New Myth, New World: From Nietzsche To Stalinism

242 Pages·2002·8.72 MB·English

by  Bernice Glatzer Rosenthal

Bernice Glatzer Rosenthal
NEW MYTH, NEW WORLD
FROM NIETZSCHE TO STALINISM
THE PENNSYLVANIA STATE UNIVERSITY PRESS UNIVERSITY PARK. PENNSYLVANIA
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Rosenthal, Bernice Glatzer.
New myth, new world : from Nietzsche to Stalinism
Bernice Glatzer Rosenthal.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-271-02218-3 (cloth : alk. paper)
1. Soviet Union-Intellectual life-1917-1970.
2. Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm, 1844-1900-influence.
I. Title.
DK266.4 .R67 2002
947.084-dc21 2002005452
Copyright © 2002 The Pennsylvania State University
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
Published by The Pennsylvania State University Press,
University Park, PA r6802-roo3
The paper used in this publication is both acid-free and totally
chlorine-free (TCP). It meets the minimum requirements of
American National Standard for Information Sciences-Permanence
of Paper for Printed Library Materials,
ANSI Z39.48-r992.
r
Contents
List of Illustrations 1:x:
Acknowledgments xr
Works Frequently Cited xm
Introduction
SECTION I ·•
The Seed-Time: The Russification of Nietzsche, 1890-1917 27
1 Symbolists 3 3
2 Philosophers 5 1
3 Nietzschean Marxists 68
4 Futurists 94
Summary: The Nietzschean Agenda in 1917 112
SECTION II
Nietzsche in the Bolshevik Revolution and the Civil War, 1917-1921 117
5 Apocalypse Now: Bolshevik Fusions of
Marx, Engels, and Nietzsche 125
6 Beyond Bolshevism: Visions of a Revolution of the Spirit I 50
SECTION Ill
Nietzschean Ideas in the Period of the New Economic Policy (NEP), 1921-1927 173
7 Concretizing the Myth: New Cult, New Man, New Morality 183
8 New Forms, New Language, New Politics 209
SECTION IV
Echoes of Nietzsche in Stalin's Time, 1928-1953 233
Part I
Dionysus Unleashed: The Cultural Revolution and the
First Five-Year Plan, 1928-1932 237
9 "Great Politics" Stalin-Style 245
10 Cultural Revolution in the Arts and Sciences 266
vii
viii Contents
Part II
Art as a Lie: Nietzsche and Socialist Realism 293
11 Nietzsche's Contributions to the Theory of Socialist Realism 301
12 The Theory Implemented 325
Illustrations
Part Ill:
The Lie Triumphant: Nietzsche and Stalinist Political Culture 3 5 1
13 The Stalin Cult and Its Complements 372
14 Cultural Expressions of the Will to Power 395
Epilogue: De-Stalinization and the Reemergence of Nietzsche 423
Index 439 1 B. M. Kustodiev, The Bolshevik. In Vs. Voinov, B. M. Kustodiev (Leningrad,
1926). Slavic and Baltic Division, New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox
and Tilden Foundations.
2 "Lenin Lived! Lenin Lives! Lenin Will Live!" In The Russian Political Poster
(St. Petersburg, 2000). Russian State Library, Moscow.
3 Stenberg Brothers, "Symphony of a Great City_; (1928). The Museum of
Modern Art, New York.
4 Lazar el Lissitzky, "The New One" (1923). The Museum of Modern Art,
New York.
5 Kazimir Malevich, "Futurist Strongman." In The Drama Review 15, no. 4
(1971): 92. Billy Rose Theatre Collection, The New York Public Library for
the Performing Arts, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations.
6 Aleksandr Rodchenko, "I catch my balance I waving terribly." In
Mayakovsky, Pro eto (Moscow, 1924). Slavic and Baltic Division, New York
Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations.
7 "The Current is Switched On." USSR in Construction, 1932, no. ro. Avery
Architectural and Fine Arts Library, Columbia University in the City of New
York.
8 "Dnepr-Kombinat." USSR in Construction, 1934, no. 3. Avery Architectural
and Fine Arts Library, Columbia University in the City of New York.
9 "The Dnieper Power Station. A Monument to Lenin." USSR in Construction,
1934, no. 3. Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library, Columbia University
in the City of New York.
10 Sergei V. Gerasimov, "New People of the Socialist Village." Iskusstvo, 1937,
no. 6. Slavic and Baltic Division, New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox
and Tilden Foundations.
11 "The Palace of Soviets." Arkhitektura SSSR, 1937, no. ro. Slavic and Baltic
Division, New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations.
12 "Stalin's Moscow." Pravda, November 25, 1936, p. r. Slavic and Baltic
Division, New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations.
Ix
Acknowledgments
I wish to thank my colleagues for their helpful comments and suggestions.
Peter Bergmann, Jeffrey Brooks, Edith Clowes, John Burt Foster, George L.
Kline, Robert Maguire, Nina Melechen, Susan Ray, James P. Scanlan, Andrzej
Walicki, Richard Wortman, and Reginald Zelnik read the entire manuscript
at different stages in its gestation. John Biggart, Abbott Gleason, Louise Loe,
and Nina Gurianova read parts of it. Errors of fact or interpretation are, of
course, my own. I would also like to thank Edward Kasinec and the staff of
the New York Public Library, Slavonic and Baltic Division; Charlotte Labbe
and the staff of Fordham University's interlibrary loan office; and Fordham
University, for a faculty fellowship. I express my appreciation to the University
Seminars at Columbia University for their help in publication. Material in
this work was presented to the University Seminars.
xi
Works Frequently Cited
Nietzsche
All references to Nietzsche's works are by page number, not section.
AC The Antichrist, trans. R. J. Hollingdale (Harmondsworth and
Baltimore, r969). ·•
BCE Beyond Good and Evil, trans. W. Kaufmann (New York, r966).
BT The Birth of Tragedy, trans. W. Kaufmann (New York, r967).
cw The Case of Wagner, trans. W. Kaufmann (New York, r967).
D Daybreak, trans. R. J. Hollingdale, (Cambridge, r982).
EH Ecce Homo, trans. W. Kaufmann (New York, r967).
GM On the Genealogy of Morals, trans. W. Kaufmann (New York,
r967).
GS The Gay Science, trans. W. Kaufmann (New York, r974).
H On the Advantage and Disadvantage of History for Life, trans.
Peter Preuss (Indianapolis, r980).
HH Human, All Too Human, 2 vols., trans. R. J. Hollingdale
(Cambridge, r996).
KSA Friedrich Nietzsche. Samtliche Werke. Kritische Studienausgabe,
r 5 vols., ed. Giorgio Colli and Mazzino Montinari (Berlin,
r967-77).
PN The Portable Nietzsche, ed. and trans. Walter Kaufmann (New
York, r954).
TI Twilight of the Idols, trans. W. Kaufmann and R. J. Hollingdale
(Harmondsworth and Baltimore, r969).
UT Untimely Meditations, trans. R. J. Hollingdale (Cambridge,
r983).
WP The Will to Power, trans. W. Kaufmann and R. J. Hollingdale
(New York, r968).
z Thus Spoke Zarathustra, trans. R. J. Hollingdale (Harmonds
worth, r96r).
xiii
xiv Works Frequently Cited Works Frequently Cited xv
Other Review 15, no. 4 (1971): 107-24. The quotations are from this
translation. The introduction (pp. 93-106) includes excerpts
BSS Aleksandr Blok, Sobranie sochinenii, 8 vols. (Moscow from Futurist writings about the production and is cited as VOS
Leningrad, 1960-63 ). Intro.
CM Communist Manifesto, in The Marx Engels Reader, ed. Robert VOS Intro See VOS.
C. Tucker (New York, 1978). Quotations from other works in
Transliteration follows the Library of Congress system, except that names
this anthology cited as MER.
ending in -ii are transliterated as ending in -y, and the familiar English spellings
GSS Maksim Gor'kii, Sobranie sochinenii v tridtsati tomakh
of the names of such well-known figures as Mayakovsky, Meyerhold,
(Moscow, 1960).
Sinyavsky, and Tolstoy are used.
HM Nikolai Bukharin, Historical Materialism (Ann Arbor, 1969).
IR N. Ia. Marr, Izbrannye raboty, 5 vols. (Moscow, 1933-37).
ISS Viacheslav Ivanov: Sobranie sochinenii, 4 vols. to date, ed. D.
V. Ivanov and I. 0. Deschartes (Brussels, 1971-79 ).
KhCW Velimir Khlebnikov, Collected Works, 3 vols., vol. 1, trans. Paul
Schmidt, ed. Charlotte Douglas, vols. 2 and 3, trans. Paul
Schmidt, ed. Ronald Vroon (Cambridge, Mass., 1987-97).
LCW Lenin. Collected Works, 47 vols. (Moscow-Leningrad, 1960-70). •
Literature Leon Trotsky, Literature and Revolution (Ann Arbor, 1971).
LA The Lenin Anthology, ed. Robert C. Tucker (New York, 1975).
LSS A. V: Lunacharskii, Sobranie sochinenii v vos'mi tomakh
(Moscow, 1963-1967).
MER See CM.
NR Bernice Glatzer Rosenthal, ed., Nietzsche in Russia (Princeton,
1986).
NSC Bernice Glatzer Rosenthal, ed., Nietzsche and Soviet Culture:
Ally and Adversary (Cambridge, Eng., 1994).
MPSS Dmitrii Merezhkovskii, Polnoe sobranie sochinenii (Moscow,
1914).
PSL H. Scott, ed., Problems of Soviet Literature (London, [193 5]).
Pervyi Pervyi Vsesoiznyi s "ezd sovetskikh pisatelei, 19 3 4.
Stenograficheskii otchet, ed. Ivan Luppol et al. (Moscow, 1934;
reprinted 1990).
SW ]. Stalin. Works. Vols. 1-13 in English translation (Moscow,
19 5 2-5 5 ). This edition is based on the Russian edition of
1946-49. Vols. 14-16 in Russian were reprinted by the Hoover
Institute (Stanford, 1966).
RF Anna Lawton, Russian Futurism Through Its Manifestoes
(Ithaca, 1988).
VOS Velimir Khlebnikov, Aleksei Kruchenykh, Mikhail Matiushin,
and Kazimir Malevich, Pobeda nad solntsem (Petersburg, 1913).
Translated into English under the title Victory Over the Sun by
Ewa Bartos and Victoria Nes Birby, it appeared in Drama
,,,,.
r
Introduction
The worst readers. The worst readers are those who
behave like plundering troops; they take away a few
things they can use, dirty and confound the remain-
der, and revile the whole. -HH,2:245
All the aphorisms of Zarathustra
And the virgin soil of paradoxes.
•
Elegantly subtle sophistries-
All turned into blood. -Nikolai Bukharin,
"The Mad Prophet (Nietzsche)" (1937)
Some of the most powerful ideas are those that are hidden.
This book excavates the long-obscured trail of ideas influ
enced by Nietzsche that entered into and helped shape
Bolshevism and Stalinism. The excavation begins in late
Imperial Russia, goes through the thickets of the revolu
tionary and early Soviet periods, and culminates in Stalin's
time.1 Throughout, Nietzsche's thought was mediated by
1. This books builds on Bernice Glatzer Rosenthal, ed., Nietzsche
in Russia (Princeton, I986), henceforth NR, and idem, Nietzsche and
Soviet Culture: Ally and Adversary (Cambridge, I994), henceforth NSC.
See also Edith Clowes, The Revolution of Moral Consciousness (DeKalb,
Ill., I988); Ann Lane, "Nietzsche in Russian Thought" (Ph.D. diss.,
University of Wisconsin, I976); George L. Kline, "'Nietzschean Marxism'
in Russia," in Demythologizing Marxism, ed. Frederich J. Adelmann,
Boston College Studies in Philosophy, vol. 2 (Boston, I968), I66-8 3;
and Hans Gunther, Der sozialistische Vbermensch: Maksim Gor'kij und
der sowjetische Heldenmythos (Stuttgart, I994).
2 Introduction Introduction 3
Russians who picked up the aspects of it that appealed to them and recon Engels had neglected. Nietzsche sensitized Bolsheviks committed to reason
figured them for their own purposes until they were transformed in ways and science to the importance of the nonrational aspects of the human psy
that obscured their provenance. Without knowledge of Nietzsche's thought, che and to the psychopolitical utility of symbol, myth, and cult. His visions
and Russian appropriations, modifications, and embellishments of it before of "great politics" (grosse Politik) colored their imaginations. Politik, like
the Bolshevik Revolution, the trail of Nietzschean ideas we will be follow the Russian word politika, means both "politics" and "policy"; grosse has
ing is virtually invisible, because for most of the Soviet period, either his also been translated as "grand" or "large scale." The Soviet obsession with
name was unmentionable or it could be used only as a pejorative. By creating a new culture stemmed primarily from Nietzsche, Wagner, and their
Nietzschean ideas, I mean ideas indebted to Nietzsche directly or at one or Russian popularizers. Marx and Engels never developed a detailed theory
more removes. One did not have to read Nietzsche to be influenced by him. of culture because they considered it part of the superstructure that would
The pollen of his ideas hung in the atmosphere for decades, fertilizing many change to follow changes in the economic base.
Russian and Soviet minds. Nietzsche's influence operated below the surface of events, accelerating
Nietzsche's brilliant style and compelling images appealed to people every the repudiation of established authorities and values, nourishing-a panoply
where, Russians included. His quotable aphorisms could be detached from of utopian doctrines, reinforcing the Promethean aspects of Marxism, and
their context and deployed in a variety of ways. "Tell me what you need," contributing (along with other factors), to an eschatological mood and a
Kurt Tucholsky, a German writer, quipped, "and I will supply you with a free-floating radicalism that worked to the Bolsheviks' advantage in 1917.
Nietzsche citation. "2 The bi-polar and complex nature of Nietzsche's thought Nietzsche's thought affected aspects of Stalinism that explanations based on
accommodated contradictory ideas and changing circumstances. Its open class conflict, rationally calculating "economic marf," or modernization the
endedness and ambiguity enabled people to read their own meanings into ory cannot account for.
such concepts as the Superman, the "will to power," and "great cultural Focusing on culture, rather than political events or social structure, I high
projects." Nietzsche's works provided intellectual ammunition for a pro light a set of issues that I call the Nietzschean agenda. This agenda was estab
longed conflict that was conducted in all areas of Russian life-culture, soci lished by his Russian admirers between 1890 and 1917, when Nietzsche
ety, politics-a conflict over whose will, values, and ideals would prevail, in could be discussed openly and his thought was russified and absorbed into
whose image the society of the future would be shaped. the culture. Responding to the changes transforming their country, Nietzsche
The works of the "philosopher with a hammer" touched deep cultural enthusiasts espoused new values and sought a new ideal (in Nietzschean
chords, reverberating with, reinforcing, and reactivating ideas indigenous to terms, a new myth) by which to live and on which to base their work and
Russia. His striking slogans and memorable images stayed with people long transform their world. The other items on the agenda-a quest for a "new
after they read him. Nietzsche was the spark that fused discrete, seemingly word," a new art form, a new ideal of man (and woman), a new morality,
contradictory, elements into new amalgams, such as Nietzschean Marxism a new politics, and a new science-were related to the quest for a new myth.
and Nietzschean Christianity. Some of these were unstable and transitory. Nietzsche's popularizers shaped the wider culture, disseminating their ren
Others endured and evolved, but one idea remained constant: art can cre ditions of his ideas, and raising issues that were debated by Bolsheviks and
ate a new consciousness, a new human being, a new culture, and a new non-Bolsheviks, and among the Bolsheviks, until the mid 1930s when the
world. Nietzsche imbued radicals of various persuasions with visions of total Communist Party resolved these issues. For close to half a century, then, the
transformation against which liberalism and evolutionary Marxism seemed Nietzschean agenda thus passed from one generation to another, each gen
pallid. Nietzsche enthusiasts seized on the eschatological and voluntarist eration offering new answers to the same questions and issues.
aspects of Marxism to commandeer the existing Russian apocalypticism and
to revitalize the voluntaristic and "heroic" aspects of the intelligentsia ethos. Excavating Nietzsche's "buried influence" in the Soviet period presents spe
Bolshevik intellectuals did not confine their reading to Marxist works. cial problems. It is not just that Nietzsche's influence operated below the
They knew Russian and European literature and philosophy and kept up surface of events, on the level of values, attitudes, and expectations; there
with current trends in art and thought. Aspects of Nietzsche's thought were was a good deal of deliberate burying as well. As early as 1908-9, some of
either surprisingly compatible with Marxism or treated issues that Marx and his popularizers repudiated him, or claimed to have done so, while contin
uing to draw on his thought. During World War I, Nietzsche was linked with
German militarism. In the early Soviet period, the Bolsheviks ordered his books
2. Quoted in Steven Aschheim, The Nietzsche Legacy in Germany (Berkeley and Los
removed from public libraries and coupled him with "bourgeois decadence"
Angeles, 1992), 274.
lailken t Un 1v e rsit'·'
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