Being Soviet: Identity, Rumour, and Everyday Life Under Stalin 1939-1953 (60 page)

It was also entirely possible for Soviet citizens to point to capitalist
scientific and technological success as a means of chiding the govern- ment, without losing faith in either Soviet power or socialism. Major Sakharov wrote to
Krasnaia Zvezda
in August 1946 to complain about the quality of provision for demobilized soldiers: ‘In
Britanskii Soiuznik
there has been printed an article by Priestly (a famous English writer) about how they are providing for English demobilised soldiers. In particular he wrote that they are receiving orders to purchase (or for free receipt) of a civilian suit.’
^{144
He went on to describe how he had not}
even received a pair of shoes since his demobilization. An anonymous author to Kalinin in 1945 wrote in similar terms, claiming to be ‘a young man who is loyal to the USSR’ but was ashamed of the back- wardness of the Soviet Union in comparison to the other countries he had seen. The author demanded that the government work harder to improve the conditions of the workers.
^{145
These authors were not}
objecting to socialism, or Stalin’s government, but to the failures of socialism and Stalinism to meet the needs of the population. Some of those prosecuted for praising American living conditions also appealed against their convictions on the grounds that their complaints had been motivated by genuine material difficulties.
^{146
Individuals who spoke in}
terms that were antithetical to the rhetoric of Official Soviet Identity were not necessarily seeking to subvert Soviet power. Many of them

^{143
Proc. Ibid., d. 43281, l. 85.}

^{144
Let. RGASPI f. 17, op. 125, d. 425, ll. 158.}

^{145
Let. GARF f. 7523, op. 30, d. 790, ll. 19–22.}

^{146
Proc. GARF f. R8131, op. 31a, d. 36607, l. 14.}

196
Being Soviet

were simply trying to make sense of the world as best they could or
attempting to spur the government on in its quest for material success. The polarities of support or resistance, that define the state-created sources of this period, mask the ambiguities that shaped the way most Soviet citizens engaged with the new Official Soviet Identity of the early Cold War. Indeed it is doubtful that the complex terminology of the post-war ideological campaigns made much sense to many ordinary workers. Even highly educated students were unclear what ‘idealism’, ‘Mendel-Morganism’ and ‘cosmopolitanism’ actually meant.
^{147
I. I.}
Kantor, a Muscovite engineer, wrote to
Pravda
in the week following the Lysenko debate suggesting that, ‘Readers unfamiliar with the serious questions of biology’ would find it ‘difficult to fully understand all the processes of the discussion’. He recommended publishing some articles in a ‘sufficiently popular and accessible format’.
^{148
However, if nothing}
else, Soviet citizens were supposed to understand that the scientific produce of the USSR was spiritually and often practically superior to

that produced in the capitalist West.

Many Soviet citizens’ engagement with the rhetoric of scientific
greatness was shaped by their personal experiences of direct interaction with foreign technology. As with the tanks and trucks in wartime, these personal experiences fed into the process of
bricolage
and often resulted in what the government regarded as a frustrating level of admiration for overseas-produced goods. Western-made medicines, in particular penicillin, were very popular with Soviet citizens who were prepared to pay high prices for them on the black market.
^{149
Contemporary}
evidence also suggests that the quality of Western automobiles remained an object of admiration in the post-war era. John Steinbeck’s driver during his 1947 trip to the USSR would list off cars that he loved, ‘“Buick” he would say, “Cadillac, Lincoln, Pontiac, Studebaker,” and he would sigh deeply. These were the only English words he knew.’
^{150
A significant number of those prosecuted for ‘anti-Soviet}
agitation’ in this period were supposed to have commented that ‘Studebakers’ were better than the Soviet Zis models.
^151
However,
such comments were rarely the centre of the case against them.

^147
Fu¨rst,
‘Stalin’s Last Generation: Post-war Soviet Youth and the Emergence of Mature
Socialism’, (Oxford, 2010), 118–26, 134–43; ‘Introduction’, 8–9.

^{148
Let. RGASPI f. 17, op. 132, d. 40, ll. 6–10.}

^{149
Inf. Ibid., op. 122, d. 283, l. 75.}

^{150
Steinbeck,}
Russian Journal
, 113.

^{151
Proc. GARF f. R8131, op. 31a, d. 72699, l. 109; d. 16088, l. 14.}

Subversive Styles? 1945–53
197

Admiring American cars was not normally enough, on its own, to land
you in jail. It was certainly not as serious as praising capitalist democ- racy or American living standards.

Some individuals’ positive experiences of Anglo-American technolo-
gy led them to assume that capitalism was synonymous with technolog- ical excellence. Captain Gnichev, of the Naval Medical Academy, complained during the K.R. discussions in 1947 that one of his students had commented about a high-quality new machine that, ‘It is immedi- ately clear it is foreign. If only we could make them like this!’ It transpired to be Soviet-made.
^{152
The limitations and narrowness of}
the source base make it difficult to extrapolate too far with such references. However, it seems likely that, as they had during the war, at least some Soviet citizens concluded that pride in the Motherland and admiration for the American cars they had used were not incompatible. A similar process often occurred when Soviet citizens interacted with artistic media from the capitalist world. The popularity of the Embassy Journals, foreign films, and jazz music was widely condemned at the discussions of the K.R. Affair. One speaker complained. ‘We sometimes hear this kind of conversations amongst the youth . . . ‘Are you going to the cinema tonight?’ ‘What is being shown there?’ ‘I don’t know, some foreign film.’ ‘Ah then—let’s go.’
^{153
Trophy films such as}
Stagecoach
,

Sun Valley Serenade
, and
The Count of Monte Cristo
remained hugely popular amongst Soviet audiences into the post-war years.
^{154
The most}
popular film of the post-war era was the German made,
The Girl of My
Dreams, which created a sensation when it was released in the USSR in 1947. That year it outgrossed the top selling Soviet film by a factor of five to one.
^{155
One respondent to HIP remembered that cinema atten-}
dants had to be careful to clear the theatre after performances of foreign

films, as some individuals attempted to stay behind in order to see the
film again.
^{156
Discussants of the K.R. Affair complained of students}

^{152
Inf. RGASPI M-f. 1, op. 6, d. 467, l. 128.}

^{153
Inf. GAOPDiFAO f. 1740, op. 1, d. 1112, l. 60.}

^{154
Fu¨rst, ‘Importance of Being Stylish: Youth, Culture and Identity in Late Stalinism’,}
in J. Fu¨rst, ed.,
Late Stalinist Russia: Society between Reconstruction and Reinvention
(London, 2006), 213–14.

^{155
M. Turovskaya, ‘The Tastes of Soviet Moviegoers during the 1930s’, in}

T. Lahusen and G. Kuperman, eds.,
Late Soviet Culture: From Perestroika to Novostroika

(London, 1993), 104.

^{156
HIP. A. 32, 1091, 27.}

198
Being Soviet

paying huge sums for black-market tickets to see
The Girl of My Dreams

and travelling long distances to see it.
¹⁵⁷

The condemning tone with which such behaviour was denounced
creates the false impression that it was in some way subversive. These young people were simply watching, albeit with great enthusiasm, films that were being publicly shown in Soviet cinemas. The double-headed nature of Soviet rhetoric, which condemned enthusiasm for foreign movies but continued to show them, was brought into sharp focus in 1952 with the release of
Tarzan in New York
. The film generated the kind of sensational response that had not been seen since
The Girl of My
Dreams, with long queues for tickets and expressions of official con-

cern.
^{158
Valentin Tikhonenko reminisced that, ‘The first of May Dem-}

onstration was nothing in comparison with the queue for tickets when
an American film opened.’
^{159
Sondra Kalniete’s parents decided to call}
her the English-sounding name Sondra because her mother came across it in Theodore Dreiser’s novel
An American Tragedy
. The name ‘sounded so sublime, so unattainable!’ to her mother. In the novel itself, written by a prominent left-wing author, Sondra was the daughter of a capitalist businessman, and the book was a damning indictment on the evils of capitalist civilization.
^{160
Kalniete’s mother had not learned the}
appropriate lesson from the book, yet her enthusiasm for the name Sondra can hardly be counted subversive. The Soviet government itself had allowed
Tarzan
and
An American Tragedy
to be released in the USSR. The enthusiasm of young people for what the regime regarded as a necessary ideological compromise hardly constituted resistance.

Western styles of dancing also retained the affections of Soviet
citizens despite official denunciations of swing and boogie-woogie. The USSR had been in the grip of a dance fever since the 1920s, and in the 1930s Moscow schoolgirls like Nina Kosterina returned home with ‘aching feet’ from huge street parties.
^{161
Red Army soldiers such as}
Vasilii Ermolenko and Pavel Iskovskii complained bitterly in their

^{157
Inf. GAOPDiFAO f. 1740, op. 1, d. 1112, l. 60; RGASPI M-f. 1, op. 6, d. 467, l.}

70.

^158
Ball,
Imagining America
, 184.

^{159
O. Guk, ‘}
Tarzan
v svoem otechestve’,
Pchela,
11 (1997). V. Aksenov, trans.,

M. H. Heim and A. W. Bouis,
In Search of Melancholy Baby: A Russian in America
(New York, 1989)
,
17.

^{160
Mem. Kalniete,}
With Dance Shoes in Siberian Snows
(Riga, 2006), 275.

^{161
Mem. N. Kosterina, trans., M. Ginsberg,}
The Diary of Nina Kosterina
(New York, 1968), 27, 41, 69.

Subversive Styles? 1945–53
199