamii-dat writers adoptedtheconceptoftotalitarian-
ism as partof theirindictment of the Sovietsystem.All thiscombined to
producea curiouis situationin WVestern For manly
sclholarship. scholars,the
totalitarianmodelhas beendiscredited exceptfor the Stalinperiod,where
moralindignation and respectforthe witnessof participants lhasled to its
retention.
If thememoirs and activity of Sovietdissidents in the 1960sand 1970s
heightened the sense,alreadypresentin the scholarslhip, of a David-and-
Goliatliconfrontation betweenintelligentsia and regimein the Stalinperiod,
theyalso providesupportforanotherview.For whatthisdissident activity
verystrikingly demonlstrates is thattheold Russianintelligentsia maintained
its traditionsand senseof identity rightthrough tlle Stalinperiod.We are
nlowseeing-inthe literary menmoirists, thedissidents, the groupsof younlg
Sovietdisciplesof Berdiaev,Pasternak, and Akhmatova-the inheritorsand
theperpetuators ofthattradition. We are also seeingtlhecomiiparative weak-
nessofanother tradition,thatoftheself-consciously Communist and Marxist
intelligentsia,
represented, forexample,by Tvardovsky and Roy Medvedev.
Cultureand PoliticsUnderStalin 231

If this is the legacy of the Stalin period in culture,we have to consider

wlhetlheran explanationin termsof total repressionand absolutepartycol-
mitmllentto Colmiunistculturalhegeml-ony is reallyadequate.
This articlehas attemptedto providean alternativeframeworkfor dis-
cussion of cultureand politicsunder Stalin. The conlclusionscan be sum-
marized as follows. From the early 1930s, the intelligentsiaas a whole
became a privileged grotupholding higlh status in Soviet society. The
"bourgeois" cultural ilntelligelntsia was particularlyfavoredby the regime,
althoughlfew of its memberswere Commnlllists and their servicesin prac-
tical termswere nlotinidispenlsable to the state. Withlnthis group,preference
wentto thosewitllhiiglhest professioinal reputationalndstrongestcommitment
to traditionalprofessionalvalues. The Commin-unist intelligentsia-professional
iconoclasts,makers of the "ctilttiralrevoltution," and exponentsof "prole-
tarianlhegeimiony" in ctultturedturingthe First Five-Year Plan period-
quicklylost aulthority,influence,and identityas a grotupin the 1930s.
The party requiiredconformityfrom-i the intelligentsia,anld this in-
cluded acknowledgtmnent of the truthof Marxisma-Leninismll, thleleading role
of the party,and Stalin's finalauthorityolnall questionls.Btit,hiavingwitlh-
drawnlsupportfromthe Commutnist and abanldonled
intelligenltsia discrilmlina-
tiolnonIgroundsof social origin,the partylhadclhosenl to avoid a real icleo-
logical confrontatiolnor battle of cultturalvalues witlhthe old "bourgeois"
The
intelligentsia. conformity whiclhwas enforcedwas, above all, confornlity
to professionalnormsestablishedwitlhin eachlprofessioln tlhrougha processof
negotiationbetweenprofessionals, culturalbtureatucrats, and partyleadership.
These normswere oftenbased on emlutilation of a nonpartyctultural figturelike
Gorky,Stanislavsky,or Makarenko.
The party leadershipitselfacceptedmianyof the culturalvalues of tlhe
anldapolitical k.uit'titrnost'became a miarkof status in Soviet
intelligentsia,
society.The regimehad absolutepower to disciplinethe intelligentsia-asit
did in the 2hdanovshlchinaof the 1940s-and to repress its members.But
power to disciplinlemust be distinguislhed frompower (or desire) to create
Cominunistcultureand CoinmuIlistintelligentsia.
a specifically AIniImportanIt
choice was mnade in the early thirties,when the Conmmunist culturalrevolu-
tionarieswere repudiated.By deferringto the culturalauthorityof tlle old
and bringingits memblersinltothe circle of privilege,the party
intelligentsia
leadershipleftkto kogo? in cultture an open question.