Communism on Tomorrow Street: Mass Housing and Everyday Life after Stalin

208 Pages·2013·24.341 MB·English

by  Steven E. Harris

Communism on Tomorrow Street
Mass Housing and
Everyday Life after Stalin
Steven E. Harris
Woodrow Wilson Center Press
Washington, D.C.
The Johns Hopkins University Press
Baltimore
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Jane Hamian, Director, President, and CEO
Harris, Steven E. (Steven Emmett)
Communism on tomorrow street : Mass housing and everyday life after Board of Trustees
Stalin! Steven E. Harris.
Joseph B. Gildenhorn, Chair
pages ; cm
Includes bibliographical references and index. Sander R. Gerber, Vice Chair
ISBN 978-1-4214-0566-7 (hardcover : alkaline paper)
1. Housing—Soviet Union—History. 2. Public housing—Soviet
Public members: James H. Billington, Librarian of Congress; Hillary R. Clinton,
Union—History. 3. Housing policy—Soviet Union. 4. Communism
and architecture—Soviet Union. I. Title. Secretary of State; G. Wayne Clough, Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution;
FID7345.A31133 2012 Arne Duncan, Secretary of Education; David Ferriero, Archivist of the United
(cid:9)
363.5'85094709045--dc23 2012007460 States; James Leach, Chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities;
Kathleen Sebelius, Secretary of Health and Human Services; Fred P. Hochberg,
Designated Appointee of the President from within the Federal Government
Private citizen members: Timothy Broas, John T. Casteen III, Charles E. Cobb
LIB
947.085- Jr., Thelma Duggin, Carlos M. Gutierrez, Susan Hutchison, Barry S. Jackson
J HAR
National Cabinet: Eddie & Sylvia Brown, Melva Bucksbaum & Raymond
Learsy, Ambassadors Sue & Chuck Cobb, Lester Crown, Thelma Duggin, Judi
Flom, Sander R. Gerber, Ambassador Joseph B. Glidenhom & Alma Galen-
horn, Harman Family Foundation, Susan Hutchison, Frank F. Islam, Willem
Kooyker, Linda B. & Tobia G. Mercuro, Dr. Alexander V. Mirtchev, Wayne
To Ginochka, Henry Francis, and Emmett Alexey
and our life together on Tomorrow Street
Contents
Tables and Figures(cid:9) xi
Acknowledgments(cid:9) xiii
Introduction: Moving to the Separate Apartment (cid:9) 1
Part I. Making the Separate Apartment
1 The Soviet Path to Minimum Living Space and the
Single-Family Apartment (cid:9) 27
2 Khrushchevka: The Soviet Answer to the Housing
Question(cid:9) 71
Part II. Distributing Housing, Reordering Society
(cid:9)
3 The Waiting List 111
(cid:9)
4 Class and Mass Housing 154
Part HI. Living and Consuming the Communist Way of Life
5 The Mass Housing Community(cid:9) 191
6 New Furniture(cid:9) 228
7 The Politics of Complaint (cid:9) 267
Conclusion: Soviet Citizens' Answer to the Housing Question(cid:9) 300
Notes(cid:9) 309
Bibliography(cid:9) 353
Index(cid:9) 377
ix
Tables and Figures
Tables
2.1 Construction of Housing in the Soviet Union, 1917-65(cid:9) 90
2.2 Annual Construction of Apartments in the Soviet Union,
1950-70(cid:9) 95
2.3 Annual Construction of Housing in the Soviet Union,
1951-70(cid:9) 97
2.4 Annual Construction of State Housing and Individual
Housing in the Soviet Union, 1918-70(cid:9) 98
2.5 Number of Persons Receiving Living Space in the Soviet
Union Annually, 1950-70(cid:9) 100
3.1 Moscow District Waiting List in 1955, by Year of
Admittance(cid:9) 122
3.2 Moscow District Waiting List in 1955, by Entitlement
Group(cid:9) 122
3.3 Distribution of Housing in the Moscow District in 1955(cid:9) 124
6.1 Annual Furniture Production in the Soviet Union, 1940-70 234
6.2 Possession of Furniture among Six Soviet Employment
Groups in 1962 in the Russian Soviet Federated Socialist
Republic(cid:9) 255
6.3 Possession of Household Consumer Goods among Six
Soviet Employment Groups in 1962 in the Russian Soviet
Federated Socialist Republic(cid:9) 256
6.4 Possession of Furniture and Household Consumer Goods
among Engineering-Technical Workers and White-Collar
Employees in 1962 in the Russian Soviet Federated
Socialist Republic(cid:9) 258
xi
xii(cid:9) Tables and Figures
6.5 Percentage of Furniture Obtained between January 1958
and June 1, 1962, in the Russian Soviet Federated Socialist
Republic 260
6.6 Money Spent by Soviet Families on Household Consumer
Items in 1961 in the Russian Soviet Federated Socialist
Republic 261
6.7 Percentage of Furniture and Household Consumer Goods
Obtained between January 1958 and June 1, 1962, in the
Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic 263 Acknowledgments
6.8 Possession of Electrical Appliances and Sewing Machines
among Six Soviet Employment Groups in the Russian
Soviet Federated Socialist Republic 264
6.9 Percentage of Families in Capitalist Countries in
Possession of Durable Goods 265 Because I took substantially longer to write a book about Soviet mass
housing than it took Khrushchev to build it, I benefited from the help
Figures of many people along the way. My initial interest in Soviet housing and
1.1 A Khrushchev-Era Apartment Building in Contemporary everyday life arose from my experience of living in a communal apart-
Saint Petersburg, October 2010 3 ment (kommunalka) in Saint Petersburg when I taught English at School
1.2 Wedding on Tomorrow Street, by Yuri Pimenov, 1962 7 No. 157 in the mid-1990s. Like most Westerners, the extraordinariness
1.1 Plan for a Three-Room Apartment 63 of the kommunalka helped maintain Russia's exotic Soviet otherness
1.2 Floor Plan of a Stalin-Era Single-Family Apartment 65 for me at a time when Russians only seemed to want to forget the
2.1 Section Plan for Small Apartments in 1939 79 Soviet past and become a normal Western country. Little did I know
2.2 Floor Plan for a Four-Apartment Section in Mass then that the housing in which most Petersburgers lived—single-family
Housing Built under Khrushchev 83 apartments in the mass housing that encircled their city—was also a
2.3 Revised Floor Plan for a Four-Apartment Section 106 Soviet story whose ordinariness as a way of life obfuscated its extra-
4.1 Design for a One-Room Apartment and a Two-Room
ordinary role in shaping Soviet history after Stalin.
Apartment in a House with Eight Apartments 159 When I began graduate school at the University of Chicago in 1996,
5.1 Model of a Microdistrict in Novo-Polotsk 194
I initially stuck to the exotic for my M.A. thesis and focused on the
6.1 Sectional Furniture in a Living/Dining Room with communal apartment at the very start of the Soviet experiment. When
Dining Table and Chairs 239 it came time to choose a dissertation topic, Sheila Fitzpatrick, my ad-
6.2 Part of the Interior of a Living Room 241 viser and mentor, suggested that I examine what happened in the
6.3 A Housewife Working in a Poorly and Inefficiently Soviet housing picture under Khrushchev. At first I was skeptical of
Organized Kitchen 249
venturing so far into the later decades of Soviet history and especially
6.4 A Housewife in a Rationally Organized Kitchen 250
beyond the 1920s, the era that had caught my imagination as an under-
6.5 Kitchen Equipment with Standardized Sectional
graduate student in Donald Raleigh's courses at the University of
Components 252
North Carolina, Chapel Hill. Moreover, like much of the Soviet field,
7.1 Visitors at the "Gradostroitel'stvo" Exhibit in Moscow,
most Russian history graduate students at Chicago were immersed in
1960 280
dissecting the Stalin period; the Khrushchev era and beyond were still
terra incognita for most of us. Ultimately, my move from the commu-
xiv(cid:9) Acknowledgments(cid:9) Acknowledgments(cid:9) xv
nal apartment to a separate apartment (khrushchevka), and from the has shaped my understanding of the pan-European origins of the
Stalin era to the Khrushchev period, came at exactly the right time in khrushchevka's design. I also thank Stephen Sawyer, who was the first
the flow of Soviet historiography. In choosing to study the khru- to encourage me to think about how Soviet urban dwellers' move to
shchevka,I was thus fortunate enough to be part of an emerging wave the separate apartment could help us rethink the thaw by paying closer
of graduate students and scholars who wanted to know what became attention to its social dynamics outside high politics and high culture.
of Soviet life after Stalin. Like most Russian history graduate students from Chicago and else-
The first life of this book was thus a Ph.D. dissertation in history, where, I became an unapologetic "archive rat," who dove headlong
which I researched in the archives of Moscow and Saint Petersburg, into the recently opened archives of the former Soviet Union. For a total
and wrote in the city of Chicago. I thank Sheila Fitzpatrick for teach- of almost two years, I lived in Moscow and Saint Petersburg, and im-
ing me the craft of history and for encouraging me to venture into the mersed myself in the rich archival holdings of state, party, and arts and
Khrushchev period. I also thank the other members of my Ph.D. com- literature archives, as well as the two cities' libraries. Local scholars
mittee—Ronald Suny, Michael Geyer, and the late Richard Hellie- and the expatriate group of foreign graduate students provided a vi-
for their invaluable advice on this book's first draft. As a graduate brant intellectual community and indispensable help in finding new
student at Chicago, I benefited greatly from the intellectually vibrant sources and thinking about one's project in a new way. Back in the
community of Russian history graduate students. The legendary Russian United States, I benefited from the critical feedback that many scholars
Studies Workshop—where graduate students and outside scholars pre- provided on my work at many conferences and workshops. I thank in
sented their works in progress—was a critical part of our training. It particular Heather DeHaan, Miriam Dobson, John Farrell, Juliane
was there, as first-year graduate students, where we saw what went into Fiirst, Andrew Jenks, Polly Jones, Sharon Kowalsky, Ann Livschiz,
the research and writing of Soviet history, and where we later presented Kristin Roth-Ey, Shawn Salmon, Paul Stronski, Il'ia Utekhin, Vadim
our own dissertation chapters after months or in some cases years in Volkov, Amir Weiner, and Elena Zubkova for their help with my proj-
the archives. ect and for many great conversations about Soviet history and the
Among my fellow graduate students at Chicago, I especially thank khrushchevka.
Stephen Bittner for blazing the trail into the Khrushchev period with In addition to the scholars who were beginning to do archival re-
his study of the social and intellectual life of the Arbat. His book on search on the Khrushchev period (many of whom are listed above), I
Khrushchev's thaw has had an enormous influence on my own work, have greatly benefited over the years from those who shared my inter-
and his sharp feedback on my entire book has made it better. I thank ests in housing and architecture, domestic life and mass consumption,
Charles Hachten, whose expertise on Soviet property relations and and urbanization in state socialist regimes I am especially indebted to
law improved my understanding of these topics. Jonathan Bone, Chris Greg Castillo for his critical feedback on my entire book. His work on
Burton, Michael David, Matthew Lenoe, Steven Richmond, Joshua domestic design in the United States, East and West Germany, and the
Sanborn, and Alison Smith, who were all completing their disserta- Soviet Union has greatly advanced our understanding of the trans-
tions when I arrived in Chicago, proved to be indispensable unofficial national dimensions of mass housing and consumption. I also thank
older mentors. I am also indebted to Kiril Tomoff, with whom I shared Daria Bochamikova, Ekaterina Gerasimova, Stephen Lovell, Julia
an excellent separate apartment on my first research trip to Moscow in Obertreis, Karl Qualls, Susan Reid, and Christine Varga-Harris for
1998, for helping me navigate Russian archives and libraries and their their scholarship and feedback on my project. In its latter stages, I bene-
many strange rituals. fited additionally from Gyorgy Peteri's work on transnational exchanges
At Chicago, I also benefited from the European History Workshop during the Cold War. I thank him for encouraging me to expand a
and its graduate students, who challenged me to think more broadly conference paper about Soviet architects' contacts with their Western
and theoretically about my work on Soviet housing. I thank in particu- counterparts, the result of which was my short book Two Lessons in
lar Dana Simmons, whose Ph.D. dissertation on "Minimal Frenchmen" Modernism: What the Architectural Review and America's Mass Media
xvi(cid:9) Acknowledgments(cid:9) Acknowledgments(cid:9) xvii
Taught Soviet Architects about the West. Although the content of this on various aspects (and chapters) of my book. Soon after arriving at
work does not appear in the present book, its focus on transnational the Kennan Institute, Michael encouraged me to write a book review,
history helped me sharpen my analysis of the khrushchevka's pan- which ultimately turned into my review essay "In Search of 'Ordinary'
European origins. Russia: Everyday Life in the NEP, the Thaw, and the Communal
The second life of my book has taken place primarily in Washington, Apartment," which was published in Kritika: Explorations in Russian
where I relocated in 2003 for what I thought would be just one year on and Eurasian History. This essay and Michael's feedback helped me
a Kennan Research Scholarship. The Kennan Institute and the Woodrow think more critically about how the differences between communal and
Wilson International Center for Scholars provided a stimulating envi- separate apartments have shaped scholars' approach to Soviet housing
ronment and excellent research resources for beginning the long task of and everyday life, including my own, as noted at the beginning of these
transfornling my lengthy dissertation into a manuscript. Blair Ruble, acknowledgments. Working on this review essay also focused my at-
the director of the Kennan Institute, whose own work on Soviet hous- tention on scholars' study of "ordinary people" in Soviet history and
ing and urban history has shaped how many of us understand these what we mean by invoking this admittedly amorphous category.
topics, has been a valued mentor. I also thank my research assistant at After my year at the Kennan Institute, I was fortunate to be hired
the Kennan Institute, William Clark, for his indispensable help in as a postdoctoral teaching fellow in Western civilization at George
tracking down and researching sources at the Library of Congress, and Mason University. During my two years at George Mason, I benefited
for our many conversations about conspiracy theories. from a new community of historians and scholars, and gained in-
I am indebted to many individuals at the Woodrow Wilson Center valuable experience teaching undergraduate students. I thank the Rus-
Press and the John Hopkins University Press for their work in trans- sian historians there—Steven Barnes and Rex Wade—and my fellow
forming my manuscript into a book. I especially thank Joe Brinley, the postdoctoral colleagues—Charles Lipp, Timur Pollack-Lagushenko,
director of the Woodrow Wilson Center Press, for his guidance and Matthew Romaniello, Matthew Specter, and Allan Tulchin—for our
encouragement on completing my manuscript since I was a research excellent conversations between classes and their feedback on my
scholar at the Kennan Institute. I also thank MacKenzie Cotters and project. I also thank Mills Kelly for running the Western Civilization
Cherie Worth of the Woodrow Wilson Center Press and Christina Program at George Mason and for his support in preparing for the
Cheakalos and Karen Willmes of the Johns Hopkins University Press job market. His insightful suggestion that Khrushchev's regime faced
for their work on this project. In addition, I am indebted to Melody a crisis of rising expectations that grew out of the mass housing pro-
Wilson for her work editing my manuscript and answering my many gram became an enduring theme in my book.
questions over email, and to Alfred Imhoff for his thorough copyedit- While I was at George Mason University, I also worked on two re-
ing of the manuscript. Throughout this book, I use the transliteration lated articles. I thank Rex Wade for inviting me to write an essay on
system of the Library of Congress for all Russian words rendered in mass housing and generational conflict for a special edition of The Soviet
English. All translations are my own, unless otherwise noted, and any and Post-Soviet Review. The result was my article "We Too Want to
mistakes are likewise my own. Live in Normal Apartments': Soviet Mass Housing and the Mar-
Fortunately for me, my year at the Kennan Institute coincided with ginalization of the Elderly under Khrushchev and Brezhnev." I also
the inaugural year of a new Russian history workshop hosted by thank Lewis Siegelbaum for inviting me to contribute my essay "I Know
Georgetown University. The Russian History Seminar of Washington All the Secrets of My Neighbors': The Quest for Privacy in the Era of the
has become a premier venue for Russian historians presenting their Separate Apai linent" to the volume Borders of Socialism: Private
works in progress. I thank Eric Lohr for organizing this group and Spheres of Soviet Russia. I thank both Rex and Lewis for their critical
Catherine Evtuhov, David Goldfrank, and the late Richard Stites for feedback on early drafts of these projects. Although neither of my two
hosting it over the years. I am also indebted to Michael David-Fox, essays appears in this book, each helped me develop some of its key
another member of our Washington kruzhok, for his critical feedback themes. The first one allowed me to explore more fully how urban resi-
xviii(cid:9) Acknowledgments(cid:9) Acknowledgments(cid:9) xix
dents perceived and shaped the waiting list for housing as a register of Agency and the Fulbright-Hays Program allowed me to conduct ex-
social hierarchies, and the second one focused my attention on the ways tensive research in Russia, and a fellowship from the Social Sciences
that urban residents turned to, instead of away from, the Soviet state to Research Council made it possible to complete my dissertation. A
secure the autonomy and greater privacy promised by mass housing. Research Scholarship from the Kennan Institute made it possible to
After two years at George Mason University, I was fortunate to be begin revising my dissertation into a manuscript. A Faculty Development
hired in 2006 as an assistant professor of history at the University of Grant and Jepson Fellowship from the University of Mary Washington,
Mary Washington, where I presently teach courses in Russian and and a Bernadotte Schmitt Grant from the American Historical Associ-
European history, as well as conspiracy theories. I thank my colleagues ation allowed me to complete the final stages of research and writing.
in the Department of History and American Studies—Nabil Al-Tikriti, During the year I spent teaching English in Saint Petersburg and on
Porter Blakemore, Sue Femsebner, Claudine Ferrell, Jeff McClurken, several return trips, many Petersburgers opened their homes to me and
Krystyn Moon, Bruce O'Brien, Allyson Poska, and Jess Rigelhaupt- extended their friendship to a young American curious about their
for their support and encouragement as I completed my book. I also country and way of life. Igor Persianov, a fellow teacher at School
thank my students for their patience in listening to my many tales of No. 157, deserves special thanks for finding me a room in my first kom-
living in a communal apartment and lectures on mass housing. munalka on Vasilievskii Island. I thank my dear friend Alexander
Over the years, the personnel at many archives and libraries in the Vlasov for helping me enjoy and make sense of that experience and of
United States and Russia provided indispensable aid as I researched much else from the Soviet past that remains in Russia's post-Soviet
my topic. As a graduate student, the University of Chicago's Regenstein existence. I thank Alexander and his kruzhok of archaeology enthusi-
Library provided an incredible collection of primary and secondary asts for taking me along to Uglich on two archaeological digs and for
sources that allowed me to begin my dissertation research. I thank the many other adventures. I also thank Elena Lagutina and Andrei
Slavic bibliographer June Farris for helping me locate sources in the Pochinkov for endless evenings and conversations spent in the kitchen
library's rich collection on many occasions and for helping me under- of their unusually long communal apartment off Nevskii Pro spekt and
stand how Russian-language sources are organized in American librar- for letting me rent a room in that apartment (the last of its kind in a
ies. I am indebted to the archivists and staffs of the many archives I building whose apartments have all gone "separate").
used in Moscow and Saint Petersburg for helping me locate valuable Thanks to these friends and many more local residents of Russia's
materials and allowing me to bivouac for months at a time in their Northern Capital, Saint Petersburg has remained my home away from
reading rooms. I thank the librarians and staff of Moscow's Russian home in Russia. I thank John Bailyn and Wallace Sherlock for orga-
State Library (or "Leninka") and the State Public Historical Library (or nizing the "Petro-Teach" program that originally brought me to the
"Istorichka") as they are affectionately known. I also thank the city and allowed me to teach English to so many wonderful and intel-
librarians and staff of the National Library of Saint Petersburg (or ligent students at School No. 157 in the Smolny district. If I had not
"Publichka") for its waini atmosphere and the most democratic system stumbled across a flyer advertising their program during my last year
of reading rooms, and the Academy of Sciences Library, also in Saint at the University of North Carolina (back in the days when flyers were
Petersburg. In Washington, I am fortunate to claim the Library of the main way one found out about such things), I might never have
Congress as my neighborhood, municipal library. The librarians and gone to Russia to begin with or have simply ended up in Moscow. I am
staff of the European Reading Room have helped me on countless oc- also greatly indebted to the encouragement and instruction I received
casions to track down sources and find new ones, and even survive the as an undergraduate from Donald Raleigh at North Carolina. Don's
earthquake of 2011 with good humor. electrifying courses in Soviet history got me interested in the field late
This book was also made possible by generous funding from several in my undergraduate career and convinced me that being a historian
sources. Funding from the University of Chicago allowed me to under- was a worthwhile pursuit. His enthusiasm for the study and teaching of
take my graduate studies and provided additional research grants for all things Soviet and Russian has been an inspiration, and his encour-
travel to Russia. Research fellowships from the U.S. Information agement over the years has helped me finish this book.
(cid:9)
XX Acknowledgments
I thank my late father, Emmett Harris, and my mother, Pierrette
Harris, for all their love, support, and patience over the many years
that I have devoted to studying Russia, going there, and working
on this project. I also thank my mother-in-law, Sharon Faranda, for
her encouragement and enthusiasm. Luckily for me, my wonderful and
loving older sister, Anne, was already at the University of Chicago
when I got there, completing her Ph.D. in art history. Anne and her
husband Mac, who was also finishing his Ph.D. in art history at the
university, helped me navigate the waters of graduate school and thrive
in its rigorous intellectual environment. I dearly value our "Chicago
years" together, which we divided between our neighborhood on the
Near North Side of this great American city and the University of
Chicago in Hyde Park, with incredible modern art and architecture in
between. I thank them both for listening to me talk endlessly about
Soviet housing over the years and for their indispensable feedback at
each stage of writing this book. Their three children, Oliver, Iris, and
Eleanor, have made our lives since Chicago even more fun. I love being
your uncle! Now get to work on your dissertations.
Beginning with my year at the Kennan Institute, I was fortunate to
find a new community of friends and fellow scholars in my new home,
Washington. I especially thank Margaret Paxson and Charles King for
our many conversations about Soviet history and how to write a book
about it. Their many insights and support have made this a better
book, and their friendship has made living in Washington more enjoy-
able than I ever imagined. I also thank Nida Gelazis for her feedback
on my project and for introducing all of us to Lithuanian kugelis. To
the members of "Tashi station"—Fred Jacob, Kevin "Kevstar" Morse,
and Prophet Dan Steinberg—I extend my deep gratitude for teaching
me the ways of American popular culture and for helping me find the
love of my life, your fellow Tashi comrade, Regina Faranda.
I thank my wife, Gina, for making it possible for me to finish a proj-
ect I should have completed long before we met. When we went on our
first date, she asked me where my book was. Here it is! I share her de-
votion to the first duty and the respect she has for ordinary Russians
who say what they think and do what they want. And now I share
in the vospitanie of our wonderful young sons, Henry and Emmett,
who were born in Washington. I dedicate this book to Gina, Henry,
Emmett and our life together on Tomorrow Street.