Karl Schlögel - The Soviet Century: Archaeology of a Lost World

THE SOVIET CENTURY

THE SOVIET CENTURY

Archaeology of a Lost World

KARL SCHLGEL

TRANSLATED BY RODNEY LIVINGSTONE

PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS

PRINCETON AND OXFORD

First published in Germany under the title Das sowjetische Jahrhundert, by Karl Schlgel, copyright Verlag C.H.Beck oHG, Mnchen, 2018

English translation copyright 2023 by Princeton University Press

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Editorial: Priya Nelson, Thalia Leaf, Barbara Shi, and Emma Wagh

Production Editorial: Jill Harris

Jacket Design: Lauren Michelle Smith

Production: Danielle Amatucci

Publicity: James Schneider and Kate Farquhar-Thomson

Jacket photo: Film still from Dennis Adamss Malrauxs Shoes, 2012, courtesy of Kent Fine Art, New York

For my wife, Sonja Margolina,

who has always both inspired me and challenged me

1. xi
2. xiii
3. xvii

I wish to express my gratitude to Angela Livingstone for help with Russian transliteration and her part-translation of Yuly Kims poem in the chapter on Moscow kitchens. I am grateful to Professor Ralph Cleminson for a brief but illuminating conversation. Help and encouragement from Benjamin Livingstone and Professor Sonia Livingstone were immensely supportive. I owe thanks also to Karl Schlgel for his prompt and kind replies to my queries. I am deeply indebted to the Princeton editing team led by Jill Harris, who oversaw the process with tact and consideration. In a volume containing references in multiple languages, Irina du Quenoy successfully devised a system for harmonising the transliterations of Russian names and words. My greatest debt is to Kim Hastings, who meticulously scrutinised my translation, correcting stylistic and grammatical slips, removing Germanicisms and making imaginative suggestions.

Translator notes appear in square brackets throughout. When available, English translations have been cited in notes. The transliteration of Russian words and names in the text has been designed to be as user-friendly as possible. Endings have been simplified. Names familiar in English have retained their customary spellings (Khrushchev, Gorbachev). Texts cited in German or English and, more rarely, French retain their original spellings.

ARA American Relief Administration

BAM Baikal-Amur Mainline

BSE (Bolshaya sovetskaya entsiklopediya), Great Soviet Encyclopedia

CEC Central Executive Committee

Cheka (VChK) Russian Extraordinary Commission for Combating Counter-Revolution, Profiteering and Corruption (19171922), the first in a series of Soviet secret-police organisations

CIAM International Congress of Modern Architecture

CPSU Communist Party of the Soviet Union

CSKA Central Sports Club of the Army

Dalstroy (Glavnoe Upravlenie stroitelstva Dalnego Vostoka/Severa), Construction Trust of the Far East, or alternatively, of the Far East and North (19311957)

DniproHES (Dniprovskaya Hidroelektrostantsiya), also known as Dniprostroy (19291932), Dnieper Hydroelectric Station

DOSAAF (Dobrovolnoe obshchtestvo sodeistviia armii, aviatsii i flotu), Volunteer Society for Cooperation with the Advancement of Army, Airforce and Navya paramilitary sport organisation

FSB Federal Security Service, the chief Russian security agency since 1995

GDR German Democratic Republic (19491990)

GOELRO State Commission for the Electrification of Russia

Gosplan State Planning Commission

GPU See OGPU

GTO (Gotov k trudu i oborone SSSR), Ready for Labour and Defence

GUM Department store

KEPS Commission for the Study of Natural Productive Forces

KGB (Komitet Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnosti), Committee for State Security (19471991)

LFZ Leningrad Porcelain Factory trademark

MVD Ministry of Internal Affairs

Narkomfin Peoples Commissariat for Finance

Narkompros Peoples Commissariat for Enlightenment, i.e., education

Narkomtrud Peoples Commissariat for Labour

Narkomvneshtorg Peoples Commissariat for Foreign Trade

NEP New Economic Policy (19211928)

NKGB Peoples Commissariat for State Security. It became the MGB in 1946. Both it and the MVD were headed by Lavrenty Beria until 1953.

NKTB (Narkomtyazhprom), Peoples Commissariat for Heavy Industry

NKVD (Narkomvnudel), Peoples Commissariat for Internal Affairs. Originally established in 1917 and tasked with conducting regular police work and overseeing the countrys prisons and labour camps. It took over the OGPU (the secret police) in 1934 and thus acquired a monopoly over law enforcement activities until the end of the Second World War. It became the MVD in 1946.

NOT Scientific Organisation of Labour

NPO VILAR All-Russian Scientific Research Institute of Medicinal and Spice Plants

NTS (Narodno-trudovoy soyuz rossiyskikh solidaristov), National Alliance of Russian Solidarists, a Russian anticommunist organisation founded in 1930 by a group of young Russian anticommunist White migrs in Belgrade, Serbia. Its centre for underground revolutionary activity was dissolved in 1991 after the fall of the Soviet Union.

OGPU (GPU 19221923), an organisation for investigating and combating counterrevolutionary activities in the former Soviet Union, replacing the Cheka. It became the NKVD from 1934.

OKB (Osoboe konstruktorskoe byuro), Special Construction Office

OSOAVIAKhIM (Obshchtestvo sodeistviia oborone aviatsionnomu i himicheskomu stroitelstvu), Association for the Advancement of Defence, Aviation and Chemistry (precursor of DOSAAF)

OVIR Office of Visas and Registration

Pomgol Hunger Relief Committee

ROSTA Russian Telegraph Agency

RSFSR Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic

Sevvostlag (Severo-Vostochny ispravitelno-trudovoy lager), the North-Eastern Corrective Labour Camps

Shirkost (Soyuzny trest vysshey parfiumernoy, shirovoy, mylovarennoy i sinteticheskoy produktsii), Union Trust of Distinguished Perfumery, Fat-processing, Soap-making and Synthetics Production

SLON Solovki special camp

Spetskhran Special Storage Section, i.e., for books with limited access

SR Socialist Revolutionaries

STO Council for Work and Defence

STON Solovetsky prison

TASS Russian News Agency

TseKUBU Central Commission for the Improvement of the Everyday Lives of Scientists

TsSU (Tsentralnoe statisticheskoe upravlenie), Central Administration of Statistics