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A Book of Socialism: Stalinist Culture and the First Edition of the Bolshaia sovetskaia entsiklopediia
- Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History
- Slavica Publishers
- Volume 6, Number 1, Winter 2005 (New Series)
- pp. 55-95
- 10.1353/kri.2005.0009
- Article
- Additional Information
Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History 6.1 (2005) 55-95
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A Book of Socialism
Stalinist Culture and the First Edition of the Bol´shaia sovetskaia entsiklopediia
Brian Kassof
University of California, Berkeley
3229 Dwinelle Hall
Berkeley, CA 94720-2550 USA
bkassof@wesleyan.edu
When the first edition of the Bol´shaia sovetskaia entsiklopediia (The Great Soviet Encyclopedia, hereafter BSE) was launched in 1926, its publication schedule reflected the ideal of rational, ordered, and predictable production that many Bolshevik intellectuals viewed as a key aspect of socialism. Volumes were to appear in alphabetical/numerical order, at a rate of four per year.1 Looking today at the edition's 65 volumes on a shelf, this promise appears to have been kept. A closer examination, however, yields a different picture. The publication of the BSE was not an orderly affair but one marked by chaos and unpredictability. The regular, predictable issuance of volumes lasted only a few years, through volume 10 in 1928. After this, the number of volumes published annually fluctuated from two to five over a 20-year span.2
Starting with volume 11, many volumes also began to appear out of order. At first disruptions were minor, as two volumes (11 and 22) were skipped over. But the order of publication became truly chaotic in 1931, when editors suddenly jumped from volume 23 (which covered the letter ) to volume 65 () without warning to the BSE's subscribers. For the next seven years, volumes of the BSE covering both ends of the alphabet were released in no predictable order. A relatively predictable pattern of publication resumed in [End Page 55] 1938, although it would again be disrupted in 1946, when the final few volumes were released.
The BSE's erratic publication schedule was only one manifestation of the difficulties its head editors encountered during these two decades. Seven years into the project, editors and party officials seriously discussed creating substantially different versions of the first 20 volumes to replace the originals. The production of the BSE, not simply as a collection of individual texts but as a physical artifact that linked these texts and made their mass circulation possible, brought to the fore an entire series of problems connected to the creation of a new Soviet culture.3 As a result, it provides an unusual window into the inner workings of Soviet cultural production, particularly its Stalinist variant, to examine how party officials attempted to shape and control the creation and dissemination of cultural works. It allows us to examine not only institutional structures and practices but also some of the key concepts and trends that informed party actions.
This article uses the production of the BSE to examine three specific features of Stalinist culture. Two grew out of long-term dilemmas that complicated the Party's efforts to shape cultural production. While these dilemmas were not unique to the Stalin period, they became more acute under Stalin, as party attempts to influence cultural output reached their apex.
The first of these concerned the Party's belief that an appropriate balance had to be struck between the roles of expertise and ideological insight in the arts, sciences, and educated professions. Tensions have often existed between political authorities and professional experts in post-Enlightenment societies.4 These tensions were especially acute in the Soviet Union, particularly during the Stalinist period, since the success of socialism was seen as predicated on the marriage of politics and science. The party leadership's changing stance on the proper relationship between the two lay at the heart of many of the upheavals and shifts that characterized Soviet cultural and professional life.5 The narrative of how successive generations of professional cadres rose and fell, pioneered by Sheila Fitzpatrick and Kendall Bailes, follows these [End Page 56] changes.6 The story of the BSE's production adds a new dimension to this narrative, particularly as it concerns later stages of the Cultural Revolution. A closer examination of this story can also...