Communism and Consumerism: The Soviet Alternative to the Affluent Society

196 Pages·2015·1.41 MB·English

by  Timo Vihavainen and Elena Bogdanova (Eds.)

i
Communism and Consumerism
© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2016 | doi 10.1163/9789004303973_001
ii
Eurasian Studies Library
History, Societies & Cultures in Eurasia
Series Editors
Dittmar Schorkowitz (Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology,
Halle/Saale, Germany)
David Schimmelpenninck van der Oye (Brock University,
St. Catherines, Canada)
Board members
Bakhtiyar Babadjanov
Paul Bushkovitch
Peter Finke
Svetlana Gorshenina
Geoffrey Hosking
Michael Khodarkovsky
Marlène Laruelle
Scott C. Levi
Virginia Martin
Jeff Sahadeo
Willard Sunderland
Nikolay Tsyrempilov
VOLUME 7
The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/esl
iii
Communism and Consumerism
The Soviet Alternative to the Affluent Society
Edited by
Timo Vihavainen and Elena Bogdanova
LEIDEN | BOSTON
iv
Cover illustration: ‘Kapron stockings. Pretty, durable, hygienic. Advised by the Ministry of Light Industry.’
Glavshveisbyt, 1952. (Главшвейсбыт МЛП cccp). Designer Viktor V. Pimenov.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Communism and consumerism : the Soviet alternative to the affluent society / edited by Timo Vihavai-
nen and Elena Bogdanova.
pages cm. -- (Eurasian studies library, ISSN 1877-9484 ; volume 7)
Includes index.
ISBN 978-90-04-30396-6 (hardback : alk. paper) -- ISBN 978-90-04-30397-3 (e-book) 1. Consumption
(Economics)--Soviet Union. I. Vihavainen, Timo. II. Bogdanova, Elena.
HC340.C6C65 2015
339.4’709470904--dc23
2015027397
This publication has been typeset in the multilingual “Brill” typeface. With over 5,100 characters covering
Latin, ipa, Greek, and Cyrillic, this typeface is especially suitable for use in the humanities.
For more information, please see www.brill.com/brill-typeface.
issn 1877-9484
isbn 978-90-04-30396-6 (hardback)
isbn 978-90-04-30397-3 (e-book)
Copyright 2016 by Koninklijke Brill nv, Leiden, The Netherlands.
Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Brill Hes & De Graaf, Brill Nijhoff, Brill Rodopi and
Hotei Publishing.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system,
or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise,
without prior written permission from the publisher.
Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Koninklijke Brill nv provided
that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive,
Suite 910, Danvers, ma 01923, usa.
Fees are subject to change.
This book is printed on acid-free paper.
ContentCso ntents v
Contents
Contents v
Abbreviations viii
Acknowledgements ix
About this Book x
1 The Spirit of Consumerism in Russia and the West 1
Timo Vihavainen
The Problem of the Consumerist Mentality 1
The Special Case of Russian and Soviet Consumerism 2
Consumerism and Rationality in Europe 6
The Birth of Consumerism as a Moral Revolution 8
Rational Hedonism as the Ethical Norm in the West 10
The Moralizing Anti-Hedonist Heritage of Marxism 12
Russia’s Specific Path of Development and the Question of
 Consumerism 16
Traditional Ideas Concerning Luxury and Opulence in a Land of
 Peasants 18
The Antibourgeois Tradition in Early Twentieth Century Russian
 Culture 23
2 Consumerism and the Soviet Project 28
Timo Vihavainen
The Ideology: Focus on Leveling and Producing 28
The Practice: From Scarcity for Everybody to Well-Being for the
 Best 31
A Farewell to Leveling 35
From ‘Virtual Consumerism’ to a Hunger for Goods 39
Grande Finale: ‘The Party Solemnly Declares: The Contemporary
 Generation of the Soviet People Will Live in Communism!’ 42
‘Remnants of the Past’ or Products of Socialist Society? Consumer
 Attitudes without Consumerism? 46
Victory in the Wrong Race 50
Consumerism and the End of the Soviet Union 52
The ‘World Revolution of Consumerism’ and Russia 54
Russia – a Latecomer with a Special Heritage 57
3 Ideology of Consumption in the Soviet Union 68
Olga Gurova
vi Contents
The Concept of Ideology 68
Revolutionary Doctrine of Taste and Everyday Asceticism –
 the 1920s 70
The Ideology of Kul’turnost’ and the Legitimizing of Consumption in the
 1930s and 1940s 72
The Ideology of Soviet Taste – the 1950s and 1960s 75
The Ideology of Growing Materialization – the 1970s and 1980s 78
After Socialism 81
Conclusion 82
4 How and What to Consume: Patterns of Soviet Clothing Consumption in
the 1950s and 1960s 85
Larissa Zakharova
Evaluation of Needs and the Theory of Socialist Consumption 86
Legal and Illegal Strategies of Buying Clothes 88
Correlation between Socio-Economic Factors and the Choice of
 Consuming Strategies 97
Influence of the Cultural Factor on the Choice of Consumer
 Strategies 99
Mechanisms in the Spreading of Fashion 103
Conclusion 106
5 The Soviet Consumer – More than Just a Soviet Man 113
Elena Bogdanova
The Contradictions of Soviet Consumption 116
What They Complained About 121
Where They Lodged Their Complaints 124
Complaints by Soviet Consumers in the Press 126
The Book of Complaints and Suggestions 127
Strategies Used When Writing Consumer Complaints 129
Conclusions 136
6 Meshchanstvo, or the Spirit of Consumerism and the Russian Mind 139
Timo Vihavainen
The Concepts of the Study 139
The Intellectuals and the Intelligenty. Some Comparison 141
The Aim of the Study 147
The Techniques and the Sample 148
The Results: Intelligent, Intelligentnost’ as a Moral Category 149
Results – Meshchanstvo – the Spirit of Consumerism 155
Contents vii
Conclusions 158
7 Afterword 161
Appendix 165
Index 169
CCAAACTTTTCCHLELCIMCACTETWWCTSCLCAQIMCTRT‘TTCCTTTAFG‘VC‘RCTOTRTTTACCMTTTTT‘ARRITnntraeirnvlhihhhhhhhhihhhhhhhihhhheuaioohohoohoohohoohohcbbrf fpruloehusremmmoeeFecafdhhttgagrcavtkteeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeesnnnrnmnnnnnalaaaaaaatbopwmeeenssstecdaimieaeuhalaero s nntsopppppppoooohhttscccssscusorrrueTh SPSSCBBMAIPICIIICIArealxi ile rtpeWiseelenw uiuutGdddddnlollllrdatae nttttttt nftcceavppo ueSl arra oiVVVaaguuuuiooo‘inniTnnieeeeeeeylBva mnmma wrVwoeeeeetoahhgoemacta ooTdvaouQ’nieto– nionnnTsssss rrrrrrriiietctihtttiZrnooooooe icrhidleblniaaihhhinaccrih r hFi iiiioerissli kdoie neeel tccuhrean1457236S exabtosooogselllllnadotMoHltl niilt onnnaaalrai nt i oooooW rrrieen dets l a e am p o y e l idtodkonnnnnoosnaIv uUtctvvviofiiiLil asso epps gggggcmllla azCy’ tsshstqe ofha ,oafdgfeua s aaaC R tatiBlfI iahts onedsyyyyytmmmb Cttr i tosec‘vv runefd e :ofChiiiaiCrtLll uInAet se eoCyd o: amoesnnni c ei goooeofhFgmoooo an Leereot nCNneodfW avrFo g ootm o tfn:atoaaahoeee DeffsircSffffeIsaeit v –toosi ldow ncom ke‘ eStfaonl ennnennnno tAwivosoeeo ITsvtuaCKSGr paotor l sCcghne sntl dS lhmat Pterio udddn smhev aoonhsmmpnlCuhPcu leuuoshetdrwtesuu teCeieaaln it nsevfh otertldgdadrse Rttuisnmoele sTeionl mt aiS eriaonS otgihhvd oC woReats nen S tyh- mnrs ieaorPulTaicr ttSup rint Hgenee sn onS fnuap Ruoe eh Cett eSctnaiawdn’rWth– or rr se ionedgh StrtmtdignseuoweSEpTarenraeoooi duer fnhsiri LycscstogiieMdro c rasdorlsaint ionnfi t iAesSymipmD ioe nrie t ahtiv usmer vsoiadFfMyoP stdIts asCi aho mots vnbitiS o?y mitnenEtina C iueT- rieln ameteo nee noar’ nooo doeifavoicot ’: tia’tmf :oettga ln aef sng’sSe hclfgtoeunT t PCdptiyf sTi CeS m net nPaornl o poBnt lsaLritett a hCRul lCooihmuorhiicsedHuroh rde ign es ruutnnEpiaeMcf gunE oopageo ats tn maMe coo anyxea Lot v Sle elg Fjn ssamnnHEtil Mass1ni eniomurenSlosreiaurnheNaner9ons u syiuizcyn iuorrdJorlglvedsntumsrettu5era gyioamu aytry attyDhfisinhviHn aco t0mn om E hstteilbrP Ss ag.TCesi leaS oigtoiifpsm emtpFteetRv oeoo eSormn’r we Cno eae ln fcStraoCteaeai Cav ooednnd’ rrP ilrco sidla osSecrnaid Uoiin vth aatmiy om:S in Crtyfeft tonsc athtadounrOnd oTyeo eonondihtm tiMgvoeetlet nl c sroagd ihvrisi1piaueUhetis mcs ssioe9sogl Cue i hGeay: n ua Wti eRete W ntn 6rtsaim rt eopong h lo1tA SoiuthxWio0 enCe 9e mfl eo do oQMnesiaCssefnC lds7lssCns edl c cr io ptu0Cctom- eCinaisie htsoB atessaeenntohn tthonme e rtssiastnie niy citisn uuRnns n si?uitCo ormsuduge agmyCmhnn mm s C 1LpfoRos p9oo:aotipe niu8Ttarifcnrnooi s 0snh teoCduSsrsnhs enauiMoot m eoa rr m1nfi anyf9i BensC nt pP2rGvvix11112888881111111111111111111168112222335555666677811111111ue eCdtxo333330001111222225666645 0244460et587590248888i2556818888sgAmh3336eui8i699978514693 69n917815591satiionet l essettn easuiu1rt 9rnimiruasn3etmdt0si itn esoh gsnae wSn o1td9ifrt 5aht109thoes4eug 0a tiSsne oC sdv o i1ne9ts6 uP0meso eprliesm w?il l Live in Communism!’ 8991123447713680231526799
viii Abbreviations Abbreviations
Abbreviations
CPSU Kommunisticheskaia Partiia Sovetskogo Soiuza (Communist Party of
Soviet Union)
GARF Gosudarstvennyi arkhiv Rossiiskoi Federatsii (The State Archive of the
Russian Federation)
LOGAV Leningradskii oblastnoi gosudarstvennyi arkhiv v Vyborge (Leningrad
Regional State Archive in Vyborg)
RGAE Rossiiskii gosudarstvennyi arkhiv ekonomiki (The Russian Government
Archive of Economic History)
RGANI Rossiiskii Gosudarstvennyi arkhiv noveishei istorii (Russian Govern-
ment State Archive of Contemporary History)
RGASPI Rossiiskii gosugarstvennyi arkhiv sotsial’no-politicheskoi istorii (Rus-
sian State Archive of Social and Political History)
TsGA SPb Tsentral’nyi gosudarstvennyi arkhiv Sankt-Peterburga (Central State
Archive of St. Petersburg)
TsK Tsentral’nyi komitet (Central Committee)
TsMAM Tsentral’nyi munitsipal’nyi arkhiv Moskvy (Central Municipal Archive
of Moscow)
TsSU SSSR Tsentral’noe statisticheskoe upravlenie SSSR (Central Statistic Adminis-
tration of the USSR)
TsUM Tsentral’nyi universal’nyi magazin (Central Department Store in Mos-
cow)
VAZ Volzhskii avtomobil’nyi zavod (The Volga Car Factory)
VLKSM Vsesoiuznyi Leninskii Kommunisticheskii Soiuz Molodiozhi (All-Union
Leninist Communist Union of Youth, Komsomol)
VTsIK Vserossiiskii Tsentral’nyi Ispolnitel’nyi Komitet (All-Russian Central
Executive Committee)
AcknowAlcekdgneomwelnetdsgements ix
Acknowledgements
My gratitude is due first of all to the three ladies, who contributed to this vol-
ume and preserved their patience through the several years, which were need-
ed until this book appeared.
I thank also the editors-in-chief Sergey Bogatyrev and Dittmar Schorkowitz
for their kind attitude towards this manuscript. I am also grateful for MA God-
frey Weldhen for his professional language-checking and witty remarks. Any
remaining bad language is due to my later additions. I also thank Ph.D. Marina
Vituhnovskaja, who took care of the interviews, on which the chapter on
meshchanstvo and intelligentnost’ is based.
I also thank the journal Anthropology of East Europe Review, which kindly
allowed to reprint parts of the article by Olga Gurova, which had been pub-
lished there in 2006, Vol. 24, No 2.
Helsinki October 19, 2012
Timo Vihavainen
Professor of Russian Studies
University of Helsinki
x About This Book About This Book
About this Book
The American scholar Gary Cross has concluded that consumerism has been
the ‘ism’ that won the battles of the 20th century despite the fact that it never
had any formal philosophy, no party and no obvious leaders.1
Cross seems to believe that consumerism, as it had developed by the end of
the 20th century, was first of all a product of American culture. Even there, it
had to overcome many kinds of attacks and restraints.2
The British historian Niall Ferguson has called consumerism one of the sev-
en ‘killer apps’, which made Western civilization the dominating force in world
history.3
According to Ferguson’s epic story, the ‘rest’ of the world was only able to
catch up and challenge the West after they adopted those victorious ‘killer
apps’ themselves.
That they would do so was not obvious just one generation ago. At various
times, the West was challenged by Soviet Communism, then by Chinese Com-
munism. The North Korean Juche idea, Cambodia’s ‘popular’ rule, Cuban So-
cialism, and other less well-known ideologies also purported to build another
kind of civilization.
As a rule, consumerism was conspicuously absent in these projects; some-
times they were even quite rigorously anti-consumerist. Now they seem to us
history’s blind alleys. As against just a couple of decades ago, almost all of
those countries now seem to have been conquered by consumerism, the super-
ideology of our time.
The road to the present state of things was not so simple, even in America.
It was much more complicated in Russia, where the state did its best to keep
people’s consumerist instincts in check and tried to build an alternative civili-
zation.
Just about fifty years ago it was declared that there was an alternative to the
kind of modern consumerism which was already flourishing in America. This
happened in 1961, when the Communist Party of the Soviet Union solemnly
declared that within twenty years both production and consumption per cap-
ita in the Soviet Union would be vastly superior to that of the most advanced
capitalist countries.
1 Cross (2000), 1.
2 Ibid., 145–191.
3 Ferguson (2011), 196–255.