Canadian Slavonic Papers

ISSN: 0008-5006 (Print) 2375-2475 (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rcsp20

From Charisma to Cant: Models of Public Speaking

in Early Soviet Russia

Michael S. Gorham

To cite this article: Michael S. Gorham (1996) From Charisma to Cant: Models of Public
Speaking in Early Soviet Russia, Canadian Slavonic Papers, 38:3-4, 331-355, DOI:
10.1080/00085006.1996.11092128

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/00085006.1996.11092128

Published online: 14 Apr 2015.

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Michael S. Gorham

From Charisma to Cant: Models of Public

Speaking in Early Soviet Russia*
In his infamous Ten Days that Shook the World, John Reed described the flood
of public speaking set loose by the Revolution of 1917: "Lectures, debates,
speeches.... Meetings in the trenches at the Front, in village squares, factories ....
What a marvelous sight to see Putilovsky Zavod pour out its forty thousand to
listen to Social Democrats, Socialist Revolutionaries, Anarchists, anybody,
whatever they had to say, as long as they would talk! For months in Petrograd,
and all over Russia, every street-corner was a public tribune. In railway trains,
street-cars, always the spurting up of impromptu debate, everywhere.... "l
The need for "talk"-here, the public articulation of the ideas, symbols and
images of the new Soviet order-was arguably more pressing for those in
positions of political and social power-the "producers," rather than the
2
"consumers" of public discourse. Particularly for an emerging state lacking the
material and social bases needed for legitimation, the effective formulation and
dissemination of ideas was a matter of survival. It is this link between public
language and state-building that is the subject of this article. Focussing on
discussions and representations of oratory from contemporary how-to manuals,
textbooks, journals and fiction, I trace the changing forms and functions of
"talk" in early Soviet Russia, describing three models of public speaking that
commanded more or less linguistic capital at various stages in the new society's
development. The first, which placed a strong emphasis on charismatic
persuasion, dominated the public sphere from the October revolution through the
end of the civil war; the second, which featured a shift in focus toward popular
organization, established itself most prominently during the period from 1922-
1927; the third model, which I describe as an institutionalized cant of the Soviet
Party-state, grew in magnitude with the start of the so-called cultural revolution
and first Five Year Plan in 1927.

Research for this article was made possible in part by the Davis Center for
Russian Research (formerly the Russian Research Center) at Harvard University, and
the American Council of Teachers of Russian and the American Council for
Collaboration in Education and Language Study Research Scholar Program, with funds
from the Department of State and the U.S. Information Agency.
I Ten Days that Shook the World (New York: International Publishers, 1926), 14-
15.
2 I use these terms as defined by Michel de Certeau in The Practice of Everyday Life,
trans. Steven Rendall (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984), xi-xxiv.

Canadian Slavonic Papers/Revue canadienne des slavistes

Vol. XXXVIII, Nos. 3-4, September-December 1996
332 MICHAEL S. GORHAM

To the extent that I document institutional shifts instrumental to the

formation of the Soviet State, my work follows in the path of a number of
groundbreaking studies spanning the disciplines of history, literature and cultural
3
studies. It sets itself apart from this scholarship by treating public discourse
itself-and the genre of oratory in particular-as an "institution" that enjoyed
substantial and broadly recognized power throughout the formative years of the
Soviet state. By charting the shifting paradigms for public speaking, I
demonstrate language's role in the formation and legitimation of power,
particularly in times of radical social change. I also show that writers, given
their primary focus on verbal and symbolic representation, played a formidable
role in articulating the changing voices of authority for the state's emerging
"central value system.,,4 Writers of narrative fiction, as professional storytellers,
had a special capacity through their verbal constructs (of public speaking, in this
case) to "make sense" out of reality, to make experience comprehensible, or, in
the more poetic imagery of Osip Mandel'shtam, to save the state from the jaws
s
of time.

3 Although too long to reproduce in these notes, the list would certainly include
the following titles: Jeffrey Brooks, "The Breakdown in Production and Distribution
of Printed Material, 1917-1927," in Bolshevik Culture, ed. Abbott Gleason, Peter
Kenez and Richard Stites (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1985), 151-174;
Edward J. Brown, The Proletarian Episode in Russian Literature, 1928-1932 (New
York: Octagon Books, 1971); M.O. Chudakova, Poetika Mikhaila Zoshchenko
(Moscow: Nauka, 1979); Katerina Clark, The Soviet Novel: History as Ritual
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1981); Larry E. Holmes, The Kremlin and the
Schoolhouse: Reforming Education in Soviet Russia, 1917-1931 (Bloomington:
Indiana University Press, 1991); Peter Kenez, The Birth of the Propaganda State:
Soviet Methods of Mass Mobilization, 1917-1929 (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1985); Robert A. Maguire, Red Virgin Soil: Soviet Literature in the
1920s (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1968); Lynn Mally, Culture of the
Future: The Proletkult Movement in Revolutionary Russia (Berkeley: University of
California Press, 1990); Richard Stites, Revolutionary Dreams: Utopian Vision and
Experimental Life in the Russian Revolution (New York: Oxford University Press,
1989).
4 Edward Shils, The Constitution of Society (Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 1972), esp. chs. 4, 8. For further discussion of the artist's role in state..
building, see Clifford Geertz, "Art as a Cultural System," in Local Knowledge (New
York: Basic Books, 1983),94-120.
5 The context of the image is worth quoting in full: "In the life of the word, an
heroic era has arrived. The word is bread and flesh. It shares the fate of bread and flesh:
suffering. People are hungry. Still hungrier is the state. But there is something even
more hungry: time. Time wants to devour the state. He who lifts up the word and
shows it to time, as a priest lifting up the Eucharist, shall become the second Joshua.
There is nothing hungrier than the modern state, and a hungry state is more terrifying
MODELS OF PUBLIC SPEAKING IN EARLY SOVIET RUSSIA 333

THE REVOLUTION OF THE "LIVING WORD"

The Bolshevik embrace of public oral expression had its roots in a combination
of revolutionary dreams and institutional limitations, the latter of which included
problems in the production and distribution of printed materials and the relati vely
low levels of literacy particularly among the would-be heirs of the "Worker-
Peasant state.,,6 These deficits placed a greater burden on oral channels of
communication to get out the Bolshevik word. "Agitational points" (agitpunkty)
and agitational trains, equipped with travelling bands of minimally trained
"agitators," often served as the only source of state-generated information for
populations in outlying regions.? Yet this new emphasis can also be traced to
deeper, less tangible sources. Oratory and public speaking became both a
medium and symbol for a kind of "revolutionary spirit" that not only called for
the abandonment of old, canonical ideas, but also demanded "fresher" and
"livelier" forms of speech by which to escape the world of dead institutions and
thought. As one contemporary commentator put it, the reemergence of the
spoken word had begun to reclaim the rightful place of the divine logos from
8
previous (bourgeois) domination of the bureaucratic, written word.
A number of institutional changes point to an overall renaissance of what,
in early Soviet parlance, was referred to as the "living language," or "living
word" (zhivoe slovo).9 In the realm of higher education, for example, "Institutes

than a hungry man. Compassion for a state that denies the word-this is the CIVIC
path and heroic deed of the modern poet." ("Slovo i kul'tura" [1921], in Sobranie
sochinenii v chetyrekh tomakh, v. 2 [Moscow: Terra, 1991], 225-26).
6 See Brooks, ''The Breakdown in Production and Distribution of Printed
Material," and Kenez, Birth of the Propaganda State 44-50, 70-83.
7 Provincial agitational workers continually complained about the lack of
resources and local' misinformation (Gosudarstvennyi Arkhiv Rossiiskoi Federatsii
[GARF], f. A2313, op. 2, d. lSI, II. 8, 31-47, 126-131; d. 198, I. 85). In his
groundbreaking study of newspaper reception in the Voronezh province, Iakov Shafir
argued, in fact, that the main discursive threat to the state came also in oral form-
namely in the often apocalyptic narratives of popular rumors and legends ("Slukhi i
chudesa," in Gazeta i derevnia, 2nd ed. [Moscow: Krasnaia nov', 1924], 99-128).
8 F. Zelinskii, "Znachenie oratorskogo iskusstva," in Iskusstvo i narod. Sbornik,
ed. Konst. Erberg (Peterburg: Kolos, 1922), 171-75.
9 Although predating the Bolshevik revolution, the terms experienced lexical and
cultural revitalization in the context of widespread social reconstruction. Beyond
Vladimir Dal's basic meaning of "language spoken currently by the people" and "a
language full of life-warm, boiling and natural," they came to be synonymous with
innovative, oral and even colloquial speech employed in the advancement of the
revolutionary cause. Dal', in fact, used the term in the very title of his four-volume
Interpretive Dictionary of the Living Great-Russian Language (Tolkovyi slovar'
zhivogo velikorusskogo iazyka, vol. I [2nd ed., 1880; reprint, Moscow: Russkii
334 MICHAEL S. GORHAM

of the Living Word" appeared in both Petrograd and Moscow, each dedicated to
research and training in various spheres of public speaking. Beginning in 1918,
the Petrograd-based Institute offered over 800 students a year a curriculum divided
across four disciplines-{)ratory, pedagogy, literature and drama.' 0 In a speech at
its formal opening, the Education Commissar A.V. Lunacharskii asserted the
central role of such institutes in "returning the living word to the people" and
enabling a "gigantic dawn of speech"; because "a person who remained silent in a
time of political crisis was only a half-person." I I The State Academy for the
Study of the Arts (Gosudarstvennaia Akademiia Khudozhestvennykh Nauk)
provided another center for specialists interested in the study of public speaking,
where commissions dedicated to "The Study of the Living Word" and "The Study
of the Effect of the Persuasive Word" met regularly to discuss both historical and
theoretical aspects of oratory. 12 At the primary levels of training, grade.school
children and adult-education groups attended classes in storytelling
3
(rasskazyvanie) and the "collective declamation" of poetry. 1 In literature classes,
teachers were encouraged to complement fictional readings with organized
conferences replete with orators, socially relevant debates, and even trials of
fictional heroes and villains-all in order to "draw [students'] attention to the

iazyk, 1978]). For a good example of the "revolutionary" recasting, see the opening
editorial to first issue of Vestnik agitatsii i propagandy (I [1920]-renamed
Kommunisticheskaia revoliutsiia beginning I August 1922).
10 GARF, f. A2306, op. 18, d. 290,1. 11,35. For a full listing of courses, curricula
and research goals, see Zapiski Instituta Siova (Peterburg, 1919).
II Zapiski Instituta Zhivogo Siova, 13, 20, 22.
12 Active participants in the· Academy's work in the field of public speaking
included several members of the Moscow Linguistics Circle (G.O. Vinokur, O.M.
Brik, A.M. Peshkovskii, D.N. Ushakov), as well as many other prominent
participants in the language and literary debates of the day (P.S. Kogan, A.V.
Lunacharskii,V.F. Pereverzev, V.P. Polonskii). Meetings for the first commission
were held from 1925-1930, and were attended by up to forty five scholars, including
the likes of Kogan, Peshkovskii, Ushakov and Vinokur. They addressed historical,
contemporary and theoretical issues, including, "The Orator and Actor in Ancient and
Modern Performances," "Interdependence of Form and Content in the Living Word,"
"Collective Declamation," "From the Stylistics of Contemporary Speech (Verb or
Noun)," and "Poets-the Lyric as Declamator" (Rossiiskii Gosudarstvennyi Arkhiv
Literatury i Iskusstva [RGALI], f. 941, op. 6,. d. 39, 40, 51, 66, 80, 81, 108, 109).
The second commission met between 1925 and 1926 in the Academy's Physio-
Psychology Division (RGALI, f. 941, op. 12, d. 20, I. 36).
13 For evidence of storytelling circles for adults, see GARF, f. A2313, op. 6, d.
298, I. 20; f. A2314, op. 5, d. 5, I. 5; for evidence of the politicization of grade-
school storytelling, see Nauchnyi Arkhiv Rossiiskoi Akademii Obrazovaniia [NA
RAO], f. 5, op. I, dd. 44, 54, 61, 62, 79, 81, 83,90,92.
MODELS OF PUBLIC SPEAKING IN EARLY SOVIET RUSSIA 335

thick of life" and "stimulate their involvement in it.,,14

An even more overtly political variation of the new emphasis came in the
burgeoning of the "living newspaper" (zhivaia gazeta), a generic hybrid that
combined the public reading of the daily news with factual and ideological
elucidations. Often times (much to the dismay of the more orthodox Party
officials), these "performances" more closely resembled variety shows, or
cabarets, than agitational sessions. J 5 But in either case, the principle was the
same-to disseminate information and conceptualizations of recent events
through a medium readily accessible to more remote and less literate members of
the population. One agitator's report appearing in the trade journal Red
Journalist documents both the element of "service" and the need for translation
and interpretation:

You should have seen how the public crowded around me from all the train cars and all
sides of the platform. In a minute, a crowd of 150-200 people had gathered. Sitting
on the stairs, I began to read slowly and precisely. No matter how popular the
newspaper style, some fairly difficult sections nevertheless arose, especially in the
articles. When this happened, I would provide explanations right on the spot. They
listened to me with great attention. When I finished reading the summary of
operations. some in the audience unfamiliar with our military affairs began to
question me in detail about the front-line effort. Others asked questions on general
political themes. 5-10 minutes of such discussion passed. During this time, some of
the surrounding crowd dispersed, while new people approached. They began to ask me
to read the paper again. which I did. As a result, I served 300 people with one
newspaper. 16

When viewed collectively, this broad range of institutions dedicated to the

"living word" suggests that public speaking was seen as more than merely an
efficient means of spreading the news. The spoken word gave citizens more direct
and immediate access to the language, symbols and visions of the new society,

14 Rodnoi iazyk i literatura v Jabzavuche i proJshkole. Metodicheskoe pis 'rna,

Biblioteka rabochego obrazovaniia, no. 20 (Moscow: ORO and IP Glavprofobra NKP
RSFSR [Gosizdat.J, 1928), 13.
15 The critic B. Arvatov described the "living newspaper" as a "review combined
with a stage performance (estrada) with proletarian thematics-a flexible, non-
patronal (vne-khramovaia) travelling theater, capable of being as ideational as
Shakespeare. as qualified as Sophicles, [and] exerting more influence than all the
Shakespeares and Sophocles put together" ("Zhivaia gazeta, kak teatral'naia forma,"
Zhizn' iskusstva 25 [1925]: 2). The most notorious of these travelling groups was the
"Blue Blouse" (Siniaia bluza) troupe, alternately castigated and praised for its more
entertainment-oriented performances (for a negative review of Siniaia bluza and
praise for living newspapers in Leningrad, see "Zhivye gazety," Zhizn' iskusstva 2
[1925]: 18).
16 "Kak ia ustroil 'zhivuiu' gazetu," Krasnyi zhumalist 2-3 (12 Sept. 1920): 66.
336 MICHAEL S. GORHAM

and encouraged their active participation In its verbal construction. A popular

textbook on public speaking put it best when it linked such public participation
directly to the notion of the citizen-orator: "In the new conditions of our life,
anyone who has not gone off into their shell altogether must from time to time
be an orator. By orator we mean not only individuals giving speeches at large
gatherings, meetings, etc., but also anyone who has had the occasion to address
in words even the smallest group of congregated people. To convince, to explain
something, to calm, to encourage, to appeal-these are the obligations which
life is constantly placing on US."I?
This function of persuasion and civic engagement marked a significant shift
in models of oratory from the pre-revolutionary period. While textbooks from
the early twentieth century, such as N. Abramov's multi-volume series Gift of
Speech: The Art of Setting Forth One's Ideas (1900), emphasized the notions of
eloquence (krasnorechie), euphony (blagozvuchie) and style (slog), and presumed
the domain of public speaking to be restricted to politicians, jurists and priests,
evehts of 1905 injected oratory with new ideological import, viewing it as a
18
guarantor of "free speech," a democratic right, and even civic obligation. By
"joining the ranks of constitutional states," one textbook author wrote, "Russia
has obligated all its citizens to participate in their political fate.... Henceforth,
each citizen must be, if not an orator, then at least capable of expressing one's
view on a given issue... and defending it when needed.,,19

THE CHARISMATIC ORATOR-REVOLUTIONARY

The events of 1917 brought this more political and power-oriented attitude into
the foreground of the literature on public speaking, The first Soviet manuals
focussed on oratory as a vehicle for persuasion, rather than pleasure. A 1918
manual, How to Speak on Political Themes, stressed the need for vnushenie-a
term connoting both "forceful suggestion" and "inspiration," with distinctly
psychological overtones, In contrast to the "flowery school and academic
eloquence," Bolshevik rally speeches demanded "life, action and energetic

17 A.v. Mirtov, Umenie govorit' fJublichno, 2nd expanded ed. (Moscow:

Moskovskoe aktsionernoe izd.-skoe obshchestvo, 1925), 3. Cf. Smirnov-
Kutacheskii's description of such public participation as "a civil obligation"
("Sovremennye zadachi rodnogo iazyka v shkole," Rodnoi iazyk v shkole 9 [1926]:
79).
18 N. Abramov, Dar slova. lskusstvo izlagat' svoi mysli, vyp. I (Sankt Peterburg,
1900), 24. See also a later book from the same author and series, Dar slova. lskusstvo
proiznosit' rechi, vyp. 4 (Sankt Peterburg, 1902), esp. p. 4.
19 M.N. Popov, Politicheskoe krasnorechie. CillO nuzhno dUa oratora (Sankt
Peterburg, 1906), v, 1.
MODELS OF PUBLIC SPEAKING IN EARLY SOVIET RUSSIA 337

persuasion," and relied on deeper forces, such as a "healthy mass feeling" and
"correctly operating consciousness," to change reality?O Theirs was a more
potent, persuasive form of talk, which, in the mouth of a talented speaker could
engage, even captivate, audiences for hours. As the manual To Young
Propagandists and Agitators explained it, "You do not tear yourself away from a
thought if it disturbs (volnuet) you, if you feel captivated by it...if you feel as
though the speech is pouring into your soul, fil1ing it up, renewing it, giving it
some kind of new, unknown strengths.,,21
L.D. Trotskii, an acclaimed orator in his own right, described a similarly
psychic union in his memoirs My Life, recalling the mass meetings organized
by Bolsheviks on the steps of the Cirque Moderne in Petrograd:

Elbows, chests, heads were densely pressed around me and above me. I spoke as if
from a warm cave of human bodies.... No weariness could resist the electric tension of
this passionate human throng. It wanted to know, to understand, to find its way. At
moments it seemed like your lips felt the demanding inquisitiveness of this crowd
which had blended into one. At those times, the pre-designed arguments and words
yielded, backed down to the peremptory pressure of sympathy, and out of latency
there appeared, armed to the hilt, different words, different arguments, unanticipated
by the orator, but necessary to the masses. And then it would seem as if you yourself
were listening to the orator just a bit to the side, unable to keep up with his thoughts
and alarmed that he might, like a sleep walker, fall off the box from the voice of your
argumentation. 22

Both Trotskii and the speaking manuals of the revolutionary years highlight
the spiritual and transformational powers of the oratorical moment in a manner
much akin to Max Weber's notion of "charismatic authority.,,23 The charismatic

20 F. Kudrinskii (Bogdan Stpanets), Kak govorit' na politicheskiia terny

(Petrograd, 1918), 3-4; E. Khersonskaia, Molodyrn propagandistarn i agitatorarn. (/z
kursa lektsii, chitannykh v Tsentral'noi shkole partiinoi raboty v 1919 g.), Rechi i
besedy agitatora, no. 16 (Moscow: Gosizdat, 1920), 16-17.
21 Molodym propagandistam i agitatorarn 33.
22 L.D. Trotskii, Moia zhizn': opyt avtobiograjii, vol 2 (Berlin: Granit, 1930), 15-
16. The steps of the" Cirque Moderne" in Petrograd served as a popular gathering
spot for Bolshevik agitators in the years leading up to the 1917 Revolution.
23 In Economy and Society, Weber describes "charisma" as "a certain quality of an
individual personality by virtue of which he is considered extraordinary and treated as
endowed with supernatural, superhuman, or at least specifically exceptional powers or
qualities." He explains that "the power of charisma rests upon the belief in revelation
and heroes, upon the conviction that' certain manifestations-whether they be of a
religious, ethical, artistic, scientific, political or other kind-are important and
valuable; it rests upon 'heroism' of an ascetic, military, judicial, magical or
whichever kind. Charismatic belief revolutionizes men 'from within' and shapes
material and social conditions according to its revolutionary will" (Economy and
338 MICHAEL S. GORHAM

leader, speaking from a "warm cave of human bodies," becomes one with the
crowd, thereby generating a spirit of shared conviction and revolutionary will. It
is a "revolutionary" force in the sense that it abandons pre-ordained, written
words, and articulates spontaneously the crowd's immediate, inner concerns. As
Weber puts it, "Formally concrete judgments are newly created from case to case
and are originally regarded as divine judgments and revelations. From a
substantive point of view, every charismatic authority would have to subscribe
to the proposition, 'It is written ... but I say unto you .... ",24
Some of the more curious literary images of charismatic persuasion appeared
in the early issues of Proletcult journals?5 Scenes of mass meetings depicted
orators captivating their listeners and inspiring in them both conviction and
action. A 1918 story appearing in Future (Griadushchee) described factory halls
transformed into mighty sanctuaries where the speech of orators "poured over the
crowd evenly and flowingly in a mighty, vigorous stream.',26 The charismatic
word even had the power to convert masses antagonistically disposed toward
Bolshevism. An orator in a 1919 sketch does so by virtue of the power of his
voice ("mighty, like thunder, it engrossed the entire factory") and (like Trotskii)
his ability to "weld" the crowd into a united whole by articulating its "most
secret thoughts" ("In another few minutes, the meeting was listening to his
speech as if bewitched [zacharovannoe] , and every word escaping the lips of the
comrade poured out beneath the hot blue sky and struck against the soot-covered
factory walls; every thought shrouded by him in words was the most secret
thought of everyone")??
An account in Flame (Plamia) described how the poorly educated worker-
protagonist Antonov was swept up by a speech, the words to which he could
barely understand:
The thoughts, like rocks, turned heavily in his impoverished, beaten head, and it
was hard for him to keep up with the speech of the tall, agile man in glasses and
understand what he was talking about. While the word was pulverizing itself into
Antonov's brain, becoming lucid and alive, the man in glasses had already gone far

Society: An Outline of Interpretive Sociology, vol. 2, ed. Buenther Roth and Claus
Wittich [Berkeley: U. of California Press, 1978], 1116).
24 Economy and Society 1:243.
25 Gregory Freidin was the first to offer an extended discussion of the charismatic
authority of the Russian writer during the Revolution in A Coat of Many Colors: Osip
Mandelshtam and His Mythologies of Self-Presentation (Berkeley: University of
California Press, 1987), esp. ch. 1. See also Edward J. Brown, Mayakovsky: A Poet
in the Revolution (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1973).
26 Groshik, "Invalidy," Griadushchee 4 (1918): 11.
27 Zoia Aspii, "Miatezhnyi gorod. (Ocherki)," Griadushchee I (1919): 5.
MODELS OF PUBLIC SPEAKING IN EARLY SOVIET RUSSIA 339

ahead.
But one thing was clear: the man was talking in radiant, colorful words about him,
about his beggarly life.... 28

In a mild form of glossolalia, or "transrational" (zaumnyi) language, the orator

connects with the listener on a more fundamental level; the words are beyond
him, but the charismatic message gets through.
The Proletcult portraits are far from transrational in form, but the allusions
to thunderous voices engulfing entire factories and the internal vitalization of
initially strange speech bear at least functional resemblances to the models of
public speaking touted by the Formalist theorists writing, in particular, about
Lenin's language in a 1924 issue of Lef They did so no doubt, in part, to score
political points; but the topic also provided a means for demonstrating the
29
revolutionary word's common grounding in politics and poetics. Boris
Tomashevskii, calling the growing popularity of rhetoric a "democratization of
art" in Soviet society, cited Lenin as the logical point of departure for the
beginning orator.3° Viktor Shklovskii characterized Lenin as a "decanonizer,"
invoking a more literal application of the notion of "revolution": "Every speech
or article almost seems to start again from the beginning.,,31 Iurii Tynianov

28 Iak. Okunev, "Ulybka," Plamia I (1918): 6.

29 Lei 1(5) (1924): 53-148. Stylistic commentaries on Lenin's language became
something of a cottage industry during the years just following the Bolshevik
leader's death. It is interesting to note, however, that, although most of those who
took part in the language debates used Lenin's comments about language in their own
defense, few outside of this circle of critics subjected Lenin's language itself to a
critical stylistic analysis. Especially when one compares Lenin's oratory or
polemical articles with the manifestos of the literary groups of the first two decades of
the century, one sees the degree to which Lenin's language was, in fact, "modern." [I
am indebted to Professor Boris Gasparov for having first introduced to me this
stylistic link.] Cf. A. Kruchenykh, lazyk Lenina: Odinnadtsat' priemov Leninskoi
rechi (Moscow: Vserossiiskii Soiuz Poetov, 1925); Aleksandr Finkel', 0 iazyke i
stile V. I. Lenina. vyp. I (Proletarii, 1925); Ia. Shafir, "Iazyk Lenina," in Voprosy
gazetnoi kul'tury (Moscow: Gosizdat, 1927), 156-168. For a broader discussion of
the overlap of poetic and "practical" language and its implications for the "language
culture" of early Soviet Russia, see the collection of essays by G.O. Vinokur in
Kul'tura iazyka (Moscow: Federatsiia, 1929), esp. "Prakticheskaia stilistika kak
problema," 11-48, and "Poeziia i prakticheskaia stilistika," 261-83.
30 Tomashevskii went so far as to claim that "sociopolitical works," typified by the
verbal production of Lenin, constituted "the most significant sphere of contemporary
prose" ("Konstruktsiia tezisov," Lei I [1924]: 141).
31 "Lenin, kak dekanonizator," Lei I (1924): 55. See also Shklovskii' s
"Voskreshenie slova" (St. Petersburg, 1914) and "Iskusstvo, kak priem" (1917), in 0
teorii prozy (Moscow: Federatsiia, 1929), 7-23.
340 MICHAEL S. GORHAM

attributed Lenin's oratorical success to his ability to keep language "alive"

(zhivoi) by retaining what he called a "discrepancy" (neviazka) between two or
more levels of meaning, and thereby avoiding the loss of meaning, the
devolution of the word to a mere "object of everyday life (byt).,,32 Be it in the
literary discourse of the Formalists or the sociopolitical language of the oratory
textbooks, it is precisely these linked notions of innovation, inspiration and
revitalization that dominated earlier models of public speaking?3

POPULAR ApPROPRIATIONS AND THE ROUTlNIZATlON OF CHARISMA

Just as the overuse of terms, according to the Formalists, leads to their
deadening, so too, for Weber, does charismatic authority become "weakened by
everyday life"-especially when adopted and redeployed by less eloquent and less
admired followers?4 This natural process of routinization, in language as well as
other spheres, gives rise to unanticipated, and often undesirable, transformations.
Soviet fiction in the years just following the civil war give ample representation
to these transformations. In a 1921 story, the "peasant" writer Semion
Pod"iachev portrays Foma Kirsanych, a rural official of limited education, but
keenly aware-if not plagued by-the power potential of public speech?5 Any
sense of the orator as a charismatic "welder" of mass minds disappears in the face
of anxiety and self-importance. In either manifestation-as a source of local
authority or public humiliation-oratory is stripped of its awe-inspiring force
and reduced to a basic instrument of power, to be used or abused according to the
abilities and intentions of the individual speaker. That the struggle for power is

32 "Slovar' Lenina-polemista," Lef I (1924): 98-99; 89, 91.

33 The degree to which public discourse served as a focal point in the battle for
power and legitimacy in the French revolution has been well documented. In her study
of the culture of the French revolution, Lynn Hunt writes that "Revolutionary
language did not simply reflect the realities of revolutionary changes and conflicts,
but rather was itself transformed into an instrument of political and social change. In
this sense, political language was not merely an expression of an ideological
position that was determined by underlying social or political interests. The language
itself helped shape the perception of interests and hence the development of
ideologies. In other words, the revolutionary political discourse was rhetorical; it was
a means of persuasion, a way of reconstitution the social and political world"
(Politics, Culture and Class in the French Revolution [Berkeley: University of
California Press, 1984], 24). See also Steven Blakemore, Burke and the Fall of
Language: The French Revolution as Linguistic Event (Hanover, NH: University
Press of New England [for Brown University Press] 1988).
34 Economy and Society I 134.
35 "Boliashchii," Krasnaia nov' 3 (1921): 3-12. All further references to this work
will appear bracketed in the text.
MODELS OF PUBLIC SPEAKING IN EARLY SOVIET RUSSIA 341

primarily a discursive one-based in the construction and articulation of ideas~

is clear from the prominence Pod"iachev gives Kirsanych's pre-meeting practice
oration, performed in earnest before his bedroom mirror. Though obsessed with
his self-presentation, all he can muster are half-baked phrases and broken cliches
of new Soviet rhetoric:
<DoMa Kl1pcaH bl'-/, YBne<leHHblH pe'-lblO 11 CBOHM c06CTBeHHblM BI1L10M B 3epKane,
npHcen KaK-TO nO-'-IYLlHOMY Ha KOpm'-lKH H, nponlHyB BnepM pyKH co C)KaTbIMH
KynaKaMH, Kp WI an, Ha6n lOLlall CBoe OTpa)KeHl1e:
-TOBapl1ll{e, rpa)K,l\aHe! 51, KaK MeCTHall BnaCTb, COBMeCTHO C OT,l\enOM
Hapo,l\HOrO 06pa30BaH HlI, npH3bIBalO Bac Ha 60pb6y C TeMHOTOlO... Mbl ,l\On)KHbl
60poTbC}I... Mbl, HapO,l\-THTaH, CMeTeM Bce, a CBoe B03bMeM... MbI... MbI... 51 11
COBMeCTHO OT,l\en Hap0,l\HOrO 06pa30BaHH}I ,l\On)KHbl n06e,l\HTb... MbI npoCHM Bac... 51
XO'-lY CKa3aTb, npH3bIBaeM Bac COe,l\HHHTbC}I HcnnOTHTbC}I BOe,l\HHO HY,l\apHTb, KaK
MonOTOM, no ronOBe rH,l\PY HeBe)KeCTBa! .. [5]

Foma Kirsanych, carried away by his speech and his own image in the mirror,
assumed an odd, squatting position and, stretching out his arms with clenched fi sts,
yelled, following his own reflection:
"Comrade citizens! I, as local power, together with the division of people's
education, summon you to the struggle with darkness ... We must struggle... we, the
people's titan, will wipe out everything, and take what is ours... We ... we.... I-and
together the division of people's education-must be victorious ... We ask you-I
want to say-summon you to unite and rally together to strike, like with a hammer, at
the head of the hydra of ignorance!"

The "oration" extends over two pages, marred by broken sentences, fractured
syntax and constant clearings of the throat. Kirsanych's god-fearing wife,
eavesdropping at the door, pleads with him to come to his senses before the
"satanic force of the commune" completely takes control, but he curses her
defiantly for belittling the import of his speeches: "Each of my words, each of
my looks and gestures must be not in vain, but well-considered, because I am
local power and everything emanates from me" [7]. The author-narrator believes
otherwise, however, and never even lets his hero before a live audience-reducing
him, instead, to a state of near insanity.
Pod"iachev's was by no means the only contemporary portrait of inept and
ill-motivated orators. In her novella, Humus (Peregnoi, 1922), Lidiia Seifullina
depicted the peasant leader Sofron's attempt to use the power of public speaking
to justify his corrupt, tyrannical practices. Dmitrii Furmanov, in his 1923 novel
Chapaev, belittled the harangues of the Cossack military hero, describing them
as "randomly" constructed. In a satirical vignette entitled "Monkey Language"
(1925), Mikhail Zoshchenko explored the fate of Bolshevik oratory when adopted
into the colloquial, semi-literate structures of ordinary Party hacks. And
Aleksandr Arosev portrayed an emerging class of Party dilettantes who treated
342 MICHAEL S. GORHAM

orators as they would any other cultural artifact subject to public taste-turning
them, in the process, into a crude sort of fetish ("I'm not a great admirer of the
orators in these parts... but those Moscow orators... ," opines one of his
characters, as she "fanned her red, sweaty face with a paper fan,,)?6 Though
invoked for a variety of reasons, alI these images of misappropriated public
speech address a common problem-namely, the transferral of power and
authority from charismatic heights to the imperfect babble of everyday routine.
Even portraits of real political orators took on more ironic overtones. In a
fictional portrait of Trotskii as orator, Arosev, although ultimately cognizant of
the leader's speaking skills, comes close to reducing what Trotskii himself
portrays as a charismatic, if not divine, gift, to a series of mechanical (and
modernist) devices:
TPOl.\KI1H 3arOBOp 11J1.
B oollleM, HI1'lero oc06eHHoro. TOJlbKO rOJloc MeTaJlJlI1'1eCKI1H 11 JlI06I1T CJlOBa,
HapO'lI1TO "'X BbI6l1paeT. B 'IeM )I(e MarHeTI1'1eCKall CI1J1a ero? HeT, CI1J1a He B
CJlOBaX, a B My3bIKe roJloca. B yMeH1111 BO-BpeMlI nepeBeCTI1 ayx, BO-BpeMlI
nepeaoXHyTb. rae HaaO,-CKa3aTb rpoM'Ie. rae Haao,-cnay3I1Tb. A rae HaaO,-
nycTI1Tb CJlOBO C 1I3blKa TaK, KaK CTpeJly C TeTI1Bbl, nycTI1Tb 11 'IT06bl Bl1aHO 6b1Jl0,
KaK CJlOBO-CTpeJla BOH3aeTClI Bcepal\e cJlYlIlaTeJlll.
11 ellle CI1J1a ero B qmrype. 111l1poKl1e nJle'll1 11 KaKl1e-TO 00 'beMJllOllll1e PYK\1.
Koraa OH roBOpl1T, aa ellle TaK oc06eHHo npl1ablxaeT, TO Ka)l(eTClI, 'ITO OH HeceT 11
MeH}I, 11 Bcex Hac. Ynl1paeTClI Jl60M Bnepea, HaKJlOHlIeT 11 BCKl1abIBaeT rOJlOBY,
PYKaMI1 XBaTaeT TO B03ayx, TO Onl1paeTClI 0 nlOnl1Tp, nepeBOal1T abiXaHl1e, yCTaeT
HeCTI1. 11 CHOBa 11 CHOBa HeceT.
Eyab }I xyaO)l(HI1K-Q:>YTYPI1CT, 1I 11306pa311J1 6bl Tpol\Koro aByMlI TpeyroJlbHI1KaMI1
C OCHOBaHl1}1M 11 BBepx, a BeplIll1HaMI1 BHI13: Tpey roJlbH 11K MaJleHbKI1H - 3TO JlI1l\O -
Ha TpeyroJlbHI1Ke 60JlblIlOM -3TO TYJlOBI1111e. BOT BeCb TPOl\KI1H.
Trotskii began to speak.
In all, nothing special. Just a metallic voice and a love for words so deliberately
selected. Where does his magnetic force come from? No, the strength is not in the
words, but the music of his voice. In the ability to pause for breath on time, or sneak
a quick gasp. To speak louder where needed; pause where needed. And, where needed,
to launch from the tongue a word, like an arrow from a bow, launch it and watch how,
like a verbal arrow, it penetrates the heart of the listener.
The force comes also from his figure. Wide shoulders and these enveloping kind of
arms. When he speaks, and pauses in that special way, it seems as if he is carrying
both me and all of us. He leans his forehead forward, bows and then rears up his head,
grasping for air or leaning against the pulpit, he takes a breath, tired of carrying. And
yet he carries again and again.

36 L.N. Seifullina, Peregnoi. in Sibirskie ogni 5 (1922): 3-49 (see esp. 4-5); D.A.
Furmanov, Chapaev (Moscow: Gosizdat, 1923), 74; M.M. Zoshchenko,
"Obez'iannyi iazyk" (1925), in Sobranie sochinenii v trekh tomakh. vol. I
(Leningrad: Khudozhestvennaia literatura, 1986), 264-66; A. Arosev, "Strada.
Zapiski T.A. Zabytogo," Krasnaia nov' 2 (1921): 44.
MODELS OF PUBLIC SPEAKING IN EARLY SOVIET RUSSIA 343

Were I a Futurist artist, I would depict Trotskiias two inverted triangles one on top
of the other; the little triangle being the face, and the big triangle being the torso.
That's the complete Trotskii. 37

Even the effective orator is more a manipulator of words and gestures than
an inspiring force, capable of capturing and articulating the thoughts and mood
of the crowd (as Trotskii himself portrayed it). He is a caricature of modernist
invention, a conjurer more than an ideational leader.
As in the predominance of post civil-war fictional portraits, professional and
instructional manuals likewise reveal a transition from a charismatic ideal to a
more routinized reality. Agitprop journals and new manuals for public speaking
began to alter the focus of the discussion from the emotional, psychological and
transformational powers of the spoken word to more mundane issues: speaking
in clear, comprehensible and straight-forward sentences, obtaining and mastering
information about the issues, and refraining from speaking out on unfamiliar
topics. According to the Agitator's Guide, a journal put out by the Central
Committee's Division of Agitation and Propaganda, public communication was
impeded by basic inadequacies-"the inability to formulate thoughts clearly and
precisely, to concentrate them ... in a united, orderly plan; the absence of habits
relating to the oral exposition of one's thoughts, the inability to command
speech sufficiently .... ,,38
Beyond oratorical incompetency, though, the times themselves had changed.
Orators could no longer rely on "revolutionary pathos" to persuade their
audiences, even if they had the power and authority to invoke it, according to a
1923 book, Public Addresses: A Guide for Beginners. It had disappeared. 39 Gone,
likewise, were the days when short slogans and rallies were sufficient for
4o
conceptualizing new realities and spreading the word. Slogans had become

37 "Strada. Zapiski T.A. Zabytogo," 31-2. The narrator does go on to admit that
Trotskii has a special knack for bringing into order "random thoughts roaming about
in the brain" of the listener [32], but only after this more lengthy "baring of the
device."
38 Sputnik agitatora 3 (1925): 49-50.
39 E. Khersonskaia (starshaia), Publichnye vystupleniia. Posobie dlia
nachinaiushchikh, 2nd corrected and expanded edition (Moscow: Krasnaia nov'
[Glavpolitprosvet], 1923), 9-11. William Chase argues that the policy shifts and
dashed hopes brought on by the Civil War and War Communism gave rise to a
growing "estrangement" between the state and the working class-a rift no doubt
contributing the dissolution of "revolutionary pathos" (Workers, Society, and the
Soviet State: Labor and Life in Moscow, 1918-1929 [Urbana: University of Illinois
Press, 1987], 11-72).
40 A. Abolin, "Vnimanie postanovke agitatsii,"Komunisticheskaia revoliutsiia 6
(1925): 14.
344 MICHAEL S. GORHAM

"naked"; rallies had become "hackneyed" and morphologically mocked by terms

41
such as mitingovanie and-still worse-mitingovshchina. Central organizers
advised agitators to use the format only rarely and, then, with careful delineation
42
of concrete issues. The more complex educational and training tasks of the
reconstruction period required more substantive forms of communication. In
place of the ungainly mass rally, critics recommended the more focused
"meeting" (sobranie), or the "discussion" (beseda).43 The shift in preferred
context reflected a changing attitude toward audiences, as well-in particular, a
growing suspicion of the crowd's destructive potential under the spell of a
charismatic orator. The crowd (tolpa), according to The Ability to Speak in
Public (one of the more widely circulated manuals of the 1920s), was a
pernicious and primitive force that could easily get out of hand. The orator's first
44
priority was therefore to "organize" it. Finally, the growing emphasis on
organization showed up in altered attitudes toward the spoken word itself. In
addition to encouraging more simple and straightforward forms of expression,
even those reflecting the colloquial speech of the factory and farm, commentaries
shifted the balance of power between the word (slovo) and the deed (delo),
describing the former as an inferior appendage to the latter, rather than an
45
essential, if not divine, conduit. Even in the lofty context of the eulogy, as
one author remarked, the "tedious, overchewed gum" and "contentless phrases" of
"eloquence" should be abandoned for more deed-oriented praise: "Give a sober,
deed-oriented evaluation of what the person has actually done, or a survey of
what the person still stands to do. If he has not done anything useful, then it is

41 The first term, a de verbal noun created from an already-derivative verb (miting ->
mitingovat' -> mitingovanie) carries a distinctly (and overly) bureaucratic flavor: the
second, by virtue of the -shchina suffix, is plainly derogatory, an abstract noun
roughly denoting an overzealous penchant for holding needless and pointless rallies.
42 K. Mal'tsev, "Formy massovoi agitatsii. (Stat'ia 3-ia.)," Sputnik agitatora 16
(1925): 28, 30.
43 E.g. V. Galenkina, "Neskol'ko slov 0 formakh massovoi agitatsii," Sputnik
agitatora 13 (1925): 53. Khersonskaia (starshaia) also advises that the beseda, rather
than the rally, is "the best means for working out methodical thought on social
issues" (Kak besedovat' so vzroslymi po obshchestvennym voprosam,
Pedagogicheskie kursy na domu, no. 18 [Moscow: Rabotnik prosveshcheniia, 1924],
I I).
44 A.V. Mirtov, Umen'e govorit' publichno: teoriia, zadachi, uprazhneniia, 5th
reworked and expanded ed. (Moscow: Doloi negramotnost', 1927), 22.
45 The opposition itself goes back in Russian revolutionary thought at least to
N.G. Chernyshevskii (see Antropologicheskii printsip v filosofii [1860] [Moscow:
OGIZ, Gospolitizdat, 1948]).
MODELS OF PUBLIC SPEAKING IN EARLY SOVIET RUSSIA 345

not worth talking about him.,,46

In fiction, along with the proliferation of works that either debunked a
model of charismatic discourse no longer appropriate, or bemoaned the growth of
opportunistic manipulation of the public rostrum, more simplified models of
public speaking also appeared. Iurii Libedinskii's 1922 novella The Week
illustrates the transfer of discursive authority from the old to new guard, a clear,
47
coherent transition from charismatic persuasion to organizational straight-talk.
As in many of the officially praised narratives of the day, the story is framed by
public gatherings. The opening Party meeting, in contrast to the animation and
psychic energy of Trotskii's modern circus, is a model of organization and
control. The audience appears as "a huge, grey docile beast, lying at the feet of
the chairman" [64]. The first speaker, a leading Party official, outlines the
problem at hand in the language of cold, hard facts ("inaudibly and deafly
[glukho] raising his voice to the figures ..."); he fails, however, to offer a
concrete solution to the dilemma-a rift between word and deed that gives rise to
minor discursive chaos. Scores of working-class orators take to the podium in an
attempt to articulate the solution, but their speeches, characterized by the narrator
as "agitated," "awkward," and "disconnected," prove as incomprehensible to the
audience as they are blind to the ultimate solution (provoking from one observer
the angry accusation of "demagoguery, mitingovshchina" [65]). It takes the old
Bolshevik Robeiko to stop the cacophony, but even he is largely devoiced.
Suffering from tuberculosis of the throat, so violent an illness that "the sounds
tear his throat into shaggy, blood-red pieces," Robeiko is forced to "speak little,
only several words, [so that] the issue would be clear, [and] everyone would ...
know how to speak of... the solution, that many saw only vaguely" [66].
Though punctuated by excruciating pain and uncontrollable coughing, his speech
does succeed in articulating-concisely and directly-the task at hand. From
action-oriented constructions built off of modal expressions of necessity (nuzhno
appears five times) to repeated emphasis on calmness (Ne nuzhno
tol'koteriat'sia... Nuzhno spokoino, khladnokrovno oglianut'sia... V spokoinom
izuchenii), clarity (iasno ... iasno) and decisiveness (reshitel'noe deistvie ...delat'
vse skoro i reshitel'no... Tol'ko ne medlit'), the address offers the perfect
organizational alternative to a charismatic voice mutilated over the years by
destruction and disease. Instead of rabble-rousing, it is at once straightforward and
deed-governed [66-67].

46 A. Adzharov, Oratorskoe iskusstvo: Prakticheskoe posobie dlia molodezhi

(Moscow: Molodaia gvardiia, 1925), 25.
47 Iu.N. Libedinskii, Nedelia, in Nashi dni 2 (1922): 61-144. All further references
to this work appear bracketed in the text.
346 MICHAEL S. GORHAM

The ultimate confirmation of the shift comes in the story's closing scene-
another Party meeting held after Robeiko and most of the other leaders have been
kil1ed off in the defense of the town against a band of white terrorists. The
survivors appoint as meeting chair the younger worker Gornykh, a "deed-oriented
lad" (delovoi paren~ so confident that the results of his work would speak for
themselves that "he never spoke at ral1ies and did so very rarely at Party cel1
meetings" [73, 144]. His speech, we are told, emerges not from some
charismatic gift, but from the "reason and will" borne out of concrete tasks and
experiences of the preceding week [144] .48 His final message to the crowd of
rank-and-file Party members-cal1ing upon them to assume positions of
responsibility for which they are less qualified than their former Bolshevik
compatriots-underscores the chal1enge of the growing post-revolutionary, post-
war state. Hundreds and thousands of young, inarticulate, and often poorly trained
Party members must fill the public-speaking roles of first-generation
49
revolutionaries. But doing so, given their backgrounds, their audiences and the
reconstructive tasks before them, would require a new way of speaking-a more
simple and direct mode of expression, wel1-informed, and uncomplicated by the
stale phrases of revolutionary rhetoric. 50

FROM ROUTINE TO INSTITUTION: THE PARTY-STATE SYNTHESIS

The routinization of successful charismatic movements, according to Weber,
quite often leads to the creation of stable institutions-a process fundamental to

48 Gornykh represents the marterialization of a model introduced earlier in the form

of a rhetorical query by the author-narrator, who had contemplated the unfair practice
within Party ranks of giving positions of responsibility to those who were "able to
chair (predsedatel'stvovat'), speak eloquently and conduct meetings," rather than to
those who, although inarticulate, spoke with fewer "loud phrases" and a deeper
understanding of "the class struggle and basic Party principles" [117-18].
49 As Chase puts it, "the restoration of the proletariat began to give way to its
dilution as increasing numbers of inexperienced and unskilled rural migrants secured
factory employment" (Workers, Society and the Soviet State 103). See also Sheila
Fitzpatrick, "The Bolsheviks' Dilemma: The Class Issue in Party Politics and
Culture," in The Cultural Front: Power and Culture in Revolutionary Russia (Ithaca:
Cornell University Press, 1992), 16-36.
50 The character Gleb Chumalov of Fedor Gladkov's Tsement offers an even more
brash, less polished version of this straight-talking organizational model-
particularly in contrast to the long-winded bureaucratic hacks of the local
Sovnarkom. See especially the closing scene, where the ringing rhetoric of Bad'in is
contrasted to Gleb's brief, reluctant and unpolished speech-prefaced by his
rhetorical query, "Why talk when everything is clear without words?" (in Sobranie
sochinenii, vol. 2 [Moscow: Zemlia i fabrika, 1927], 315-J 7).
MODELS OF PUBLIC SPEAKING IN EARLY SOVIET RUSSIA 347

51
the transferral and preservation of a movement's accumulated power. Although
for Weber that power was primarily economic, more recent thinkers such as
Claus Mueller and Pierre Bourdieu have demonstrated how it comes in other
forms as well-including linguistic. Bourdieu, for example, describes "linguistic
capital" as a critical means by which one group assumes or retains domination
over another. People enjoying positions of power over linguistic capital regulate
not only the channels of communication and flow of information, but the very
52
medium, or code, in which meaningful communication can take place. They
help define what constitutes appropriate and inappropriate linguistic practice (in
the public sphere, at least); they determine what will be the "standard," the
"norm." Weber likens them to "apostles," who in the emerging institutions
become "privileged table companions ... priests, state officials, party officials,
officers, secretaries, editors and publishers ... employees, teachers and others with
a vested occupational interest [in the charismatic movement]." He goes on to
note that "Even though the apostle admonishes the followers to maintain the
purity of the spirit, the charismatic message inevitably becomes dogma,
doctrine, theory ... law or petrified tradition.,,53 In other words, the maxim "It is
written ... , but I say unto you" becomes null and void by the resurgence of the
written word.
The Church metaphors are particularly apt in the case of the language
culture of early Stalinism. The authority of priests comes not from their ability
to create new, revolutionary language, but from their skills at preserving,
disseminating and interpreting pre-existing texts. This canonical discourse
becomes the chief gauge and guarantor of all subsequent communicative acts. It
functions both as a cue to membership and a kind of incantation, whose
evocation secures truth, and whose disregard or misuse spells falsehood and
. 54
corruptIon.
Public speaking and agitprop literature from the period corresponding to the

51 Economy and Society I 121.

52 See especially Language and Symbolic Power, ed. John B. Thompson and trans.
Gino Raymond and Matthew Adamson (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1991),
37-102; Claus Mueller, The Politics of Communication: A Study in the Political
Sociology of Language, Socialization, and Legitimation (New York: Oxford
University Press, 1973).
53 Economy and Society 1122.
54 Katerina Clark characterizes Soviet Socialist Realism itself as "a canonical
doctrine defined by its patristic texts" (The Soviet Novel: History as Ritual [Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1981],3). Andrei Siniavskii likens the Soviet Union as
a whole under Stalin to a "Church-State." For his comments on language in this
regard, see Soviet Civilization: A Cultural History, trans. Joanne Turnbull (New
York: Arcade Publishing, 1988), 111-12.
348 MICHAEL S. GORHAM

first Five Year Plan clearly reflects these various levels of language
institutionalization. If previous models privileged either speakers (by virtue of
their charismatic authority) or audiences (because of their "backwardness"), here,
the code of Party doctrine becomes the driving communicative force. A 1928
textbook, How to Deliver Reports and Speeches at Meetings, reduces the "art of
oratory" to the practical day-to-day operation of the Party, and restricts the pool
of would-be orators to "rank-and-file Party members."ss Public speaking was no
longer an obligation of "every Soviet citizen," as previous manuals had
contended: it had become, instead, a medium of communication reserved strictly
for "the realization of internal Party democracy."s6
The primacy of the "Party line" shifted emphasis away from oral and
creative modes of public expression toward written and rehearsed texts. Increasing
authority went to the growing canon of Party documents as represented in
centrally controlled newspapers, books and pamphlets. As the same manual put
it, "It is essential not only to know the Party line, but to be able to link it to
the general foundations of the Party world view (mirosozertsanie) provided in
Lenin's collected works .... It is [also] essential to survey the collections put out
by the Party, which combine the most important articles il1uminating current
issues of Party life."s7 Even the models of spoken language that were offered,
such as the speeches of Lenin and Stalin, were themselves derivative-
transcribed from their original oral status into a lifeless printed and polished
form.
The task of "enlightenment" so critical in both of the preceding models of
oratory was largely assumed by these canonical texts. It was they, more than the
orators themselves, who were the "illuminators"; the public speaker's task was

55 Y. Rozhitsyn, Kak vystupat' na sobraniiakh s dokaldami i rechami (Khar'kov:

"Proletarii," 1928), 6. The editor of a later manual changes the relative weight of
these two factors in a similar manner, noting that it is most important for the agitator
to be "prepared politically, ... armed with the dialectic method, with Marxist-Leninist
theory." Only then do the more technical or mechanical aspects of oratory come into
play (Y.M. Kreps and K.A. Erberg, eds. Praktika oratorskoi rechi. Sbornik statei,
Nauchno-Issledovatel'skii Institut Rechevoi Kul'tury Laboratoriia Publichnoi Rechi
[Leningrad: Izd. Inst-ta Agitatsii im. Yolodarskogo, 1931], 5-6).
56 [emphasis added] Kak vystupat' na sobraniiakh, 6. This process of
"internalization" coincided with the purging of the old intelligentsia and heavy
recruitment of new Party cadres under Stalin during the "Cultural Revolution" (see
Fitzpatrick, "Stalin and the Making of a New Elite," in The Cultural Front 149-182).
57 Kak vystupat' na sobraniiakh 41. Nina Tumarkin describes the Stalinist
reappropriation and institutionalization of Lenin, his works and the "cult" formed
around him in Lenin Lives! The Lenin Cult in Soviet Russia (Cambridge: Harvard
University Press, 1983), 207-51.
MODELS OF PUBLIC SPEAKING IN EARLY SOVIET RUSSIA 349

more that of an intermediary-a secular priest. As one writer put it, "It is by no
means essential that one express something absolutely original, exceptional,
never-before conceived of." More important, he continued, was that the speaker
"know and understand the Party line in its application to personal
. ,,58
expenence....
Dogma reigned over clarity and originality in the domain of style as well,
shifting the burden of comprehension from the language to its users-speakers
and listeners alike. The "language of the Party" (partiinyi iazyk) was the only
appropriate form in which to articulate its ideas: "Over ten years our Party has
been able to create its own language-simple, strong and expressive. Each orator
must meditate on the Party language (vdumyvat'sia v partiinyi iazyk), study it
and develop it further. Nearly all the leaders of the Communist Party speak a
comparatively uniform (odnoobraznyi) language, using generally accepted
expressions, without striving for flowery phrases.,,59
The formulation borrows from both previous models in its nod to
expressiveness and simplicity: but the Party language was "living" and
"revolutionary" only to the extent that it had its roots in the language of
revolution and once-living revolutionaries-adding a distinctly discursive
dimension to the infamous slogan declaring Lenin "more alive than the living"
(zhivee zhivykh). Nevertheless, in a deft rhetorical twist of their own,
commentators such as the Marxist Viktor Gofman, in his 1932 book, Speech of
the Orator, saw in the impending domination of a single "Party language"
nothing short of a "liberation of oratory from rhetoric." The "objective" and
"scientific" language of the proletariat would tear away the deceitful veils of
traditional bourgeois rhetoric, and replace them with a "more pert'ect and precise
method of perceiving reality.,,6o And this, in turn, would lead to a most
remarkable synthesis-through the falling away of the "principal distinctions
between written and oral language, private and public speech, the language of
science and the language of agitation .... ,,61
The dialectical synthesis of these opposing spheres harks back to modernist
notions of the dissolution of differences between poetic and practical languages.
But while these earlier utopian formulations may well have contributed
conceptually and lexically to the later Party-state synthesis, the implied model of
62
communication was quite ditferent. The synthesis would come about not by

58 Kak vystupat' na sobraniiakh 42-43.

59 Kak vystupat' na sobraniiakh 83.
60 Slovo oratara 71, 193,227.
61 Slovo oratora 228.
62 Boris Grays offers a compelling, though not uncontroversial, argument for
avant-garde legacies in socialist-realist aesthetics in Total Art of Stalin: A vant-
350 MICHAEL S. GORHAM

poets giving the tongue-tied masses expression through a charismatic "language

of the streets" (as Maiakovskii had envisioned), nor, for that matter, by
realigning public discourse to better approximate the simple, straightforward
structures of everyday speech. It would occur, rather, through the complete
naturalization of the Party language in alI spheres-written and oral, public and
private, scientific and agitational-as canonized in the decrees, resolutions,
G3
speeches and writings of the founding and reigning Party leaders.
By virtue of its strong dependence on written, official texts, the "Party
language" was in fact far removed from the innovative and straight-talking
orientations previously discussed. Two main features, however, distinguish it
from the bureaucratic cliche of pre-Revolutionary chancery Russian, and enhance
its affinity for incantation. First, it was inundated with terms and tones borne
out of the revolutionary and ci vii war years (including philosophical, technical
and military jargon, acronyms, stump-compounds, neologisms and agitational
slogans).64 Secondly, it was marked by a brazenness that stemmed from a
combination of modernist disregard for traditional language "standards" and a
relatively low level of literacy among Party cadres. 65 In this sense, what came to
be referred to as a "Party language" actualIy did reflect a kind of "synthesis"-of
the revolutionary innovations of charismatic Bolshevism and the real limitations
of its routinized redeployment. But it was a synthesis predicated on the
appropriation of elements from each into a prescribed canon, and the sharp
restriction of alternative codes of public expression. In other words, Party orators
could-indeed, had to--employ certain aspects of these previous "revolutionary"

Garde, Aesthetic Dictatorship, and Beyond, trans. Charles Rougle (Princeton:

Princeton University Press, 1992). For a cogent and convincing refutation of Grays's
basic conclusions, see Betsy Fay Moeller-Sally, "Legion and Sobornost':
Technologies of Community in Russian Modernism" (Ph.D. diss., Harvard
University, 1995), esp. 1-30.
63 Slovo oratora 254-55. Cf. Siniavskii's alternative characterization of the result
of total control by the Party language: "Words replace knowledge: it's enough to
know a specific set of words to feel on top of the situation" (Soviet Civilization 195).
64 Both Trotskii and the Formalists referred to these features as "revolutionary
phrases," and warned early on that their constant and thoughtless repetition would
bring about a public discourse rife with "incantation" and the "deadening of thought"
(L.D. Trotskii, "Zadachi voennoi pechati. [Rech' na s"ezde rabotnikov voennoi
pechati 10 maia 1924 g.]," in Voprosy kul'turnoi raboty [Moscow: Gosizdat, 1924 J,
20-43; G.O. Vinokur, "Revoliutsionnaia frazeologiia. [Odin iz voprosov iazykovoi
politikiJ," Lef 2 [1923]: 104-18; V. Shklovskii, "Lenin, kak dekanonizator," 54-
55).
65 Of course, the sheer prominence and constant repetition of the language also
contributed to its incantatory status.
MODELS OF PUBLIC SPEAKING IN EARLY SOVIET RUSSIA 351

and "simplified" models, but only in the manner in which those features had
66
become redefined and recontextualized by the institutions of the Stalinist state.
Though earlier fictional works such as The Week, Chapaev and Cement
contained elements of this Party-state model of public speaking, they still
affirmed the basic need for some form of locally and orally generated public
discourse. Public gatherings still framed and propelled each narrative, and oratory
still served as the central means of articulating problems, identifying solutions
and interpreting failures and successes in terms meaningful to targeted audiences.
In the official literature of the early 1930s, these events are either overshadowed
or permeated by heavy reliance on derivative, canonical (and primarily written)
texts. In his 1932 novel, Time, F01wardl, for example, Valentin Kataev uses
written or quoted official texts, not local oratory, to mark the critical junctures of
the story. The tasks of production are fully illuminated only by the quoted
newspaper report from Stalin's canonical "backwardness" speech of February
67
1931 to a conference of industrial workers. The solution to the problem of
surpassing the norm for cement mixture production is revealed not in a public
address, but in a six-page scientific article reprinted from the newspaper Za
industrializatsiiu (For Industrialization), replete with technical jargon, tables,
indicators and statistics [126-132]. With the scientific "facts" clearly set forth,
there is I ittle need for oratory. The objective truth is already at hand. The
superfluousness of "mere rhetoric" is accentuated by the muteness that
overcomes characters at moments when one would expect oration. When
addressing his workers before their record-breaking shift, the brigade foreman,
Mosia, finds himself at a loss for words. The only language he is capable of
generating consists of "snatches of inappropriate newspaper slogans":
«CTpaBa )KAeT AeweBblX OBOWei1... » HeT, BeT! <<C HCTeMa rOc6aBKa-Mory'IHH
pbl'lar x03pac'IeTa... » He TO! «rJlaBBOe ceH'lac - :3TO... KpoJlb'laTBHK...» HeT, BeT! .. »
[180]68

'''The country awaits cheap vegetables ... ' No, no! 'The system of Gosbank is the
mighty linchpin for self-financing .. .' That's not right! 'The main thing now is ... the
rabbit hutch.. .' No, no! ... "

66 Cf. Soviet Civilization 203.

67 I.V. Stalin, "0 zadachakh khoziastvennikov" (4 February 1931), in Sochineniia
(Moscow: Gosizdat. politicheskoi literatury, 1951), 13:29-42; V.P. Kataev, Vremia,
vpered! (Moscow: Sovetskaia Iiteratura, 1933), 12-13 (all further references to this
novel appear bracketed in the text).
68 Compare this diversion of discourse to Trotskii's own abandonment of a
prepared speech--only in that case, to articulate the immediate unspoken needs of the
crowd.
352 MICHAEL S. GORHAM

In a final, flustered attempt at a closing declaration, he turns to official

institutions and incantatory phrases for authority:
-TOBapHll.\H! - n04TH )KaJl06HO KpHKHyJl Moc}!. -lloporHe TOBapHll.\H! MbI Bce-KaK
P}!AOBble 6011Ubl, YAapHHKH-3HTy3HacTbl BTOpoi:i x03pac4eTHoi:i Hawero
aBTopHTeTHoro wecToro Y4acTKa... \1\ nycKai:i 6YAyT CBHAeTeJl}!MH TOBapHll.\H H3
ueHTpaJlbHbIX ra3eT... llaeM TBepAoe, HepywHMoe, CTaJl HHCKoe CJlOBO.... [181]

"Comrades!" Mosia cried almost plaintively, "Dear comrades! All of us-as rank-and-
file warriors, shock-worker enthusiasts of the second self-financing [commission] of
our authoritative sixth district... And let the comrades from the central newspapers be
our witnesses-give our firm, invincible, Stalinist word ... "

The mere mention of the "Stalinist word" serves as a sufficient, metonymic

representation of oratory far more eloquent and authoritative than the foreman
himself can muster. The 1934 production novel, Big Conveyer, by Iakov I1'in,
gives even greater prominence to the language of Stalin, by recreating and
contextualizing, at the pivotal juncture of the book, the same speech on
backwardness. I1'in's portrait is instructive for this discussion as it portrays
Stalin as a highly charismatic orator, while at the same time marking the
sacredness of his speech:

Stalin spoke slowly and quietly. His gestures were sparing. From time to time he
would raise his right arm, bent at the elbow, to the level of his shoulder and let it
down, bending his wrist in a short motion, completing, reinforcing his thought, as if
hammering it with this gesture into the consciousness of the audience. Posing
questions, he would answer them, and the very repetitiveness of this device, the clear,
precise development of the thought helped make it possible for each person to repeat
after him his complex generalizations, the result of his gigantic intellectual work
(gigantskaia myslitel'naia rabota).69

The features of charismatic authority are there, but the roles of "producer"
and "consumer" are now strictly delineated. Stalin alone is capable of generating
such "gigantic intellectual work" and translating it into a language accessible to
all; it is up to the others simply to repeat that which has been so persuasively
hammered into their consciousness.
Kataev's negative portrait or the struggling orator and I1'in's positive one of
Stalin both suggest, from opposite vantage points, that charismatic and straight-
talking oratory, as models for "common speakers," had been eclipsed by the

69 Bol'shoi konveier (Moscow: OGIZ, Molodaia gvardiia, 1934), 145. Earlier

descriptions in the scene have Stalin "seizing hold of the very issues that were
disturbing and could not but disturb the delegates," and running through the details of
his argument "patiently as always, with precise and finished phrases, like
mathematical formulas, [while] the audience carefully followed him, still unable to
catch the main thread on which those formulas were being strung" [144, 145].
MODELS OF PUBLIC SPEAKING IN EARLY SOVIET RUSSIA 353

emergence of an "objective," "scientific" and easily reproduced Party language-

here in the form of the central newspapers and the "Stalinist word." A well-
established canon of written and rehearsed discourse, and institutions for
controlling and disseminating it, provided an infallible, authoritative and
7o
obligatory expression of Party-state truths. In this sense, the burden and
urgency of communication had shifted entirely-from the once-emerging state in
need of legitimacy and authority, to the dues-paying citizens who recognized that
their comfort and mobility within the institutions of the Party-state depended on
71
the ability to master its unbending code.

***
By highlighting these shifts in paradigms-from charismatic persuasion, to
routinized organization, to institutionalized cant-I do not mean to suggest that
they arose in isolation or mutually exclusive of one another; in fact, particularly
in fictional representations, traces of each often intermingled. As examined
through the instructional, professional and fictional representations of public
speaking, however, the models can be seen as discursive "dominants" which
commanded more or less linguistic capital at various stages in the language

70 Kataev's narrative finds closure only in the refrain from the Stalin speech and its
resounding conclusion "Never again!" (Vremia, vpered! 301-02). Newspaper excerpts
and other official documents play a particularly prominent role in Y. lI'enkov's
Driving Axle (Vedushchaia os'), beginning with the epigraph from Engels and the
Pravda report "Za mobilizatsiiu vnutrennikh resursov," and continuing with key
appearances and references throughout (e.g. one character advises, "If you want to do
battle with the [incompetent] trust, you must immediately write a letter to Pravda to
mobilize public opinion onto our side" [281]); even the leading local Party official,
Yartan'ian-the most fluent in the Party language, and through whom "the Party
speaks to the thousands"-speaks with a heavy Georgian accent (Y. Il'enkov,
Vedushchaia os', book one [Moscow: Gosizdat. khudozhestvennoi Iiteratury, 1932],
3, 22, 56-57, 91, 168, 169-78, 244, 323, 373-75, 395-97, 427). Note also that
Pavel Korchagin, the poorly educated and often brash-talking proletarian hero of How
the Steel Was Tempered spends the final years of his life surrounded by mounds of
newspapers and Party literature, leading agitprop circles for Party activists, and
inscribing his revolutionary experiences into the more codified form of a novella
(Rozhdennye burei) (N. Ostrovskii, Kak zakalialas' stat' [1934] [Moscow: Izvestiia,
1965], 344-65).
71 The shift is not dissimilar to that noted by Emmet Kennedy in parliamentary
discourse in the decade following the French revolution: "The role of rhetoric as
persuasion, with consensus as its goal, was superseded by a discourse in which
consensus was the premise and its celebration the end" (A Cultural History of the
French Revolution [New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989],303).
354 MICHAEL S. GORHAM

culture of early Soviet Russia. Moreover, by virtue of the differing assumptions

they carry regarding the various elements of the oratorical "event"-the ideal
orator, audience, context, message and code-they likewise point to the integral
role that institutions of language play in the process of state-building and
legitimation. And gi ven its uniquely rich store of tools for verbal representation,
it is no surprise that imaginative literature provided some of the more powerful
(and equally as changing) portraits of the ideal speaker, language, forum and
addressee. Fiction also reminds us, perhaps most vividly through the problematic
works of Andrei Platonov, that it would be overly simplistic to suggest that by
the early 1930s public discourse was fully controlled by some monologic voice
of the Stalinist state. Not only did alternative discourses persist-in the private
sphere as well as the unpublished-they persevered in the public, published and
spoken arena as well-a fact which Mikhail Bakhtin celebrated in his own
carefully worded discussions of discourse and "speech genres."n The main
difference, however, is that in this later period, by virtue of the state's tight
control over the flow of information, channels of communication and the code
itself, these voices of dissent became quickly or remained largely marginalized
and muffled in the persistent cant of sacred written texts.

RESUME

Cet article analyse Ie rapport entre I'art oratoire et la creation de I'etat sovietique.
En se concentrant sur les representations de I'art oratoire dans les journaux, Iivres
de classe, manuels et romans, I'article decrit les formes et les fonctions de la
rhetorique en Russie sovietique entre 1917 et 1934. L'article indentifie trois
modeles de I'art oratoire qui demandaient plus ou moins de reserves Iinguistique
dans les diverses etapes du developpement de la nouvelle societe sovietique. Le
premier modele dominait la sphere publique, de la revolution jusqu'a la guerre
civile; il se caracterise par une forte dependance de persuasion charismatique. Le
deuxieme modele qui s'est manifeste plus fortement entre 1922 et J927 se
demarque par son changement d'orientation qui porte sur I'organisation

72 M.M. Bakhtin, "Discourse in the Novel," in The Dialogic Imagination, ed.

Michael Holquist, trans. Caryl Emerson and Michael Holquist (Austin: University of
Texas Press, 1981), 259-422; "The Problem of Speech Genres," in Speech Genres
and Other Late Essays, ed. Caryl Emerson and Michael Holquist, trans. Vern W.
McGee (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1986),60-102.
MODELS OF PUBLIC SPEAKING IN EARLY SOVIET RUSSIA 355

populaire. Le troisieme modele, decrit comme "institutionalized cant of the

soviet Party State," s'est amplifie avec Ie debut de la revolution culturelle, et Ie
premier plan quinquennal de 1927. eet article tout en documentant les
changements institutionneis qui etaient essentiels a la formation de l'etat
sovietique, suit dans les traces un grand nombre d'etudes "nouvelles" qui portent
sur des disciplines comme I'histoire, Ies etudes culturelles et Ia Iitterature. II se
distingue pourtant de ces dernieres, en considerant Ie discours publique et Ie genre
oratoire, en particulier, en tant qu'institution puissante et reconnue dans les
annees de la creation de I'etat sovietique.