Algemeen Oudheid en Middeleeuwen 1501-1600 1601-1700 1701-1800 1801-1900 1901-2000 2001-nu Stalinisme Maoïsme Neoliberalisme Socialisme Neomarxisme en Kritische theorie Algemeen Complottheorieën Irrationaliteit Irrationaliteit (Bijgeloof en religie) Leugens, desinformatie, propaganda Klokkenluiders"Despite their practical engagement with socialist ideology and the interest they garnered from the press and other contemporaries, the urban communes have largely remained on the margins of Soviet history." Andy WILLIMOTT - Living the revolution - Urban communes & Soviet socialism, 1917–1932, p.4
Andy WILLIMOTT[Vreselijk, al die dankbetuigingen. En natuurlijk had de man een harmonisch bestaan, want hij bedankt ook zijn vrouw en zijn ouders. Ik kan me niet voorstellen dat je dan ook maar iets snapt van revolutie, maar goed.]
"The urban communes were the product of a revolution that vowed to change the world. Erupting out of the political and social chaos of the failed tsarist state, the October Revolution gave birth to the first socialist state in history and ushered in far-reaching reforms designed to tackle social inequality, injustice, and exploitation. Capitalism, liberalism, and the Church were declared enemies of state. They were to be replaced by a radically new political order founded on the principles of Marxist ideology—a system that pledged to pass all the means of production into common ownership, equalize pay, and elevate the working class into positions of authority. A new type of state and society was supposed to emerge through the imagined virtues of the proletariat and the untapped potential of collective human harmony."(2)
"Teenagers rejected the authority of their parents; women were emboldened to challenge the patriarchy; and many others joined nascent discussion circles and grassroots organizations—all in the name of the October Revolution."(2)
"This was the environment that gave birth to the urban commune, with revolutionary activists starting to rethink, among other things, their domestic habits and the way they conducted their everyday lives. They set about putting into practice their own conceptions of what it meant to be part of this ‘new dawn’. In the tenements and basic housing of the early Soviet landscape, these enthusiasts were dramatically reimagining the home. Innocuous features of domestic life—from internal walls to personal ornaments—became associated with ‘bourgeois individualism’ and had to be rejected."(3)
[Merkwaardig dat niet meteen woorden vallen als 'relaties', 'seks', 'huwelijk'. ]
"these young activists are in the process of establishing a system of pooled resources and shared duties. As a gesture of equality, linen, socks, and underwear are provided at the common expense, while household tasks, including meal preparation—usually limited to bread, potatoes, soup, and porridge—are undertaken by all cohabitants. A general roster, written on the noticeboard, ensures that they each take their turn performing these duties."(3)
[Niet een rooster met "die slaapt dan en dan met die"? ]
"Despite their practical engagement with socialist ideology and the interest they garnered from the press and other contemporaries, the urban communes have largely remained on the margins of Soviet history."(4)
"Indeed, anyone who has read Revolutionary Dreams might be forgiven for thinking that the urban communes were part of what Richard Stites saw as an intriguing moment in Soviet history when random and isolated utopian experimentation sprang to life, quite separate from the statist ambitions of the Bolshevik-led revolutionary project. Stites presented the array of utopian practices seen across the opening decade of the Soviet Union as some sort of alternative to the harsh realities of the socialist state, especially when compared to that which was to come under Stalin. In his view, these utopian practices were among the most important things to emerge out of the October Revolution. This approach distinguishes between the ambitions of the ‘dreamers’ and the general political development of the October Revolution. It celebrates the child-like beauty and innocence of utopian action." [mijn nadruk] (4)
"The world of the urban commune, then, was not without contradictions and capricious behaviour. As the journalist and activist Ella Winter noted on her travels through Soviet Russia, the urban communes were not always steadfast or uniform in their convictions. She had herself noticed that while some communes condemned ‘ephemeral sexual connections and an unbridled sex life’, others proved quite promiscuous and dissolute. And, as with the polytechnic students, mischief and deviance was far from uncommon. This was, in other words, socialism in real life. It was immediate, indeterminate, and imperfect." [mijn nadruk] (6)
"By looking at the everyday functioning and nitty-gritty realities of the urban communes and communards, this book presents a grounded view of utopianism, activism, and revolutionary dreaming in the early Soviet state."(6)
"Some of the first commune groups emerged, like our polytechnic example, inside the dormitories of Russia’s institutes of higher education. Petrograd, in particular, served as a seedbed for young student communes between 1918 and 1920."(7)
"Other commune groups established themselves in the apartments, hostels, and workers’ barracks of urban Russia. These groups looked to extend collectivism to city life."(7)
"These larger communes might be said to share many of the characteristics of a residential cooperative—a vision that can be linked back to the model communities established by Robert Owen in New Lanark and New Harmony at the beginning of the nineteenth century. The resultant cooperative movement, which took root in Britain and France against the backdrop of a brutalizing industrial revolution, offered collective security to participants who agreed to join together in common association, selling goods under the umbrella of a community store or a community-owned outlet. Indeed, aware of these origins, some urban commune groups did try to establish a relationship with their local cooperative establishments." [mijn nadruk] (8)
"Toward the end of the 1920s, as Soviet industrialization geared up, and as the revolutionary discourse on collectivism, egalitarianism, and solidarity reached a new peak, the number of urban communes started to grow dramatically. Recalling Lenin’s support for the subbotniki—a movement of volunteers that partook in additional social work in their free time—the party also encouraged its organs to foster a greater level of local initiative and social activism. As a result, in some places, urban communes successfully acquired the support of factory foremen, Komsomol cells, and even local authorities."(9)
"Like all Soviet citizens at this time, the communards were ultimately subject to party decisions and the powers of a small Bolshevik elite. But they also showed the readiness and capacity to condition revolutionary imperatives and ideological messages at ground level, especially during the 1920s."(11)
"As this book will show, the urban communes and communards were involved in a dialogue with revolution, sometimes overtly communicating with local revolutionary representatives, official bodies, and the press. Starting with the latter, it should be noted that the communards were keen readers of the Soviet press."(11)
"Some showed remarkable self-assurance, inviting neighbours, peers, and complete strangers into the commune to discuss their interpretations of important revolutionary issues. Others helped form propaganda teams and agitation campaigns to spread the revolutionary ideas with which they were most engaged. In this way, they helped to condition the local setting for revolution, while also lending weight to certain ideological messages—usually those relating to domestic reformation, collectivism, and teamwork."(11)
"This is not to say that the urban communes were popular with everyone. Some commune activists were accused of acting too enthusiastically and extending their activities too far. As unofficial bodies, the communes and their supporters were open to criticism and reprimand, especially if they developed too much influence over local representatives or factory foremen.() Older workers, in particular, tended to look upon the communards as young whippersnappers, full of unwarranted confidence. Feeling threatened, some displayed outright contempt toward the communards—do-good ‘sons of bitches’ that tried to force their way of life on others, surmised one worker."(13-14)
"For a revolutionary, byt was the feeling that ‘One foot has not yet reached the next street’, and maybe it never will. Encompassing morality, habit, custom, and convention, all efforts to escape the pervasive spectre of byt, claimed Mayakovsky, were like ‘attempts to heat up ice cream’: you might attempt to alter its structure, but you would always be left with a sticky mess. Yet the urban communards eagerly and determinedly associated their actions with what became known as the ‘new way of life’ (novyi byt). Visions of the ‘new way of life’ had been an important part of socialist revolutionary discourse before 1917. Inherent within the revolutionary imagination was the notion that one could modernize daily life by establishing new socialist ethics, habit, and behaviour. It was not enough to overturn the political order of Russia; the social order needed to go too. The issue of byt continued to occupy the minds of Soviet theorists and leading Bolsheviks during the opening years of revolution. Lev Trotsky’s widely read Questions of Everyday Life (1923) proclaimed that standards of behaviour and new social norms were among the most significant challenges facing the new revolutionary state. Nikolai Bukharin insisted that revolution had to encompass the characteristics, habits, feelings, and desires of each individual. This was, he continued, a revolution on course to tackle the ‘manner of life’." [mijn nadruk] (15-16)
[Een essentiële zaak, inderdaad. ]
"For the urban communards, the ‘new way of life’ came to include domesticity, the family, sex, gender discrimination, and social attitudes. Picking up on the Soviet discourse surrounding the ‘women question’, many communards became particularly invested in the battle against ‘the private kitchen’. After all, this was a gendered space, enforcing the role of ‘hostess’ on women. Figures such as Aleksandra Kollontai argued that the family kitchen enslaved women, kept them from the labour force, and provided limited nutritional value. In short, Kollontai thought that the individual kitchen was both immoral and irrational. It was, therefore, branded as ideologically reactionary and fundamentally un-modern. The very process of cooking within the private kitchen was also portrayed as highly ritualized, with family recipes and habits being passed down through the generations. In this sense the kitchen was seen as a ‘memory space’ keeping traditional family structures and the old byt alive. It follows that the communes and communards waged their war on the kitchen, as we will see, by promoting collective dining, using shared facilities, and lobbying for more public canteens and cafeterias." [mijn nadruk] (16)
[Hetzelfde verhaal geldt natuurlijk nog meer voor relaties en seks. Waarom hoor ik daar niets over? ]
"Many urban communards rallied in support of socialist ‘civic work’ (obshchestvennaia rabota), which came to include aiding those fellow proletarian students and workers in need, helping the Komsomol organize local meetings, and producing ‘wall-newspapers’ (sten-gazety) or information for bulletin boards. In other cases obshchestvennost’ included haranguing non-socialist personnel in universities and factories, attempting to change the political culture of Soviet institutes, and supporting local revolutionary projects wherever possible."(18)
"In fact, the most obvious feature of commune life, ‘collectivism’ (kollektivizm), was not necessarily a purely domestic concern. In its simplest form, ‘collectivism’ meant putting the common interest before personal preference. Popularized, in no small part, by the ascetic protagonists of Nikolai Chernyshevsky’s revolutionary saga, What Is to Be Done? (1863), collectivism often took the form of self-denial. Lenin himself tried to fit this mould." [mijn nadruk] (18)
[Erg gevaarlijk. Hoe verhoudt zich dat met kunnen genieten bijvoorbeeld?]
"In this sense, the present book should be viewed in line with the work of Mark D. Steinberg and Diane P. Koenker, each of whom have focused on popular receptions of Russian modernization, showing that even in a world of authoritarian politics, there was some room for debate, dissent, and accommodation." [mijn nadruk] (19)
"What is more, the theme of utopia is clearly visible within the urban communes. Scholars of utopian studies and intentional communities will see that the urban communards of revolutionary Russia share many characteristics with similar groups from across the globe. After all, on some level, all communal movements and shared communities seek the simplification and/or rationalization of life, inti- macy, brotherhood, self-awareness, and personal growth. They try to enact schemes of social improvement or visions of social unity that reject established norms. Indeed, living differently and trying to make an alternative future can be seen as a common feature of rebellious thinkers and modern dreamers." [mijn nadruk] (19)
[Maar, inderdaad, vanwege de ideeën van Marx en Engels over utopie, zagen die communards geen utopie in wat ze deden. Dat moest allemaal een wetenschappelijk fundament hebben. ]
"Accordingly, the reader should be aware that the term ‘utopia’ itself presents a few problems in the Soviet context. ‘Utopia’ became a dirty word among the Russian socialists of the twentieth century. The early French socialists of the nineteenth century could be forgiven for their optimistic fantasies; the Soviets, on the other hand, had to prove their ‘scientific’ credentials. Unsurprisingly, the urban communards did not refer to themselves as ‘utopian’. If the term was applied, it was often viewed and intended as an insult."(20)
"This is not an easy tale to tell, however. Piecing together the experiences of the urban communes and communards has at times been like trying to add substance to shadows. There is no central archival holding on these groups. Their written records remain scattered and incomplete. Surviving documentation often provides only a momentary glimpse of commune life. Lest we forget, the routines and motion of everyday life have never been that well recorded." [mijn nadruk] (21)
"By delving into untapped repositories and collating a range of materials, we can, for the first time, explore the thoughts, actions, and daily encounters of the urban communards."(23)
Volgt een overzicht van de opbouw van het boek.
"By the turn of the twentieth century, the concept of ‘collectivism’ (kollektivizm) came to form a crucial part of Russian public, intellectual, and revolutionary discourses. It was often seen as the thing that made Russia distinct from the West; it informed early syndicalist aspirations; and, according to a popular dictionary originally published in 1895, the word itself even became a synonym for socialism. The Bolsheviks were very much influenced by this cultural and intellectual preoccupation with collectivism."(26)
"The October Revolution initiated a renewed and much-radicalized impetus for collective living. Soviet agitation presented the image of a new ‘comradely society’ in which the individual ‘I’ would be replaced by the collective ‘We’. Collective housing, collective dining, and collective recreation were understood as transformative activities that would help mould a new type of people and a new civilization. Collectivism and Marxism were combined to create a picture of the ideal Soviet society. Incorporating the notion of class warfare, collective pursuits at home and collegial practices at work were presented as the antithesis of ‘bourgeois individualism’. Socialized childcare, it was argued, would free women for the labour market and help to instil a sense of community within the next generation. Teamwork and mutual cooperation in industry would unite society’s efforts, promote a working-class consciousness, and increase efficiency. This was believed to be the most rational means of organizing society. Only through the pursuit of common goals and shared understandings could the full potential of humanity be achieved." [mijn nadruk] (26)
"As a result, collectivism became increasingly associated with disciplined self-regulation, group obligation, hard-nosed shared-living arrangements, and a commitment to current affairs."(27)
"Yet, here too, inspirational characters such as Chernyshevsky’s self-denying hero Rakhmetov were what really captured their imagination. His austere and modest lifestyle became a trend among these and many other young revolutionaries. The novel’s heroine, Vera Pavlovna, also served as an example of the emancipated woman: rejecting the conventional family in favour of new collective bonds. Many of these themes came to manifest themselves in urban commune life, most obviously with the rejection of luxury, parental authority, and traditional relationship norms." [mijn nadruk] (30)
[Wat mij interesseert is dat allerlaatste aspect: de normen voor en in relaties. Ik ben benieuwd of dat nog geconcretiseerd wordt.]
"These parallels were not coincidental. At the heart of Chernyshevsky’s novel, his protagonists engage in cooperative work and eventually come together to form a ‘common apartment’. Here—in what was arguably the first urban commune—this small band of self-sacrificing intellectuals and youths seek to transform themselves and society through modern revolutionary living. Chernyshevsky offered the urban communards a model of revolutionary regeneration, where earnings are divided equally and members help to educate one another. This was the future society as presented in the nightly dreams of Vera Pavlovna: a place where youths ‘become people, not dolls’. The old world—depicted as the preserve of wife-beating men, dirt, and vulgarity—was to be swept aside by a new brand of people devoted to a more equal and rational society. ‘Good, strong, honest, capable people’, Chernyshevsky declared, ‘you have only just begun to appear’." [mijn nadruk] (30-31)
"In effect, he [Chernyishevsky] widened the rift between reformers and revolutionaries by advocating the wholesale rejection of all tsarist values and institutions. Fyodor Dostoevsky was moved to write his disparaging account of Russia’s radicals, Notes from Underground (1864), in response to Chernyshevsky’s particular vision of ‘harmonious living’. But over the coming decades many young revolutionaries and radical sections of society were inspired by Chernyshevsky’s novel." [mijn nadruk] (31)
"The urban communes and communards sought to replicate the voluntarism of Chernyshevsky’s characters, believing that by acting as a revolutionary vanguard— by being moral, selfless, and strong—they could transform Russia. They too united together in apartments, met around a ‘common table’, shared chores and provisions, engaged in cooperative labour, and consciously tried to develop a new, collective ‘orientation’." [mijn nadruk] (31)
[Weer niks over relaties en seks.]
"Indeed, the AMO activists picked out similar themes of interest in their wider reading, including Fyodor Gladkov’s Cement (1925) and Panteleimon Romanov’s Without Cherry Blossom (1927), which, like Chernyshevsky, focused on the ideal socialist citizen—the ‘new person’—and new relations between man and woman as the catalyst for revolutionary advance. Books such as Aleksandr Bogdanov’s Martian utopia, Red Star (1908)—wildly popular after the October Revolution; reprinted in 1918, 1922, and 1928, and selling in the hundreds of thousands—were also seen to continue in the Chernyshevsky tradition, extolling the virtues of rational collective living, school-colonies, and ‘new people’." [mijn nadruk] (32)
[Ja, en wat waren die nieuwe relaties tussen man en vrouw?]
Er waren al eerder initiatieven in lijn met het boek van Nikolaj Gavrilovitsj Tsjernysjevski [Nederlandse notatie] van 1863. Een paar in Leningrad (St Petersburg) bijvoorbeeld.
"These were but two of many discussion circles and debating assemblies (skhodky) that arose from the 1870s onwards—some displaying their debt to Chernyshevsky quite openly. With few other means of political organization or expression available to them, radical and discontented sections of educated society came together in these groups to contemplate political reform."(35)
"Whether or not the Russian countryside was, in reality, the source of egalitarianism that much of the nineteenth-century intelligentsia imagined it to be, peasant life and the predominant form of agricultural management certainly did accent community, equality, and sharing."(40)
"But this is not to suggest that the urban communes were a continuation of peasant life. Not all communards had such strong ties to the village. Nor is it to say that the urban communes and communards endorsed peasant culture. Once in Petrograd, activists such as Silin, Balezin, and Ianbulat affiliated themselves with all things modern, urban, and revolutionary. For them, the new socialist world was certainly to be made of metal and glass, not wood and straw bales. They aligned themselves with industrial workers and rejected the superstition, mob justice, and patriarchal norms of country life. The hammer was mightier than the sickle in this respect." [mijn nadruk] (41)
"in this Petrograd commune the ideology of the old peasant was associated with narrow-mindedness and irrational behaviour. In debates and discussions, the phrase ‘peasant ideologue’ was levelled at those with ideas that were deemed insufficiently modern or fundamentally ‘unscientific’."(41)
"This further explains why the kollektiv—a revolutionary mechanism that was neither proposed nor endorsed by Marx—came to form such a crucial part of the early Soviet experience. The mir had proven remarkably resilient in the face of numerous attempts to reform Russian society over the years."(42)
"Once described by Marx as ‘the first dictatorship of the proletariat’, the Paris Commune was seen as a model of direct democracy, mutual cooperation, and collective reorganization."(42)
"Like many Bolsheviks, Lenin thought of the Paris Commune as a model of socialist statehood. In one of his more utopian moments, Lenin said that replicating the Commune’s governmental structure was a task ‘immediately fulfillable’ upon the seizure of power.(...) Narrating the history of the Paris Commune through writings and celebrations, the Bolsheviks created socialism’s first martyr story and portrayed themselves as the successors of 1871."(43)
"Beyond the notion of individual heroism, the urban communes and communards also came to associate the Paris Commune with shared domestic arrangements and revolutionary living." [mijn nadruk] (44)
[Het wil maar niet duidelijk worden wat dat concreet inhoudt. ]
"Mentioned in the same breath as the artel’ and the kollektiv, the Soviet understanding of the ‘commune’ extended to cooperative organization and mutual aid. But indicative of more than just group association, it also implied an environment, system, or lifestyle devoted to instilling collective values. As a political label, therefore, it symbolized a broader commitment to creating collectivism within socialist society." [mijn nadruk] (45)
[Idem. Wat voor leefstijl? Wat voor collectieve waarden? Hetzelfde op andere plaatsen, het blijft vaag en abstract en de auteur herhaalt vaak dezelfde formules.:]
"new companionate relations between man and woman, and develop new collective habits.(...) new domestic arrangements and revolutionary forms of residence (...) the urban communes as places where youths could develop their revolutionary identities away from the corrupting influence of the family and bourgeois life. (...) Urging tomorrow to come today, the urban communes and communards embarked upon a form of collective experimentation that was meant to unleash the harmonious (...) the reorganization of everyday life (...) Wherever and however their collective practices were deployed, they would now be involved in the ‘dissipation of the old way of life’ and the conscious construction of the ‘new life’."(46-47)
Beschrijft als concreet voorbeeld Ali Ianbulat.
"He saw groups coming together to share all their possessions, putting their stipends and earnings into a common pot (obshchii kotel), and invoking the reformation of domestic norms. Communes, he noticed, would eat, drink, work, and play as a cohesive unit. Among other things, they undertook collective trips to the theatre, the cinema, the Hermitage, and the Russian Museum. They were looking to define the lifestyle of a socialist." [mijn nadruk] (50)
[Nog steeds vaag. ]
"Recent studies into student life in the early Soviet state have revealed that a growing number of discussion circles, political gatherings, and cell meetings were providing young believers with a platform for political expression at this time. But these studies have also suggested that party representatives were able to use these associations to mould young minds in line with official Bolshevik thinking. This extends the notion that censorship is often ‘less pervasive than self-censorship’ to argue that revolutionary views acceptable to the party were carefully ‘disseminated’ through officially endorsed political rituals."(52)
[Er werd vooral veel gepraat.]
"The first student communes emerged in the birthplace of the revolution, Petrograd, between 1918 and 1919, before then sprouting up in Moscow and other cities."(52)
"Inherent within the formation of these early communes was the struggle for better conditions, comradely equality, and an alternative way of life. They established ‘common pots’, systems of mutual subsistence, and ultimately a range of new domestic and ideological arrangements by which to live." [mijn nadruk] (53)
[Ook niet concreet. ]
"For these young activists, in the context of the post-1917 institute of higher education, cultural revolution would include not just learning and the arts, but the development of a way of life marked by modern, socialist practice. It was measured in terms of cleanliness, dedication to study and society, reading, knowledge of Marx, financial competence, domestic management, social and personal discipline, collective pursuits, political consciousness, and a general progression from ‘pre-revolutionary’ or ‘bourgeois’ habits to modern, socialist living. A key aspect of Bolshevik and Russian socialist theory before 1917, cultural revolution was essentially founded upon the principle that it was possible to build the foundations of a socialist civilization through the cultivation of new revolutionary values, goals, and practices in everyday life. This was, therefore, a revolution that encouraged social participation and popular ideological engagement. In their most basic form, the earliest student communes sought to develop comradely and cooperative forms of residence within the dormitory. As they did so, they increasingly began to promote the idea of domestic renovation and the restructuring of everyday life (byt). Commune groups cast aspersions not only on the state of their dormitory buildings, but on the disorder of their peers and the student lifestyle in general. For some, the commune offered a means of escaping and combating what they considered the ‘filthy’, unkempt surroundings of student life. As contemporaries noted, for the activists of this period, when faced with residences filled with ‘dirty dishes, dead cigarette butts sitting in water, and bread crumbs spread across the table’, it was clear that a determined cultural struggle was needed." [mijn nadruk] (74-75)
[Nog steeds vaak waar het over relaties en seks gaat. Ik vrees hetb ergste als ik zie hoe ze een bepaalde vorm van fatsoen doordrukken.]
"In this particular case, inspections could not prevent further dips in the ‘cultural level’. ‘Dirt and disorder’, ‘individualism’, and ‘drunkenness’ seem to have taken hold in the Medved dormitory, wrote Pedvuzovets shortly after this last inspection. In fact, it was now thought that the dormitory was performing at a lower standard than it had during the inspections of 1925 to 1926. In the worst cases, the student paper reported with horror, the mess in some rooms was now such that ‘the floors and beds became indistinguishable’; inhabitants ‘stopped eating collectively’; ‘184 empty [alcohol] bottles’ had been found strewn across the hallway after a student party; and ‘sexual exploitation’ or ‘unsavory favours’ were being used to gain access to the largest rooms." [mijn nadruk] (76)
"Many room-communes did not extend beyond the four walls of their original founding. Some proved to be little more than temporary products of youthful enthusiasm, dispersing at the end of the semester or term, never to reform. And occasionally, communes would collapse as personal animosity weakened group cohesion. This was certainly the case with one of the student communes based at Moscow State University. Formed alongside a number of other communes that had sprung up in 1923, this particular group got bogged down in a series of arguments from the get go. They argued about their daily routine, cleaning the dormitory room, and personal sleeping habits.(...) In other instances, group unity was compromised when female communards noticed that they were vulnerable to accusations of frivolity from male counterparts who thought they knew best—when Venus and Mars come together, even in a willingly progressive commune, some habits will always die hard."(59)
[Welke gewoontes? Vaag.]
"Based on their attempts to implement such ideas, one student commune even went on to claim that they had designed a system of potential ‘national significance’. Developing over the mid-1920s, this group experimented with new domestic habits, cultural and political campaigning, and—labelling themselves the ‘Everyday Housing Commune’ (Zhilishchno-Bytovaia Kommuna; acronym ZhBK)—they came to argue that ‘all dormitories should follow our methods’ and arrangements. Galvanized around an insistent and determined young man by the name of Stepan Afanas’evich Balezin, they would look to present their commune as an exemplary structure designed to help advance the revolutionary project within all institutes of higher education." [mijn nadruk] (62)
[Ook al niet concreet.]
"At the same time, Balezin—who is ironically depicted as the princely mastermind of the group in these drawings (see Fig. 2.3)—also saw to it that Ol’ga Komova, Ninka Larionova, Marusia Tropina, Nadiusha Borodina, Anechka Semenova, and a certain Zhemchuzhnikova all joined the commune, too. All fellow students of the Social Education Institute, Balezin had first come across this impressive group of women in their capacity as ‘illustrative designers’ for the Komsomol. Together they formed the gloriously titled ‘Women’s Poster Army’ (Plakatzhenarmiia), which was responsible for making many of the propaganda posters that came to adorn the institute from 1924 (see Fig. 2.4)." [mijn nadruk] (66)
"Incorporating the Women’s Poster Army into the commune, Balezin planned for the group to develop its own wall-newspaper (stengazeta) and life-newspaper (zhivgazeta) performances."(68)
"As they moved into the Moika-side apartment, just opposite the main courtyard of what was about to become the Herzen University, the commune started to formulate their plan of action. They agreed that to achieve the ‘socialization of higher education’, first they had to enact a system of domestic equality. It was made clear that in this commune of six men and six women, the cooking duties and various household chores were to be shared. Balezin saw this as a practical attempt to standardize sexual equality and to eradicate the misogynistic habits that were still evident across the institute. Only by moulding themselves into exemplary revolutionaries could they spearhead the cause of socialism, he explained." [mijn nadruk] (68)
"A system of writing ‘open and frank letters’ was introduced after a few weeks. The rationale behind this idea was that it would provide an outlet for personal grievances, while ultimately helping to develop the revolutionary consciousness and self-awareness of each member. Communards were expected to write these letters and post them on an internal noticeboard that had been put up in the hallway of the apartment. Komova received one of these letters from fellow communard Ninka Larionova. To her surprise, she was accused of ‘showing off’. Komova admitted to feeling angry at first. But, grudgingly, after the initial ill feeling had passed, these comments were ‘taken into account’ and Komova accepted that her ‘showing off’ was, as Larionova had put it, a ‘shortcoming’ unbecoming of a communard. The language of ‘shortcoming’ seems to have been employed to soften the blow, while also implying that all had the potential and obligation to improve themselves. This type of communication remained an important aspect of commune life, explained Komova. After all, they had explicitly agreed to ‘help each other learn and develop . . . [socialist] identities’. Through these rituals they were attempting to gradually nudge each other into line—as they understood it, into a new socialist line of behaviour. Such practices became a mainstay of Soviet education and Soviet workplaces in the years to come, with Soviet citizens calling out the faults of their peers in wall-newspapers and public forums. As ZhBK shows, the groundwork for such exchanges was laid early." [mijn nadruk] (68-69)
"Converting more of their existing neighbours, encouraging smaller communes to join them, and bringing in new students, they soon came to occupy nearly two full floors of the Roshal’ dormitory, with a total of 125 members. They slept two to three people per room, and managed to turn some of the other rooms into spaces for collective study and recreation. On top of this they organized their own canteen, which was modelled on the collective canteens attached to the Soviet factories (see Fig. 2.5)." [mijn nadruk] (70)
"Here students discussed not only time management, but the complete elimination of private areas and the rational redesign of space with the aim of promoting modern living and socialist consciousness." [mijn nadruk] (73)
"Building on the collective activism that emerged in the immediate wake of October 1917, these grander dormitory visions represent the peak of commune ambition with regard to domestic design."(73)
[Maar hoe dan precies?]
"Emerging as they did, as a contingent of collective organization and cultural revolution, the activists of the student communes can be seen to have embraced a modern, socialist revolutionary outlook that did not distinguish between public and private affairs. After October 1917, the early Soviet citizen was encouraged to revolutionize both public and private realms simultaneously. While narrow-minded, private concerns had to be combated, a proletarian consciousness was seen as a precursor to collective society. The morally redeemed individual, reborn as the ‘New Soviet Person’ (novyi sovetskii chelovek), was inexorably tied to early Soviet visions of society. This was a vision formed around Marx’s tenet on society: ‘The individual is a social being.’ Everyday life and domestic issues could never be merely private affairs. For the student commune, therefore, personal and social development was not only the revolutionary ‘duty’ of every member, but the expression of an equation whose units had to act as a whole in order to balance revolutionary theory. They were part of a revolutionary culture that saw the transformation of self and the enlightenment of others as part of the same, intertwined goal." [mijn nadruk] (74-75)
[Maar wat betekent het opheffen van privacy en zo meer concreet?]
"Domestically, the student commune was a creation that encouraged self-assessment and new cultural habits. Ianbulat even recalled some cases where communards were told to write an autobiography to help them reflect upon their own revolutionary development." [mijn nadruk] (76)
[Welke? Vaag.]
"these young enthusiasts sought out an apartment and actively tried to apply the lessons they learned at camp: pooling resources, sharing essential items, and agreeing upon a socialist approach to life."(80)
[Opnieuw: vaag, niet concreet. ]
"As early as January 1918, four young men and two women—all leading members of the Socialist League of Young Workers (SSRM), a precursor to the Komsomol— decided to rent an apartment on Dvorianskaia Street (now Grazhdanskaia Street), in the heart of Petrograd. Here, not far from the Mariinskii Palace, they founded a commune with the express aim of providing a living example of socialism for the young workers of the city." [mijn nadruk] (80)
[Hier eindelijk iets concreets over de samenstelling van de commune. Wat hier moet je vaak maar raden om hoeveel mannen en vrouwen het ging. ]
"Among other things, Dunaevskii insisted, the Basmannyi commune was helping to promote sexual equality and improve the lot of women. He saw men and women living side by side, each questioning gendered assumptions about the other." [mijn nadruk] (80)
"They set a number of rules and regulations designed to foster comradely relations, including stipulations that saw all members renounce the right to private property, private space, and individual pursuits. They also craved the modern: they associated socialist living with clean conditions, electricity, and, perhaps as a reminder of their shared camp experience, the primus cooking stove, around which they would prepare meals together each evening. Through these ‘little tactics of the habitat’—conscious attempts to design everyday life to fit ideological visions—this group of young activists sought to become part of the revolution." [mijn nadruk] (81)
"In the urban commune these activists found a space to embark upon new approaches to family life, the interaction of the sexes, and personal relationships. They also discovered a space that allowed them to live out, or at least invoke, some of the promises of modern socialism. [mijn nadruk] (82)"
[Maar weer niets over hoe relaties vormgegeven werden, over de plaats van seks en zo meer.]
"This remained the case even as Lenin implemented the ‘strategic retreat’ known as the New Economic Policy (NEP). Launched at the Tenth Party Congress in March 1921, this policy saw the limited restoration of a market economy. Restrictions on private trade were alleviated and the unpopular policy of grain requisitioning was curtailed as part of a desperate attempt by the Bolsheviks to incentivize economic growth and fix the state’s broken food supply network. With NEP also came the end of ‘revolutionary housing repartition’ (revoliutsionnyi zhilishchnyi peredel )—the expropriation of housing through official proclamation or local initiative—and, in some rare cases, the return of private landlords, with increased (though still regulated) rents and a different agenda when it came to building management. Yet the urban communes and communards remained committed to the reformation and modernization of day-to-day life." [mijn nadruk] (84)
"NEP seemed counter-intuitive to many of these young activists, not least because it was this section of society that had the most to lose from the return of market forces. To the likes of these young revolutionaries, the ‘new way of life’ and NEP were diametrically opposed."(86)
"In the commune itself, this meant a renewed effort to live the socialist lifestyle: allocating funds towards those activities deemed necessary for an assault on Oblomov, including collective exercise and shared domestic cleaning; abstaining from socially irresponsible acts, such as excessive consumption of alcohol or attending ‘bourgeois’ drinking establishments; purchasing hygienic products; maintaining study areas and bathing them in electric light; and tuning their ‘ham’ radio to the new socialist airwaves. As much as anything, the commune was functioning in opposition to a set of values and habits that they deemed to be non-socialist and un-modern—the things that NEP threatened to maintain." [mijn nadruk] (87)
[Weer niets over relaties en seks.]
"Oblomov and Onegin, now embodied by the newly emerging NEPmen and kulak exploiters, were viewed as the harbingers of social ill and a roadblock to socialism. The revolutionary virtue of Lenin’s approach to life—frequently cited in the press at the time—was, on the other hand, viewed as a source of inspiration by these communards."(88)
"Seen as the root cause of many other social problems, including crime, street fighting, and poor labour discipline, here was one example of how the pursuit of a ‘new way of life’ in the commune could advance socialist society in general. Throughout the mid-1920s, alcohol and social delinquency remained a primary concern for the urban communes and communards." [mijn nadruk] (88)
"In various other cases, urban communes expressed concern about sexual promiscuity, incidences of threatening bravado among young men, disrespect shown to women, and a general uncomradely roughness, often seen to be bound up with a caddish trend for swearing and uncouth behaviour. Again, these developments were equated with the ill-disciplined, irrational, and un-modern world of pre-revolutionary Russia and its exploitative elements. As many communards saw it, this was preventing the advance of comradely cooperation and mutual responsibility." [mijn nadruk] (88)
[Maar wanneer is er sprake van seksuele promiscuïteit? Wat zijn de achterliggende waarden en normen? Geen woord daarover. Een voorbeeld wordt uitgewerkt, de Mokrinskii Lane commune.]
"five young women and five young men, had decided to form a commune (...) Inside, they littered the walls with revolutionary posters and slogans. With two bedrooms, a kitchen, and a living room (known as ‘the club’) where all debates and discussions were held, they looked to create their own living example of socialism." [mijn nadruk] (90)
[Een slaapkamer voor de vrouwen en een slaapkamer voor de mannen? En uit een brief:]
"Staying together even if one of us marries? Lead our lives together?"(90)
[Hoe moet ik me dat voorstellen? ]
"It was also said that it would be more fun if the women and men lived together. But it was made abundantly clear at the outset that everyone was expected to do precisely the same share of the housework and actively challenge traditional gender roles. As they came to write their founding agreement (ustav), they expanded on their desire to eradicate traditional, family-based ties and relations: ‘We are of the opinion that sexual relationships (love) should not be restricted. Sexual relationships should be open’, they declared. This ended up being less a statement about intended sexual conduct between communards—though, as one might expect, some did find themselves spending nights together—than a general endorsement of companionship and new ideological approaches to relations between the sexes. ‘Uncomradely relations result in a desire for secrecy and dark corners, flirting, and similar undesirable manifestations’, the communards theorized. This was their way of saying that they were willing to contemplate and even experiment with socialist ideas in the most intimate and personal areas of their lives." [mijn nadruk] (91)
[Dit is iets concreter, maar wat betekende dat in de praktijk? Vanaf p.93 volgt dan eindelijk een concrete uitwerking van dit thema onder de kop Sex and love in the commune of ten.]
"The ‘sexual question’ also gave rise to a series of problems that had not been anticipated during the founding of the commune. At first the communards were free to engage in whatever sexual relations they wanted. As their founding agreement explained, they were of the opinion that to develop a ‘new way of life’ the communards had to renounce all personal materials and all private relationships— private sexual affairs and traditional patterns of coupling were thought to be lacking in ‘companionable’ attitude. But, after a few amorous encounters between at least one communard pair, it was soon decided that such connections could not be so easily dismissed. What is more, the commune came to agree that a certain amount of privacy in this area was not necessarily ‘un-comradely’ in nature. They had learned that you cannot easily regulate desire." [mijn nadruk] (94)
[Maar waar liepen ze nu precies tegen aan? ]
"Irrespective of whether or not the relationship was deemed ‘comradely’, a lack of domestic space rendered sex and intimacy a rather awkward affair. With so few rooms at their disposal, where could couples slide off to?"(95)
[Dat kan ik me bijvoorbeeld goed voorstellen. Echt revolutionair zou zijn wanneer iedereen gewoon seks zou hebben waar iedereen bij was, maar dat zat er niet in natuurlijk.]
"Certain unseemly men, fuelled with an excess of bravado, even decided that they had the right to judge a woman’s revolutionary credentials based on how readily she dropped her underwear for them. This was not what had been envisioned by the state or the communards. The alternative future of sexual relations was seemingly in danger. Reacting to these developments, the commune felt they had to make an amendment to the founding agreement. They added a stipulation: ‘Sexual relationships among communards during the first few years of the commune are undesirable.’ It was decided that it would be best if the commune took time to establish itself as a collective before it returned to the ‘sexual question’. Ever rational, the communards voted for short-term caution." [mijn nadruk] (95-96)
"As the commune stabilized and the communards matured, the possibility of serious relationships and even marriage was mooted. A series of hypothetical debates ensued. By 1927, one inhabitant was moved to say: ‘It is quite in order for any communard to marry if he wishes to, and the commune may not stand in his way. On the contrary, the commune must make an effort to create the conditions necessary for family life.’ But what would they do, they asked themselves, if one communard wanted to marry someone from outside the group? And what if that person was not a good match for the commune? Would they admit them anyway? Would So, in a relatively short space of time, the commune had gone from rallying against all signs of traditional relationship norms, to accepting and supporting marriage as part of the revolutionary cause.they force them to live apart? Or would they have to face losing one of their number?"(96)
[Waarom trouwen? Waarom niet gewoon samenwonen? Mensen nemen duidelijk hun achtergronden mee. Het voorbeeld van Katia die in de commune geaccepteerd wordt. Maar waarom is dat zo? Was ze mooi?]
"So, in a relatively short space of time, the commune had gone from rallying against all signs of traditional relationship norms, to accepting and supporting marriage as part of the revolutionary cause. Long before Stalin came to promote marriage in the supposed revolutionary retreat of the 1930s, activists such as these were rediscovering and re-embracing the virtues of this formal bond. But this shift in policy was still seen as revolutionary by those involved. This was marriage envisioned not as the mainstay of bourgeois values but, as Trotsky had put it a few years earlier, the smallest version of a socialist cell. It was a comradely unit built on socialist ideals. Instead of a marriage that isolated couples and dragged them away from the common good, this was to be a partnership based on revolutionary consciousness. In other words, this was marriage as something old, something new, something borrowed, and something red!" [mijn nadruk] (97)
"But revolutionary discussion did not stop there; nor did the hypotheticals. Now the commune was to contain a married couple, the question of children was raised. Would children be permitted in the commune? How would the commune care for them? For the present moment, it was decided, the commune should try to avoid children on account of a lack of space and limited finances. In keeping with wider discussions in the press, the notion of abstinence and contraception was broached. Some communards seemed to be desperately against abortion—shocked by stories of a rise in the number of terminations since the practice was legalized in 1920. Some felt that abstinence went against the laws of nature, however, while others feared that contraception was coarse and prejudicial to health. Yet, it seems, one way or another, all communards sought to avoid pregnancy." [mijn nadruk] (98)
[Waren ze wel echt daarom tegen abortus of hadden ze een religieuze achtergrond? En wat vonden mannen dan wel vrouwen ervan? ]
"But revolutionary discussion did not stop there; nor did the hypotheticals. Now the commune was to contain a married couple, the question of children was raised. Would children be permitted in the commune? How would the commune care for them? For the present moment, it was decided, the commune should try to avoid children on account of a lack of space and limited finances. In keeping with wider discussions in the press, the notion of abstinence and contraception was broached. Some communards seemed to be desperately against abortion—shocked by stories of a rise in the number of terminations since the practice was legalized in 1920. Some felt that abstinence went against the laws of nature, however, while others feared that contraception was coarse and prejudicial to health. Yet, it seems, one way or another, all communards sought to avoid pregnancy." [mijn nadruk] (98)
"Reaffirming their rejection of the old family, it was declared that children of the communards were to be regarded as the commune’s children and brought up at the general cost. In one of their more radical moments, following in the idealism of Aleksandr Bogdanov’s Red Star (1908) and various other revolutionary writings, the communards were proposing to give up biological claim to their offspring." [mijn nadruk] (98)
"And yet, despite their desire to find the solution to all revolutionary problems, and despite their stated intention of overturning all those traditional attitudes that society had hitherto unthinkingly accepted, and perpetuated, there were times when the Mokrinskii Lane commune exposed their own contradictions. To judge by their own rhetoric on sexual equality, for instance, there were clearly certain assumptions that the commune failed to properly address. It was not just the darning of socks and chopping of wood that these communards willingly let slip through the equality filter. At the start of 1928, when Vladimir and Katia encountered relationship troubles, not long into their marriage, the men and the women responded differently—they became split along gendered lines." [mijn nadruk] (99)
"It was felt that the men, like many of their revolutionary brothers, still displayed an uncompromising male bravado in their attitudes towards sex and relationships. They were seen to take too many liberties with women in general. In other words, the men had failed to fully shake off the patriarchal attitudes that taught them, as it had their fathers, that they could act with impunity when it came to matters of sex and women."(100)
[En de vrouwen bleven de passieve wezentjes van voor de revolutie die alleen maar zekerheid wilden? ]
"Indeed, it must be said, in the urban communes the pursuit of sexual equality often seemed to take place on male terms. As highlighted in the stories and publications on these groups circulating in the mid-1920s, the communard fight against the old ‘way of life’ was often disproportionately directed toward women. As in activist circles more broadly, the ideology of modern living was equated with the eradica- tion of old family values. The old, illiterate, superstitious, and backward woman of peasant society—the baba, in Russian—was seen as a stalwart of these old values. She therefore became a symbol to rally against." [mijn nadruk] (100)
"As Klaus Mehnert commented on his experience of Soviet youth in general, and of the Mokrinskii commune in particular: they spent a lot of time ‘trying to turn women into men’."(101)
"The desire to get married and leave the commune was also believed to be more of a risk with women communards. Some of the early female walkouts did not help to alter these perceptions within the Mokrinskii commune. Women, in particular, had to guard against such shortfalls, maintain ‘steeliness’, and prove their unwavering commitment to revolutionary ideals. In many ways, then, this was a masculine environment, a masculine revolution. Again and again, the women—much more so than the men—were told they had to change in order to fit in." [mijn nadruk] (101)
"Soviet socialism in the mid- 1920s was marked by uncertainty. The threat of NEP stiffenKaya Kiyohara, Suzu Hirose, en Hana Sugisakied the resolve of some, while it led others to declare that the October Revolution had taught them nothing but ‘how to drink’. The Komsomol was quick to join in the panic when it was suggested that revolutionary excesses and the return of old habits were laying waste to the first generation of Soviets. The Komsomol leadership took seriously fears that the revolution was losing ground to hooligans, the ill-disciplined, and the regressive. In wild alarm, they discussed rumours and reports of Pioneer leaders establishing paedophile and paederasty groups, viewing such things as a sign of the times. Amid all of this chaos, the certainty and stability of set gender assumptions seemed, on occasion, to help mark a clearer path to socialism. At times, with so many challenges to face, and so much change to embrace, it also seemed that a more sophisticated assessment of sexual equality was, for now, just beyond the reach of many communards." [mijn nadruk] (102)
"The commune now attempted to play a much larger role at work, summoning the memory of the arteli as they did so. They lived and worked as one collective unit, spending all their time together. They pushed for a disciplined working life to mirror the commune’s domestic regulations, taking a collective vow to work hard and prove their proletarian credentials."(107)
"As they saw it, the communards pressed to extend ‘new ways of doing things’ across the barracks and factory. These ‘new ways’ were based on their understanding of what it meant to be socialist and to work in a socialist manner. Out were hierarchical relations and established patterns of gerontocracy on the shop floor, all elite NEP specialists and technocrats, and anyone resisting change; in were new theories of collectivism, a focus on teamwork, calls for political consciousness, and activism in production." [mijn nadruk] (107-108)
"Activist methods of work were taking root, and demands for an infrastructure upgrade in the barracks even seemed to have gained support from the local Komsomol cell. Worker settlements, public kitchens, dining rooms, laundries, clubs, and the general expansion of collective facilities appeared to be on the horizon now."(108)
"And, it turns out, like many activists around this time, they came to experiment with the ideas of Taylorism and the ‘Scientific Organization of Labour’ (Nauchnaia Organizatsiia Truda; acronym NOT), discussing a set ‘rate of productivity’ at work and a rational structure for life at home. Working practices and cultural revolution were thus entwined, as the commune looked for an ‘overarching solution’. It was their ambition to revolutionize the whole factory setting." [mijn nadruk] (109)
"Indeed, as Kochetov’s experience shows, a continued sense of unease with NEP in the mid- to late 1920s, combined with a new economic urgency brought on by fears of foreign invasion, saw the urban communards drawn into a fresh populist offensive. Alongside other activists, and some local officials, communards started to call for a renewed revolutionary assault on industry." [mijn nadruk] (109)
"As we will see, as they lent their voices to wider calls for structural and cultural change at the end of the 1920s, the urban communes and communards would enter their most popular and populist phase. Between 1927 and 1929, inspired by a renewed interest in collective ideals, and aided by the growing popularity of shock-work activism, the number of urban communes steadily began to rise." [mijn nadruk] (112)
"Echoing a key tenet of Taylorism— and a theme much espoused in the Soviet discourse on NOT—every day they sought, above all else, to show the utility and necessity of disciplined labour. This push for discipline would manifest itself in their open denunciation of absenteeism, shoddy workmanship, and drunkenness. In a cultural sense, they looked to promote what they considered to be a socialist consciousness in the workforce. In a technical sense, they believed that this broader consciousness would open up avenues for new collective working habits, offering proof of the greater efficiency of socialism. Enacting the ideals of Soviet discourse, work and life became a unified concern." [mijn nadruk] (115)
"Yet, despite a growth in numbers and a favourable outlook from some quarters, the period 1929–31 also witnessed the swansong of the urban commune idea. Sucked into the local machinery of state, with mass mobilization the commune idea was itself made vulnerable to shifting industrial imperatives and management priorities."(131)
"Ultimately, the fall of the urban communes and communards was a story of uncertainty and tumult brought on by the sheer pace of change during the First Five-Year Plan, as well by as the party leadership’s resultant desire to stabilize Soviet industry after 1931. Never fully endorsed by the party, the rapid expansion of commune experimentation at the end of the 1920s would weaken this trend and introduce a number of internal and external tensions."(132)
"Not all communes felt the same way or followed the exact same path, but a new insecurity was introduced, as groups began to fear the accusation and the label ‘utopian’. From this perspective, to neglect industrial duties and imperatives was to follow an irrational path. More managerial input also meant that the original simplicity of the urban commune idea was coming under strain."(132)
"In the end, as the ideological tide turned, the urban commune was cast aside. Many of the revolutionary causes championed by the communes lived on, but industrial conditions elevated professionalized structures above activist initiative. This chapter shows the activists of the urban commune coming to terms with this revolutionary change."(133)
"As attention turned to the command economy and larger state mechanisms, the idea of the commune gradually became anathema to contemporary conditions, a development that—given time for the commotion of the First Five-Year Plan to pass, and with future leaders keen to prevent the appearance of alternative pathways—the Soviet Union would eventually convince itself had always been considered impractical."(156)
"Like Pogodin’s Daring, this book has placed the urban commune and communard centre stage. It has shown how the idea of the kommuna alliance emerged out of the antecedents of the Russian revolutionary movement and Soviet understandings of the Paris Commune, and how in the hands of urban activists, would-be radicals, and those aspiring towards Komsomol or party membership, this collective vision turned into a trend that offered participants the chance to enact socialism within their own dormitories, apartments, or barracks. We have seen how this gave enthu- siasts a chance to feel part of the change going on around them, and how their diverse attempts to live the socialist lifestyle intertwined with developing ideologi- cal discourses, local Komsomol and party support, local revolutionary campaigns, and, towards the end of the 1920s, workplace mobilization initiatives. For the first time, we have seen the urban commune phenomenon up close and in detail."(160)
"The urban, activist commune, missing from the legislative records of the Soviet Commissariat of Agriculture, has been dismissed as an unimportant offshoot, or overlooked entirely. Inside the Soviet Union it was eventually erased from official public memory."(161)