Mass Culture in Soviet Russia

Tales, Poems, Songs, Movies, Plays, and Folklore, 1917–1953

James Von Geldern,Richard Stites

• Publisher: Indiana University Press
• Year: 1995
• ISBN:
  9780253013392
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Russian History
• Index: History

This anthology offers a rich array of documents, short fiction, poems, songs, plays, movie scripts, comic routines, and folklore to offer a close look at the mass culture that was consumed by millions in Soviet Russia between 1917 and 1953. Both state-sponsored cultural forms and the unofficial culture that flourished beneath the surface are represented. The focus is on the entertainment genres that both shaped and reflected the social, political, and personal values of the regime and the masses. The period covered encompasses the Russian Revolution and Civil War, the mixed economy and culture of the 1920s, the tightly controlled Stalinist 1930s, the looser atmosphere of the Great Patriotic War, and the postwar era ending with the death of Stalin. Much of the material appears here in English for the first time.

A companion 45-minute audio tape (ISBN 0-253-32911-6) features contemporaneous performances of fifteen popular songs of the time, with such favorites as "Bublichki, " "The Blue Kerchief, " and "Katyusha." Russian texts of the songs are included in the book.

II.

The Stalinist Thirties

THE CULTURAL REVOLUTION, 1928–1932

Leninist Fairy Tales

THE FIRST TALE, A CHARMING BLEND OF CLASS ANALYSIS AND FOLKLORE, WAS RECORDED IN 1918 BY LIDIA SEIFULLINA FROM A WOMAN IN AN ISOLATED VILLAGE OF THE STEPPE. IT REPRISES A PREREVOLUTIONARY LEGEND FEATURING IVAN THE TERRIBLE. THE SECOND TALE, A SIMILAR EXAMPLE OF “SOVIET FOLKLORE” RECONCILING OLD NOTIONS AND THE NEW POLITICS, WAS COLLECTED IN A VILLAGE OF VYATKA PROVINCE. TOLD NO EARLIER THAN 1925, IT ECHOES A MOTIF COMMON LONG BEFORE THE REVOLUTION, IN WHICH THE TSAR WANDERED SECRETLY AMONG THE PEOPLE. NOTE THE PEASANTISMS AND RUSTIC SPELLINGS IN BOTH (RENDERED ROUGHLY HERE IN TRANSLATION).

HOW LENIN AND THE TSAR DIVIDED UP THE PEOPLE

AN ORENBURG FAIRY TALE

Once Tsar Mikolashka¹ was approached by his most important general. “Once upon a time, your Royal Highness, in a faraway kingdom, there appeared a man who knew everything about all things. His rank was unknown, he had no papers, and he was called Lenin. And this very same man threatened: ‘I will go against Tsar Mikolai, make all his soldiers mine with one word, and all the generals, all the directors, all the noble officers, and you yourself, Tsar Mikolai, I will grind into dust and throw to the winds. I have a word that can do all that.’ ”

Tsar Mikolashka was frightened. He jumped to his feet, threw up his hands and shouted: “Go right away and tell this man Lenin without rank or pedigree that he should not go against me with his word, or grind me into dust, nor my generals, my directors, my noble officers—and for that I will give this man half my kingdom!”

Right off the tsar’s learned men came running, caught their breath, honed the points of their quills, and wrote to this Lenin: “Now, Lenin, don’t use your word against Tsar Mikolai, and he will give you half his kingdom without a fight or harsh words.”

It might have been too early, might have been too late, but soon an answer came from this man Lenin without rank or papers. And Lenin wrote Tsar Mikolashka: “I agree, Tsar Mikolashka, to take half your kingdom. Only let me tell you how we’ll split it. Not by province, not by region, not by district. But here’s how, I tell you, I’ll agree to split your kingdom—and no arguments, please. You take for yourself, Tsar Mikolashka, all the blue bloods: your generals, your directors, your noble officers with all their honors, with their ranks, their crosses, and the epaulets you gave them, their noble spouses and their blue-blooded children. Take the manor lords with all their riches, their silk clothes and velvet, their silver dishes and gold, their spouses and progeny. Take the merchants with their wares, their countless treasures, and let them take all their worldly goods from the bank. Take all the factory owners with their money, with their machines and all their factory riches. You give me all the lowborn: the peasants, the soldiers, the factory workers, with all their simple belongings. Just leave us the livestock, the grassy fields, and mother earth for plowing.”

Tsar Mikolashka read the letter, broke into a joyful dance, clapped his hands with pleasure, and ordered his generals, officers, and directors: “Send my unconditional agreement to Lenin right away. What sort of know-it-all is he, what sort of secret word does he know, if he refuses my countless treasures, the merchants’ wares, and the landowners’ holdings, and takes only no-good commoners for himself. We’ll use our treasury to buy other commoners, make them into soldiers and live in peace and plenty again.”

Once again the tsar’s learned men came running, caught their breath, honed the points of their quills, and sent this Lenin the tsar’s consent. But not a peep about all the laughing, so that Lenin wouldn’t rethink and attack the tsar with his secret word.

Maybe it was too soon or too late, but anyhow quickly Lenin snuck off to his soldiers, peasants, and factory workers. The tsar and his blue bloods had already gone off far away. The peasants, soldiers, and workers look, and see that a simple peasant has come and says: “Greetings, comrades!” As far as the eye could see, he took their hands and said in a loud voice: “It will be the same for me as for you, since we’re comrades now. Only do as I tell you; I know everything about all things, and I wouldn’t teach my comrades anything bad.”

The soldiers say in their soldier way: “Yes, sir, Comrade Lenin, at your command.” The factory folk, who had picked up some smarts in the city, also did like he said. But the peasants were angry that he had made a bad deal; they raised a din and clamor: “Why did you let countless riches and money out of your hands? You should have given it to us, we would have done well in our work.”

Here Lenin laughed, shook his head, and said in reply: “Don’t kick up a fuss, don’t scold me, just take the land and livestock and get to work. There you’ll see what happens. There wouldn’t have been enough money for everyone; there’s thousands of you and only a few hundred of the blue bloods. I don’t quite know the word yet that will get the blue bloods off the face of the earth. I still have a bit to figure out. But I do have another trusty word for the commoners of all the world. Whenever I say it, the blue bloods won’t be able to find themselves soldiers or laborers. Everyone will come over to me and say no to the blue bloods. And since they’re not breadwinners but spongers, they won’t be long for this world.”

And it might have been too slow, might have been too fast, but still, just what he said would happen soon happened. A horseman rode up to Lenin with a message from Tsar Mikolashka. Tsar Mikolashka said in this message: “So, Lenin, you tricked me. You took the commoners for yourself, and you didn’t leave me any breadwinners, just spongers. My generals and noble officers are like old horses without their soldiers. They only drink, eat, and chew the fat. The manor lords have already finished up their provisions, worn out the clothes from their trunks, tattered and soiled everything without a thought for the future. My merchants are ruined; without peasants there’s nobody to sell their old goods to. My factory owners have wrecked and ruined the machines. They can’t do anything; they know everything by the book but can’t even screw in a screw. And the foreign commonfolk won’t come to work for us; they came over to your side, to your secret word. The way it turns out, even if I lie down and die, my generals and noble officers are going to war against you to win back the common folk.”

And that’s when the war between the blue bloods and commoners started. But the blue bloods won’t last for long, since the generals and noble officers are used to shouting orders at the soldiers, moving their armies here and there, but they’re not used to fighting themselves, because their blood runs thin. And they won’t be long for this world.

ILICH WILL WAKE UP SOON

A FAIRY TALE FROM VYATKA

Once Lenin was sitting in his office after dinner reading through some books and newspapers. No matter what paper he looked at, no matter what book he opened, he found something about himself:

“It says we have nothing to fear from the Entente, nothing to fear from America as long as we have Vladimir Ilich Lenin.”

Lenin thought this odd. He got up from his bentwood chair, paced around the office a bit, and said to himself: “All right, I’ll do it.”

And after that he sends a messenger to the head Soviet doctor. The doctor comes, and Lenin tells him: “Can you make it so that I die, but not completely, just so it looks like I did?”

“I can, Vladimir Ilich, but why?”

“Just so,” he says, “I can see how ...