I am deeply grateful to Todd Weir for his helpful comments and suggestions. I would also like to thank the anonymous reviewers and Mark D. Steinberg for their comments, which have greatly enriched this article, and for their encouragement to sharpen my argument.

1. Pimenov, Iurii I. in Gassner, Hubertus et al., eds., Agitatsiia za schast'e: Sovetskoe iskusstvo stalinskoi epokhi (Bremen, 1994), 181 Google Scholar.

2. For photos of Soviet self-referentiality, see e.g., King, David, Statins Retuschen: Fotound Kunstmanipulationen in der Sowjetunion (Hamburg, 1997), 140-41, and 152-53Google Scholar. Some leaders were busy noting whether their portraits were displayed by the crowd and thereby reproduced cultural circularity even within their diaries. Dimitroff, Georgi, Tagebücher 1933-1943 (Berlin, 2000), 253 and 281Google Scholar.

3. Novokuznetskii filial Gosudarstvennogo arkhiva Kemerovskoi Oblasti (NFGAKO), f. R. 1, op. 1, d. 249,11. 1-5 (1939).

4. See, e.g., Blium, A. V., Sovetskaia tsenzura v epokhu total'nogo terrora 1929-1953 (St. Petersburg, 2000), 149-52Google Scholar; Gromov, Evgenii S., Stalin: Vlast'i iskusstvo (Moscow, 1998)Google Scholar; Maksimenkov, Leonid V., Sumbur vmesto muzyki: Stalinskaia kul'turnaia revoliutsiia 1936-1938 (Moscow, 1997)Google Scholar; Malia, Martin, Vollstreckter Wahn: Russland, 1917-1991 (Berlin, 1998), 276-79Google Scholar; Tucker, Robert C., Stalin in Power: The Revolution from Above, 1928-1941 (New York, 1990), 146-48, and 551-54Google Scholar. See also documentary volumes like Andrei Artizov and Oleg V Naumov, eds., Vlast'ikhudozhestvennaiaintelligentsiia-.Dokumenty TsKRKP(b)-VKP(b), VChK-OGPU-NKVD o kul'turnoipolitike. 1917-1953gg. (Moscow, 1999); D. L. Babichenko, ed., “Schast'e literatury“: Gosudarstvo i pisateli. 1925-1938 gg. Dokumenty (Moscow, 1997), 121-24.

5. See Rolf, Make, Das sowjetische Massenfest (Hamburg, 2006)Google Scholar. For a Russian translation, see Rol'f, Mal'te, Sovetskie massovyeprazdniki (Moscow, 2009)Google Scholar.

6. Kershaw, Ian, “'Working towards the Fuhrer': Reflections on the Nature of the Hitler Dictatorship,” in Kershaw, Ian and Lewin, Moshe, eds., Stalinism and Nazism: Dictatorships in Comparison (Cambridge, Eng., 1997), 88–106 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

7. Ringer, Fritz, Fields of Knowledge: French Academic Culture in Comparative Perspective, 1890-1920 (Cambridge, Eng., 1992), 4–5 Google Scholar. See also Bourdieu, Pierre, “Intellectual Field and Creative Project,” Social Science Information, no. 8 (1969): 89–199 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Bourdieu, Pierre, Die feinen Unterschiede: Kritik der gesellschaftlichen Urteilskraft (Frankfurt am Main, 1996), 355-59Google Scholar.

8. For semiotic communication, see, e.g., Eco, Umberto, Semiotik: Entwurf einer Theorie derZeichen (Munich, 1991), 15–19 Google Scholar. For Luhmann's ideas, see Luhmann, Niklas, Soziale Systeme: Grundriβ einer allgemeinen Theorie (Frankfurt am Main, 1987), 148-50Google Scholar.

9. Cohen, Bernhard C., The Press, the Public and Foreign Policy (Princeton, 1963)Google Scholar,

10. Benjamin, Walter, Das Kunstwerk im Zeitalter seiner technischen Reproduzierbarkeit. Drei Studien zur Kunstsoziologie. Nachwort (Frankfurt am Main, 1996)Google Scholar.

11. The Soviet calendar was supposed to differ quite clearly from its predecessor, a difference expressed in epithets such as “Red,” “our,” or “Soviet.” See Stites, Richard, Revolutionary Dreams: Utopian Vision and Experimental Life in the Russian Revolution (New York, 1989), 110 Google Scholar; Rolf, Make, “Constructing a Soviet Time: Bolshevik Festivals and Their Rivals during uie First Five-Year Plan,” Kritika 1, no. 3 (Summer 2000): 447-73CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

12. The press coverage of the Tenth Anniversary of the October Revolution in 1927 began as early as February. For examples from the regions, see “K desiatiletiiu Oktiabria,“ Voronezhskaia kommuna, no. 48 (27 February 1927): 4. For reports following the holiday, see “Million trudiashchikhsia Moskvy na Oktiabr'skoi demonstratsii,” Sovetskaia Sibir', no. 257 (10 November 1927): 1.

13. See Clark, Katerina, Petersburg, Crucible of Cultural Revolution (Cambridge, Mass., 1995), 243 Google Scholar; Rolf, , Das sowjetische Massenfest, 138-42Google Scholar.

14. Maiakovskii, Vladimir, “Nashe voskresen'e,” Antireligioznyi sbornik (Voronezh, 1938), 70–72 Google Scholar; Maiakovskii, , “1 Maia,” Sobranie sochinenii v shesti tomakh (Moscow, 1973), 1:342 Google Scholar. Maiakovskii, , “MIUD,” “Pervomaiskoe pozdravlenie,” and “Prazdnik urozhaia,” Sobranie sochinenii, 3:116-17, 124, and 127-29Google Scholar. Maiakovskii, , “Dva Maia,” “Maiskaia pesenka,“ and “Mai,” Sobranie sochinenii, 6:37–41, 41-43, and 93-94Google Scholar.

15. Gladkow, Fjodor, Zement (Bochum, 1992), 375–410 Google Scholar.

16. See, e.g., Ehrenburg, Ilia, Derzweite Tag (Berlin, 1974), 11 Google Scholar ; Kataev, Valentin, Vremia, vpered! (Moscow, 1932), 193 Google Scholar. The concept of die subbotnikwas die essence of this idealized vision of work as celebration. Consequendy die subbotnik as a metaphor loomed large in die producdon literature.

17. Makarenko, Anton, Einpddagogisches Poem (Berlin, 1976), 42, 252-53, 401-2, 566-67, 603-26, 628-29Google Scholar; Ostrovskii, Nikolai, Kak zakalialas'stal’ (Moscow, 1985), 299–301 Google Scholar. See also Giinther, Hans, “Education and Conversion: The Road to the New Man in die Totalitarian Bildungsroman,” in Giinther, Hans, ed., The Culture of the Stalin Period (Houndmills, 1990), 193–209 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

18. II'f, Il'ia and Petrov, Evgenii, Zolotoi telenok (Moscow, 1975), 58–60, 197, and 255-58Google Scholar; Gaidar, Arkadii, “Chuk i Gek,” Sobranie sochinenii v chetyrekh tomakh (Moscow, 1964), 3:33–68, 64-66Google Scholar; Zoshchenko, Mikhail, “Sviatochnye rasskazy” and “Gosd,” Sotsialnaia grust’ (Moscow, 1996), 63–65, and 224-25Google Scholar; Zoshchenko, , “Poslednee Rozhdestvo,” Sochineniia. 1920-egody: Rasskazy ifel'etony. Sentimental'nyepovesti (Moscow, 2000), 242-44Google Scholar.

19. Novels like Vsevolod Ivanov's Bronepoezdvtere staged in honor of die tendi anniversary, and Boris Lavrenev wrote his drama Razlom especially for diis holiday. In 1937 the twentieth anniversary also accelerated production of literature.

20. Kol'tsov, Mikhail, “Ispanskii dnevnik,” Izbrannyeproizvedeniia (Moscow, 1957), 3: 9–11 and 556-59Google Scholar.

21. Rossiiskaia gosudarstvennaia biblioteka, Otdel izoizdanii: Kartoteka, Moscow.

22. Reprinted in King, , Statins Retuschen, 142 Google Scholar. See also Viktor B. Koretskii, Liubimyi Stalin—schast'e narodnoe! (1950), poster-archive at www.russianposter.ru/index.php?rid=30010000000000 (last accessed 15 May 2009).

23. Koretskii, Viktor B., U nikh—u nas (1941)Google Scholar. See also Lazar'M. Lisitskii, Moskva— stolitsaSSSR (1940), poster archive at www.russianposter.ru/index.php?rid=30010000000000 (last accessed 15 May 2009).

24. Samokhvalov, Aleksandr N. in Gassner, et al., eds., Agitatsiia za schast'e, 147 Google Scholar.

25. Gerasimov, Aleksandr M., ibid., 63 Google Scholar. This image can be seen at www.tretyakovgallery. ru (last accessed 15 May 2009). For an illuminating interpretation of the composite style of concentric circles, see Plamper, Jan, “The Spatial Poetics of the Personality Cult: Circles around Stalin,” in Dobrenko, Evgeny and Naiman, Eric, eds., The Landscape of Stalinism: Essays in the Ideology of Space (Seattle, 2004), 27–31 Google Scholar

26. Pimenov in Gassner et al., eds., Agitatsiia za schast'e, 181. See Swift, E. Anthony, “The Soviet World of Tomorrow at the New York World's Fair: 1939,” Russian Review 57, no. 3 (July 1998): 364-79CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

27. Boris Ignatovich's Rally in Red Square (1935), Ivan Shagin's Sports Parade. Red Square (1932), and Zelma's, Georgii Physical Culture Demonstration. Red Square (mid-1930s), all reprinted in Bendavid-Val, Leah, ed., Propaganda and Dreams: Photographing the 1930s in the USSR and the USA (New York, 1999), 81–82 Google Scholar; Rodchenko, Aleksandr in Lavrentiev, Alexander, ed., Alexander Rodchenko: Photography 1924-1954 (Cologne, 1995), 266-84Google Scholar.

28. Kracauer, Siegfried, Das Ornament der Masse (Frankfurt am Main, 1977)Google Scholar.

29. Leningradskii Gubprofsovetskii kul'totdel, ed., Massovye pesni: K desiatiletiiu Oktiabr'- skoi revolutsii (Leningrad, 1927); Sobolev, P. M., ed., Massovye pesni (Smolensk, 1935)Google Scholar.

30. Boym, Svetlana, “Paradoxes of Unified Culture: From Stalin's Fair Tale to Molotov's Lacquer Box,” in Lahusen, Thomas and Dobrenko, Evgeny, eds., Socialist Realism without Shores (Durham, 1997), 126-28Google Scholar; Jenks, Andrew, “From Periphery to Center: Palekh and Indigenization in the Russian Heartland,” Kritika 3, no. 3 (Summer 2002): 441 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

31. Tsentr dokumentov noveishei istorii Voronezhskoi Oblasti (TsDNIVO), f. 3, op. 1, d. 3595, 1. 16ob.; Gosudarstvennyi arkhiv Novosibirskoi Oblasti (GANO), f. 2, op. 1, d. 1823,11. 32-34.

32. Tvorchestvo, no. 3 (1938): 11.

33. Waschik, Klaus and Baburina, Nina, Werben für die Utopie: Russische Plakathunst des 20. Jahrhunderts (Bietigheim-Bissingen, 2003), 254 Google Scholar. See also Kenez, Peter, The Birth of the Propaganda State: Soviet Methods of Mass Mobilization, 1917-1929 (Cambridge, Eng., 1985)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

34. The presence of the books on the shelves in a Ukrainian village was noted by a German soldier. See Stratowa, Wulf, Kein Friede in Stalingrad: Feldpostbriefe 1941/1942 (Vienna, 1998), 50–51 Google Scholar. For the mass copying of famous paintings, see Plamper, Jan, “The Stalin Cult in the Visual Arts, 1929-1953” (Ph.D. diss., University of California, Berkeley, 2001), 142-48Google Scholar; and forth coming Plamper, jan, The Stalin Cult: A Study in the Alchemy of Power (Ithaca, 2009), chap. 5 Google Scholar.

35. See Petrone, Karen, “Life Has Become More Joyous, Comrades“: Celebrations in the Time of Stalin (Bloomington, 2000), 25 Google Scholar.

36. See the design for the Palace of Soviets (1931), in Antonowa, Irina and Merkert, Jörn, eds., Berlin—Moskau / Moskau—Berlin, 1900-1950. Ausstellungskatalog (Munich, 1995), 283 Google Scholar.

37. See Boris Iofan's, Vladimir Shchuko's, and Vladimir Gel'freikh's designs from the years 1932-33, in Groys, Boris and Hollen, Max, eds., Dream Factory Communism: The Visual Culture of the Stalin Era (Frankfurt am Main, 2003), 238 Google Scholar.

38. See, e.g., Papernyi, Vladimir, Kul'tura “dva” (Moscow, 1996), 27–29 Google Scholar; Hoisington, Sona Stephan, “'Ever Higher': The Evolution of the Project for the Palace of Soviets,” Slavic Review 62, no. 1 (Spring 2003): 41–68 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

39. For Moscow's “general plan,” see Bodenschatz, Harald and Post, Christiane, eds., Stddtebau im Schatten Stalins: Die internationale Suche nach der sozialistischen Stadt in der Sowjetunion 1929-1935 (Berlin, 2003), 153-55Google Scholar; Papernyi, Vladimir, Architecture in the Age of Stalin: Culture Two (New York, 2002), 56–59 Google Scholar.

40. Cited in Stites, Revolutionary Dreams, 243. For a similar case in Novosibirsk, see Krasil'nikov, Sergei A., “Khronika sobytii,” in Krasil'nikov, Sergei A., ed., Nasha malaia rodina: Khrestomatiiapo istoriiNovosibirskoi oblasti 1921-1991 (Novosibirsk, 1997), 728-48Google Scholar.

41. See Chesnokov, G. A., Arkhitekturnoe razvitie goroda Voronezha (Voronezh, 1998), 16–18 Google Scholar; Rolf, , Das soxvjetische Massenfest, 145-49Google Scholar.

42. “Plan demonstratsii 7 noiabria v g. Voronezhe,” Kommuna, no. 255 (4 November 1935): 4.

43. TsDNFVO, f. 3, op. 1, d. 1687, 1. 157, “Oktiabr'skaia demonstratsiia v Voronezhe,“ Kommuna, no. 258 (10 November 1936): 3. For Novosibirsk, see GANO, f. 76, op. 1, d. 722,11. 71-74. See also Rolf, Make, “Working towards the Centre: Leader Cults and Spatial Politics in Pre-War Stalinism,” in Apor, Balázs et al., eds., The Leader Cult in Communist Dictatorships: Stalin and theEastem Bloc (Houndmills, 2004), 141-57CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

44. Zhemchuzhnyi, V., Kak organizovat’ Oktiabr'skuiu demonstratsiiu: Posobie dlia Oktiabr'- skikh komissii (Moscow, 1927), 7–8 Google Scholar.

45. TsDNIVO, f. 3, op. 1, d. 3133,1. 97ob.; GANO, f. 3, op. 1, d. 661,1. 3.

46. For Voronezh, see Vorotnikov, N. A., “Voronezh budet obraztsovym gorodom v SSSR,” Leninskiiput', no. 10 (1938): 42–46 Google Scholar.

47. “Tarn, gde zhivut po sovetski,” Voronezhskaia kommuna, no. 159 (15 July 1927): 2.

48. GANO, f. 3, op. 1, d. 654,1. 8.

49. For various dramatic uses of white, see, e.g., the conclusion of Aleksandrov's film Tsirk or posters like Viktor B. Koretskii's U nikh—u nas (1941) or Lazar’ M. Lisitskii's Moskva—stolitsa SSSR (1940), poster-archive at www.russianposter.ru/index.php?rid=30010000000000 (last accessed 15 May 2009).

50. For the first postrevolutionary years, see Geldern, James von, Bolshevik Festivals, 1917-1920 (Berkeley, 1993), 72–75, and 134-36Google Scholar. In 1927 alone, issues of celebration made it onto the agenda of the Politburo more than half a dozen times. See Adibekov, G. M. et al., eds., Politbiuro TsK RKP(b)-VKP(b): Povestki dnia zasedanii, 1919-1952, vol. 1, 1919-1929, Katalog (Moscow, 2000), 534-35, 563, 569, and 576Google Scholar.

51. Tsentral'naia komissiia po podgotovke i provedeniiu prazdnovaniia 10-letiia Oktiabr'skoi revoliutsii, Gosudarstvennyi arkhiv Rossiiskoi Federatsii (GARF), f. 3316, op. 19, d. 869,11. 19 52 (17 November 1926); GARF, f. 3316, op. 19, d. 870,1. 1 (22 November 1926).

52. GARF, f. 3316, op. 13, d. 17,11. 12-13 and 35-36.

53. TsDNIVO, f. 3, op. 1, d. 2779,11. 5-6; “K 10-letiiu osvobozhdeniia TsChO ot belykh,“ Kommuna, no. 248 (27 October 1929): 1.

54. f., Gano 3, op. 1, d. 591,1. 11; “O prazdnovanii desiatiletnego iubileia osvobozhdeniia Sibiri ot Kolchakovshchiny,” Prosveshchenie Sibiri, no. 10 (1929): 53–54 Google Scholar.

55. Originally korenizatsiia meant indigenizing Soviet rule in the peripheries of the USSR by establishing communist cadres coming from the local ethnicity. See Martin, Terry, The Affirmative Action Empire: Nations and Nationalism in the Soviet Union, 1923-1939 (Ithaca, 2001), 26–27 Google Scholar.

56. “Plan provedeniia 1 Maia (Voronezh),” Voronezhskaia Kommuna, no. 94 (28 April 1927): 4; “Nakanune,” Kommuna, no. 234 (9 October 1932): 4.

57. Elsewhere, I have pointed to a similar dynamic in the local dissemination of mini leader cults. See Rolf, Make, “The Leader's Many Bodies: Leader Cults and Mass Festivals in Voronezh, Novosibirsk, and Kemerovo in the 1930s,” in Heller, Klaus and Plamper, Jan, eds., Personality Cults in Stalinism (Gottingen, 2004), 197–206 Google Scholar.

58. In a division of labor among Politburo members it was mainly Lazar’ Kaganovich's job to deal with festival affairs. Rossiiskii Gosudarstvennyi arkhiv sotsial'no-politicheskoi istorii (RGASPI), f. 17, op. 3, d. 990,1. 325; RGASPI, f. 17, op. 114, d. 621,11. 82-83.

59. Recent research has pointed out die degree to which artists worked out their own criteria even in highly supervised fields of art or literature. For debates of competing authors in the field of literature (and the following “statements from on high“), see, e.g., Clark, , Petersburg, Crucible of Cultural Revolution, 285-86Google Scholar. For the painters of the Stalin cult, see, e.g., Plamper, “The Stalin Cult in the Visual Arts“; Plamper, The Stalin Cult, chap. 5.

60. Lane, Christel, The Bites oj Rulers: Ritual in Industrial Society—The Soviet Case (Cambridge, Eng., 1981), 5 Google Scholar.

61. Lenin cited by Vsevolod Meierkhol'd, “Doklad,” in O khudozhestvennom oformlenii demonstratsii: Itogi obshchemoskovskogo soveshchaniia izorabotnikov (Moscow, 1932), 5-8. Also see Kerzhentsev, Platon, Tvorcheskii teatr (Petrograd, 1920), 100–103 Google Scholar; Lunacharskii, Anatolii, “O narodnykh prazdnestvakh,” in Lunacharskii, Anatolii, O teatre i dramaturgii: Russkii dorevoliutsionnyi i sovetskii teatr (Moscow, 1958), 1: 193-96, 190Google Scholar.

62. Smyshliaev, V, “Massovyi teatr i iskusstvo,” in Rechi i besedy propagandista: Organizatsiia massovykh narodnykh prazdnestv. Sbornik (Moscow, 1921), 9 Google Scholar; Elizarov, I. la., Prazdniki nastoiashchego i prazdniki proshlogo: Religioznye i obshchestvennye prazdniki (Leningrad, 1926), 3, and 22-24Google Scholar.

63. Kuz'min, I., “Znachenie ‘dnia urozhaia,'” in Voz'minskii, A. and Kuz'min, I., eds., Prazdnik urozhaia (Moscow, 1924), 81–91 Google Scholar; Voz'minskii, A., “Kak provodilsia ‘prazdnik urozhaia,'“ in Voz'minskii, and Kuz'min, , eds., Prazdnik urozhaia, 69–80 Google Scholar.

64. Dmitriev, A., “Za podgotovku po dniu urozhaia i kollektivizatsii,” Leninskii put', nos. 16-17 (1929): 40–42 Google Scholar.

65. Tsekhnovitser, Orest, Demonstratsiia i karnaval: K desiatoi godovshchine oktiabr'skoi revoliutsii (Leningrad, 1927), 13–14 Google Scholar; Danilevskii, M., Prazdniki obshchestvennogo byta: Torzhestvennoe zasedanie, oktiabriny, godovshchiny. Organizatsiia, metodika, praktika (Moscow, 1927), 10–15 Google Scholar.

66. Izvekov, N. P., “Priemy izucheniia massovogo prazdnika,” in iskusstv, Komitet sotsiologicheskogo izucheniia, ed., Problemy sotsiologii iskusstva: Sbornik (Leningrad, 1926), 130-33Google Scholar; Krupskaia, Nadezhda, “O politprosvetrabote v rabochei srede,” Pedagogicheskie sochineniia v desiati tomakh: Osnovy politiko-prosvetitel'noi raboty (Moscow, 1959), 7:274-83Google Scholar.

67. On the notion that Stalinist culture did not so much develop gradually as in periodic spasms, see Clark, Petersburg, Crucible of Cultural Revolution, esp. 284-85. For a similar argument, see Groys, Boris, Gesamtkunstwerk Stalin: Die gespaltene Kultur in der Sowjetunion (Munich, 1988), 11–14 Google Scholar.

68. RGASPI, f. 357, op. 1, d. 18, 1. 9. Danilevskii, M., Ulitsa i ploshchad1 v Oktiabr'skie dni: Stsenarii masovykh deistvii i metodika ikh provedeniia (Moscow, 1927), 3–4 Google Scholar; Podvoiskii, Nikolai and Orlinskii, A., Massovoe deistvo: Rukovodstvo k organizatsii i provedeniiu prazdnovaniia desiatiletiia Oktiabriai drugikh revoliutsionnykh prazdnikov (Moscow, 1927), 3 Google Scholar; Riumin, Evgenii, Massovye prazdnestva (Moscow, 1927), 20–22 and 71-72Google Scholar. Zhemchuzhnyi, , Kak organizovat’ Oktiabr'skuiu demonstratsiiu, 5–6 Google Scholar; Danilevskii, , Prazdniki obshchestvennogo byta, 10–15 Google Scholar.

69. Roshchin, L., “Iskusstvo massovykh prazdnestv,” Iskusstvo v massy, nos. 5-6 (1929): 25–28 Google Scholar; deistva OSMKS, Kollektiv massovogo, ed., Massovoe deistvo, stsenarii, igry (Moscow, 1929), 14 Google Scholar.

70. Kuznetsova, A. et al., Oformlenie goroda v dni revoliutsionnykh prazdnestv (Moscow, 1932), 68 Google Scholar; Kurella, A., “Kakimi dolzhny byt'nashi proletarskie prazdniki?” Revoliutsiia i kul'tura, no. 17 (1928): 47 Google Scholar; Roshchin, L., “Vozvedenie entuziazma v stepen',” Iskusstvo v massy, nos. 5-6 (1929): 28–30 Google Scholar.

71. Groys, , Gesamtkunstwerk Stalin, 11–14 Google Scholar.

72. Iudin, B., Narodnye prazdnestva (Moscow, 1937), 4 Google Scholar. See also Rittersporn, Gábor T., “The Omnipresent Conspiracy: On the Soviet Imagery of Politics and Social Relations in the 1930s,” in Lampert, Nick and Rittersporn, Gabor T., eds., Stalinism: Its Nature and Aftermath (Armonk, N.Y, 1992), 101-20CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

73. Gosudarstvennyi arkhiv Kemerovskoi Oblasti (GAKO), f. R. 22, op. 1, d. 108, 11. 83-84ob.

74. TsDNIVO, f. 1, op. 1, d. 1702,11. 71-73; GANO, f. 2, op. 1, d. 1823,11. 57-75; Kudinov, P., “Vnimanie massovoi khudozhestvennoi politprosvetrabote,” Kul'turnyi front, nos. 12-13 (1932): 45–46 Google Scholar; Shchukin, Iu. and Pagidson, A., Oformlenie massovogo prazdnestua i demonstratsii (Moscow, 1932), 12 Google Scholar. For this generally intensified critic of “unprofessional“ amateur performances by party leaders and artistic professionals, see Mally, Lynn, “Shock Workers on the Cultural Front: Agitprop Brigades in the First Five-Year Plan,” Russian History 23 (1996): 273-74CrossRefGoogle Scholar. In 1932 the regime abolished independent cultural organizations, disbanding organizations like the Proletkul't but also further marginalizing samodeiatel'- nost'. See Mally, Lynn, Culture of the Future: The Proletkult Movement in Revolutionary Russia (Berkeley, 1990), 250 Google Scholar.

75. See, e.g., Lunacharskii, Anatolii, “Prazdnestva frantsuzskoi revoliutsii,” O massovykhprazdnestvdkh, estrade, tsirke (Moscow, 1981), 1:100–101 Google Scholar; Gvozdev, A., “Massovye prazdnestva na zapade,” in istorii iskusstv, Gosudarstvennyi institut, ed., Massovye prazdnestva Sbornik komiteta sotsiologicheskogo izucheniia iskusstv (Leningrad, 1926), 5–52 Google Scholar; Riumin, , Massovye prazdnestva, 5–8 Google Scholar; Trotzki, Leo, “Schnaps, Kirche und Kino,” Fragen des Alltagslebens (Dortmund, 1977), 44–52 Google Scholar; Elizarov, , Prazdniki nastoiashchego i prazdniki proshlogo, 3, and 22-25Google Scholar.

76. Iudin, B., “Pravo na prazdnik,” in Iudin, B. et al., eds., Massovye prazdnestva (Moscow, 1935), 3–21 Google Scholar; Gvozdev, A., “Problema narodnosti v istorii teatra,” Narodnoe tvorchestvo, nos. 10-11 (1938): 37–46 Google Scholar.

77. Roshchin, , “Vozvedenie entuziazma v stepen',” 28–30 Google Scholar; Borisov, V. et al., Massovoe deistvo— pervomaiskiiprazdnik 1932g. (Moscow, 1932), 5 Google Scholar; Glan, Betti, Udarnorabotat'- kul'turno otdykhat’ (Moscow, 1933), 36 Google Scholar.

78. See Stalin's phrase from November 1935: “Zhit'stalo luchshe, zhit’ stalo veselee,“ in Stalin, Iosef, Sochineniia, ed. McNeal, Robert (Stanford, 1967), 1 (XIV): 89 Google Scholar.

79. On this formalizing power of the intelligentsia that partly shaped the mindset of the political functionaries, see also Clark, , Petersburg, Crucible of Cultural Revolution, 285-96Google Scholar.

80. On establishing the party line in literature and the creation of the socialist realist canon, see, e.g., Babichenko, D. L., ed., “Schast'e literatury“: Gosudarstvo ipisateli. 1925-1938 gg. Dokumenty (Moscow, 1997)Google Scholar; Beyrau, Dietrich, “Der organisierte Autor: Institutionen, Kontrolle, Fürsorge,” in Gorzka, Gabriele, ed., Kultur im Stalinismus: Sowjetische Kunst und Kultur der 1930er bis 50erjahre (Bremen, 1994), 60–77 Google Scholar; Clark, , Petersburg, Crucible of Cultural Revolution, 284–307 Google Scholar; Dobrenko, Evgeny, The Making of the State Reader: Social and Aesthetic Contexts of the Reception of Soviet Literature (Stanford, 1997)Google Scholar; Gunther, Hans, Die Verstaatlichung der Literatur: Entstehen und Funktionsweise des sozialistisch-realistischen Kanons in der sowjetischen Literatur der 30erfahre (Stuttgart, 1984)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

81. Iudin, , Narodnyeprazdnestva, 48 Google Scholar; Gliazer, S., Narodnyeprazdnestva: Vpomoshch’ organizatoru i oformiteliu pervomaiskogo prazdnika (Moscow, 1938), 2 Google Scholar. Also, festival experts themselves fostered political interference. Calls for the guiding role of political institutions were legion. See, e.g., Kuznetsova, et al., Oformleniegoroda v dni revoliutsionnykh prazdnestv, 68 Google Scholar.

82. For an illuminating interpretation of this interaction in the field of literature, see Lahusen, Thomas, How Life Writes the Book: Real Socialism and Socialist Realism in Stalin's Russia (Ithaca, 1997)Google Scholar. For the field of music, see Matthias Stadelmann, IsaakDunaevskii— Sanger des Volkes: Eine Karriere unter Stalin (Cologne, 2003), 207-11. The same could be said for scientific fields of knowledge such as medicine, biology, or anthropology. See, e.g., Naiman, Eric, “Discourse Made Flesh: Healing and Terror in the Construction of Soviet Subjectivity,” in Halfin, Igal, ed., Language and Revolution: Making Modern Political Identities (London, 2002), 287–316 Google Scholar. Consider also a different case of paradigm setting. When Stalin himself stated that it was “well known” that the Soviet Union consisted of 60 nationalities, Soviet ethnographers rushed to reduce the much larger number of hitherto acknowledged nationalities (about 100) to this new figure. The concrete decision about which ethnic groups would lose their official status as a nationality was made by the ethnographers themselves. See the fascinating account by Hirsch, Francine, Empire of Nations: Ethnographic Knowledge and the Making of the Soviet Union (Ithaca, 2005), 273–308 Google Scholar.

83. See Ringer, , Fields of Knowledge, 4–8 Google Scholar. Michel Foucault has pointed to the formative power of matrixes or configurations of knowledge shaped by various institutions that thus control the concepts that are available to contemporaries. See Foucault, Michel, Archäologie des Wissens (Frankfurt am Main, 1997), 33–36 Google Scholar; Foucault, Michel, Die Ordnung des Diskurses (Frankfurt am Main, 1997), 10–14, and 41-45Google Scholar.

84. For officially sponsored publications and institutions, see Danilevskii, , Ulitsa iploshchad' v Oktiabr'skie dni, 1 Google Scholar; Tsekhnovitser, Orest, Prazdnestva revoliutsii (Leningrad, 1931), 1 Google Scholar; Moskovskii gubernskii sovet professional'nykh soiuzov, ed., Materialy po provedeniiu 10-oi godovshchiny Oktiabria v rabochem klube, krasnom ugolke i biblioteke: Izo-oformlenie Oktiabr'skikh prazdnestv (Moscow, 1927); Gosudarstvennyi institut istorii iskusstv, ed., Massovye prazdnestva: Sbornik komiteta sotsiologicheskogo izucheniia iskusstv (Leningrad, 1926).

85. GARF, f. 3316, op. 19, d. 869,1. 19.

86. Danilevskii, Ulitsa i ploshchad’ v Oktiabr'skie dni.

87. Tsekhnovitser, , Demonstratsiia i karnaval, 24–26 Google Scholar.

88. TsDNIVO, f. 37, op. 1, d. 363,1. 4; Gvozdev, , “Problema narodnosti v istorii teatra“; “Prazdnik pervoi borozdy,” Kul'turnyi front, nos. 3-4 (1931): 19–21 Google Scholar; “Plan provedeniia 1 maia,” Kommuna, no. 92 (23 April 1929): 4.

89. See Iudin, Narodnye prazdneslva; Gliazer, Narodnye prazdnestva. See also Miller, Frank, Folklore for Stalin: Russian Folklore and Pseudofolklore of the Stalin Era (Armonk, N.Y., 1990)Google Scholar; Weiss, Daniel, “Miϐbrauchte Folklore? Zur propagandistischen Einordnung des 'sovetskii fol'klor,'” in Rathmayr, Renate and Weitlaner, Wolfgang, eds., SlavistischeLinguistik 1998: Referate des XXTV. Konstanzer Slavistischen Arbeitstreffens (Munich, 1999), 283–324 Google Scholar.

90. See, e.g., Gvozdev, “Massovye prazdnestva na zapade.“

91. See, e.g., Smith, Susannah Lockwood, “From Peasants to Professionals: The Socialist-Realist Transformation of a Russian Folk Choir,” Kritika 3, no. 3 (Summer 2002): 427-58CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

92. Podvoiskii, and Orlinskii, , Massovoe deistvo, 3 Google Scholar; Riumin, , Massovye prazdnestva, 20–22, and 71-72Google Scholar.

93. RGASPI, f. 357, op. 1, d. 19, 11. 9-11; G. Labunskaia and A. Eisner, 5 chem i kak vykhodit’ na ulitsu: Oformlenie demonstratsii (Moscow, 1928), 48.

94. Riumin, Massovye prazdnestva; Lisovskii, M., Oktiabr’ v klubakh: Sbornik materialov k prazdnovaniiu godovshchiny Oktiabr'skoi revoliutsii (Moscow, 1927)Google Scholar; Moskovskii gubernskii sovet professional'nykh soiuzov, ed., Materialy po provedeniiu 10-oi godovshchiny Oktiabria.

95. GARF, f. 3316, op. 13, d. 28, 11. 42ob.-43; RGASPI, f. 17, op. 144, d. 761, 11. 64-66.

96. See, e.g., Eaton, Katherine Bliss, Enemies of the People: The Destruction of Soviet Literature, Theater, and Film Arts in the 1930s (Evanston, 2002)Google Scholar; Volkov, Solomon M., Shostakovich and Stalin: The Extraordinary Relationship between the Great Composer and the Brutal Dictator (London, 2004)Google Scholar.

97. Dobrenko, , The Making of the State Reader, 193-95Google Scholar; Rittersporn, Gábor T. et al., “Open Spaces and Public Realm: Thoughts on the Public Sphere in Soviet-Type Systems,“ in Rittersporn, Gabor T. et al., eds., Between the Great Show of the Party-State and Religious Counter-Cultures: Public Spheres in Soviet-Type Societies (Frankfurt am Main, 2003), 435-38Google Scholar. For a discussion of a “Soviet vox populi” after 1953, see Reid, Susan E., “In the Name of the People: The Manège Affair Revisited,” Kritika 6, no. 4 (Fall 2005): 673-716CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

98. References to the “demands of the masses” were legion. See Tsekhnovitser, , Demonstratsiia i karnaval, 14, and 31-33Google Scholar; Riumin, , Massovyeprazdnestva, 71–74 Google Scholar.

99. For different forms of “speaking out,” see Cassiday, Julie A., The Enemy on Trial: Early Soviet Courts on Stage and Screen (DeKalb, 2000)Google Scholar; Hellbeck, Jochen, “Speaking Out: Languages of Affirmation and Dissent in Stalinist Russia,” Kritika 1, no. 1 (Winter 2000): 71–96 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Fitzpatrick, Sheila, “Supplicants and Citizens: Public Letter-Writing in Soviet Russia in the 1930s,” Slavic Review 55, no. 1 (Spring 1996): 78–105 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

100. For petitions, see GANO, f. 4, op. 3, d. 300,1. 8; for tickets, see GAKO, f. R. 64, op. 2, d. 338,1. 21; for official gifts and rewards, see GAKO, f. R. 18, op. 1, d. 350,1. 15; GAKO, f. R. 18, op. l, d. 350,11. 16-20.

101. RGASPI, f. 17, op. 114, d. 761, 11. 25-33; GANO, f. 22, op. 3, d. 157, 11. 1-4; GANO, f. 190, op. 2, d. 59, 11. 119-24. For making use of practices of denunciation, see also Fitzpatrick, Sheila, “Signals from Below: Soviet Letters of Denunciation of the 1930s,“ Journal of Modern History 68, no. 4 (December 1996): 853-54CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

102. Gosudarstvennyi arkhiv Voronezhskoi Oblasti (GAVO), f. 10, op. 1, d. 1844, 11. 26-30; TsDNIVO, f. 3, op. 1, d. 2249,1. 301; GANO, f. R. 1020, op. 1, d. 53, 11. 1-23. For a further elaboration of this Soviet target-date mentality, see Rolf, “Constructing a Soviet Time,” 455-59.

103. GANO, f. 896, op. 1, d. 353, 11. 108-10; GAKO, f. R. 18, op. 1, d. 350, 1. 1; NFGAKO, f. R. 1, op. 1, d. 267,11. 52-62ob. and 87-114.

104. GANO, f. 4, op. 3, d. 300, 1. 45; GANO, f. 4, op. 3, d. 296, 11. 28-31; GANO, f. 1020, op. 1, d. 106, 11. 1-3. For similar cases in Leninsk-Kuznetskii and Voronezh, see GANO, f. 4, op. 33, d. 228,1. 77; TsDNIVO, f. 3, op. 1, d. 2952.

105. GANO, f. 1020, op. 1, d. 53, 11. 10-12; GANO, f. 47, op. 1, d. 421, 1. 3; GANO, f. 2, op. 1, d. 3327,11. 5-9; TsDNIVO, f. 3, op. 1, d. 37,1. 280.

106. “Zubnaia shchetka i gazety budut v nashei sem'e,” Kommuna, no. 252 (1 November 1933): 3. For an expansion of political language to other realms, see also Kenez, , Birth of the Propaganda State, 255-56Google Scholar.

107. The phrase “speaking Soviet” is, of course, inspired by Stephen Kotkin's “speaking Bolshevik.” I would argue, though, that the regime expected people to speak and act in a “Soviet” rather than in a “Bolshevik” way. “Bolshevik” carried a strong political connotation, while “Soviet” was much more widely used for everyday items and practices. For “speaking Bolshevik,” see Stephen Kotkin, Magnetic Mountain: Stalinism as a Civilization (Berkeley, 1995), 198-201. This is not to say that people necessarily “believed” in what they were saying or doing. In this focus on the dynamics of communication, the believedisbelieve debate is not of primary interest. It did not matter so much whether participants were convinced that they were serving the cause of revolution or acting in strategic ways to smooth their careers. Most of die time this was a difficult distinction to make anyway, but in the course of establishing and tightening a Soviet set of communicative regulations, personal motifs were not crucial. Only the general commitment to follow the guidelines of these regulations was of importance. For the debate on the role of belief in the game of “speaking Soviet/Bolshevik,” see, e.g., Kotkin, , Magnetic Mountain, 609-12Google Scholar; Hellbeck, Jochen, “Fashioning the Stalinist Soul: The Diary of Stepan Podlubnyi (1931-1939),“ in Fitzpatrick, Sheila, ed., Stalinism: New Directions (London, 2000), 99–102 Google Scholar; Rolf, , Das sowjetische Massenfest, 248-52Google Scholar; Tucker, , Stalin in Power, 526-29Google Scholar.

108. Popov, N., “Novyi ‘sovetskii’ kalendar',” Kul'turnyi front, no. 10 (1929): 9–13 Google Scholar.

109. TsDNIVO, f. 1, op. 1, d. 1975,11. 34-35.

110. “Tam, gde zhivut po sovetski,” Voronezhskaia kommuna, no. 159 (15 July 1927): 2.

111. See Hoffmann, David Lloyd, Stalinist Values: The Cultural Norms of Soviet Modernity (Ithaca, 2003), 45–48 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

112. NFGAKO, f. R. 1, op. 1, d. 267, 11. 71-120. For barrack number 8, see Kotkin, , Magnetic Mountain, 198–200, and 215-17Google Scholar.

113. E.g. Arzhilovsky, Andrei, “Diary,” in Garros, Véronique et al., eds., Intimacy and Terror: Soviet Diaries of the 1930s (New York, 1995), 119 Google Scholar; Zinaida Denis'evskaia, Otdel rukopisei Rossiiskoi gosudarstvennoi biblioteki, f. 752, op. 2, d. 4 (entries from 7 November 1930, 1 May 1931, and 1 May 1932); Leder, Mary, My Life in Stalinist Russia: An American Woman Looks Back (Bloomington, 2001), 31–32 Google Scholar; Lugovskaya, Nina, The Diary of a Soviet Schoolgirl, 1932-1937 (Chicago, 2003), 23–24, 45-46, 66-67, 92-94, 97-98, 171-73, and 190-91Google Scholar; Podlubnyj, Stepan, Tagebuch (Munich, 1996), 80, 100-102, 255-57, and 271Google Scholar; Galina Shtange, “Diary,” in Garros et al., eds., Soviet Diaries, 167-217, 169, 170, 190, 202, and 210; Ustrialov, Nikolai, ‘“Sluzhit'rodine prikhoditsia kostiami…’ Dnevnik N. V. Ustrialova 1935-1937 gg.,” Istochnik, nos. 5-6 (1998): 10 and 80Google Scholar.

114. Frolov, Ignat, “Diary,” in Garros, et al., eds., Soviet Diaries, 48–49 Google Scholar.

115. Kosterina, Nina, Tagebuch (Munich, 1973), 9 Google Scholar.

116. Ibid., 9-10.

117. GANO, f. 3, op. 3, d. 837,11. 8-16; GANO, f. 22, op. 3, d. 848,11. 5-7, 28, and 98; GAKO, f. P. 51, op. 1, d. 238,11. 8-21; NFGAKO, f. R. 1, op. 1, d. 267,11. 110-110ob.; Arzhilovsky, “Diary,” 118-20, and 156-58. On such tensions, see also Petrone, , “Life Has Become More Joyous Comrades,” 94–100 and 205-6Google Scholar.

118. For studies on implementing a “language of revolution,” see, e.g., Corney, Frederick C., Telling October: Memory and the Making of the Bolshevik Revolution (Ithaca, 2004)Google Scholar; Hellbeck, Jochen, Revolution on My Mind: Writing a Diary under Stalin (Cambridge, Mass., 2006), 55–67 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Steinberg, Mark D., Proletarian Imagination: Self, Modernity, and the Sacred in Russia, 1910-1925 (Ithaca, 2002)Google Scholar.

119. The Soviet way of reading had much in common with a premodern style of intensive and often collective reciting. See Schon, Erich, Der Verlust der Sinnlichkeit oderDie Verwandlung des Lesers: Mentalitatswandel um 1800 (Stuttgart, 1987), 177-79Google Scholar.

120. This is not to say that no life existed outside the Stalinist value system and that no resistance against it was possible. Large segments of society—like those in the outer peripheries of the empire or in the inner peripheries of the countryside—continued a way of life that was only marginally or indirectly touched by the Sovietizing forces of the regime. Numerous studies have demonstrated how the Stalinist propaganda and police apparatus failed in bringing “Soviet civilization” to these isolated cultural milieus. It did succeed in turning older unquestioned habits into self-reflective traditions, however. Such conscious-grown forms of non-Soviet culture now served as manifestations of reluctance to or even resistance against the official cultural canon. In this sense, even they had to relate to the Soviet norm.

Expressions of critical attitudes or deviant behavior during the 1930s often quite directly reproduced the official set of symbols, practices, or values. Thus, nonconformist popular chastiushki composed in the prewar decade, for example, were pervaded by references to the Soviet cultural canon they ridiculed. These little corners of renitent neglect or stubbornness, bitter irony or conscious subversion were meaningful for the regime's agents as much as for “ordinary” people. The subversive use of the system's symbols and rituals opened up spheres for cultural agency for many contemporaries. At the same time they also demonstrate how much it was a Sovietized cultural agenda that framed loyal as well as disloyal behavior.

This intense and sometime paradoxical mutuality of the regime's hierarchy of norms and the many forms of reluctance or resistance is, in my view, still understudied. Such a focus on the interdependency of norms and their alternation or subversion will not obscure the bitterness and brutality of this war over meaning and culture but may unearth some possible contemporary maneuvering even within the tight corset of the Sovietized cultural cosmos. And this surely deserves more of our attention. On traditional culture becoming self-reflective in the course of Bolshevik stigmatization and oppression, see, e.g., Baberowski, Jörg, “Die Entdeckung des Unbekannten: RuBland und das Ende Osteuropas,” in Baberowski, Jorg et al., eds., Geschichte ist immer Gegenwart: Vier Thesen zur Zeitgeschichte (Stuttgart, 2001), 9–42, esp. 42Google Scholar; Northrop, Douglas T., “Subaltern Dialogues: Subversion and Resist ance in Soviet Uzbek Family Law,” S/awcifewew 60, no. 1 (Spring 2001): 115-39Google Scholar. On popular resistance in the 1930s, see, e.g., Viola, Lynne, “Popular Resistance in the Stalinist 1930s: Soliloquy of a Devil's Advocate,” in Viola, Lynne, eds., Contending with Stalinism: Soviet Power and Popular Resistance in the 1930s (Ithaca, 2002), 17–43 Google Scholar; on the chastiushki, see Rittersporn, Gábor T., “Le régime face au carnaval: Folklore non conformiste en U.R.S.S. dans les années 1930,” Annates, no. 2 (2003): 471-96Google Scholar.

121. Hellbeck, , Revolution on My Mind, 55–67 Google Scholar.