Into the Cosmos Page 32
212 Roshanna P. Sylvester
more than a third of NASA’s astronauts were female. Although still cer-
tainly an elite profession, “astronaut” had become a viable career path for
girls in the United States, something that never happened in the USSR.66
One could dwell (as many have) on what went wrong in the late Soviet
era. And yet the crucial point remains: the USSR was the first country in
the world to send a woman into space. For the girls who saw it happen,
that mattered a lot. In those days when possibility was so alive in young
female minds, girls plotted their own course to success in the “scientific-
technological revolution,” their personal missions sustained at least in
part by a vision of their hero’s cosmic triumph and high-profile reassur-
ances that true equality was the law of the land. And so they played with
their cosmonaut dolls, climbed atop rockets at their local playgrounds,
competed against boys in math, physics, and astronomy, and with pride
and ambition worked toward their dreams of reaching the stars.
9
From the Kitchen into Orbit
The Convergence of Human Spaceflight and
Krushchev’s Nascent Consumerism
Cathleen S. Lewis
The Cold War over consumer goods between the United States and
the Soviet Union literally began in the kitchen. It was in the American
kitchen that U.S. Vice President Richard M. Nixon and Soviet Premier
Nikita Khrushchev had a public and impromptu discussion through their
interpreters at the opening of the American National Exhibition at Sokol-
niki Park in Moscow on July 24, 1959. Their discussion over the relative
industrial accomplishments of their respective countries took place at an
American exhibition of a modern, affordable, and well-equipped kitchen
that had been on display at the 1958 World’s Fair at Brussels. In Belgium
the United States had displayed the latest in American consumer goods.
The Soviet Union had displayed cars and airplanes that were not yet avail-
able to the public and models of the first three spacecraft that the USSR
had launched into space, which had ushered in the space race.1 At the
end of the Brussels exhibition, both sides agreed to open a portion of
their own exhibition in each other’s country.2 By the time that the ex-
hibitions had opened in New York and Moscow, the United States had
finally successfully launched a satellite into space.3 In Moscow, however,
displays of consumer goods remained the subject for exhibitions and not
213
214 Cathleen S. Lewis
the contents of stores.4 The absence of consumer goods in the USSR was
as much of a sore point for their population as had been the U.S. failure
to be the first in space for Americans.
Collectibles and spaceflight share historical associations in the Soviet
Union. Both emerged during the post-Stalin era of Khrushchev. Each
came to symbolize the optimism of the era, and each served as a distrac-
tion from the realities of Soviet life. The growth of space-themed collect-
ible consumer goods in the Soviet Union coincided with the post-Stalinist
effort to create a sense of contentment and modernity for the war-weary
population. By participating in a culture of leisure activities that had not
existed before the war, the Soviet population could consider itself mod-
ern. Leisure and spaceflight represented modern living to Soviet citizens
similar to that of Americans. This illusion of affluence and progress
could distract the Soviet population from the lingering sacrifices of the
war. These efforts to convince the population of their good fortune ex-
tended beyond the small items that the average Soviet citizen could pur-
chase. During the Khrushchev era, propagandists made every effort to
identify leisure and recreation activities with cosmonauts. Furthermore,
unlike much of Soviet culture these objects have endured the collapse of
the Soviet Union, retaining significance from a brief optimistic period in
Soviet history.
Scholars have recently reexamined the social and cultural shifts that
took place during the Khrushchev era during the late 1950s and early
1960s, often known as “the thaw.” The current scholarship places greater
emphasis on Khrushchev’s attempts to change public expectations of the
state as part of his movement away from Stalinism.5 Some historians,
most notably Susan Reid and David Crowley, have turned attention to
the material culture of the former Soviet Union, emphasizing discus-
sions of consumerism and aesthetics and how they were used to satisfy
the national hunger for a private life.6 Others had pointed out the extent
to which these changes touched the day-to-day lives of Soviet citizens.7
Post-Soviet attention to the preservation and conservation of the material
culture of the previous era offers the opportunity for a closer examination
of shifts in aesthetics and consumerism in the Soviet Union during the
1960s. One aspect of Khrushchev’s thaw was a limited return to the mod-
ernist aesthetic that had accompanied the Bolshevik Revolution. Khrush-
chev’s relaxation of Stalin’s cultural restrictions did not mean a wholesale
From the Kitchen into Orbit 215
return to the prerevolutionary and early Soviet modernist thought. How-
ever, it was an opportunity to shed both the aesthetic and sumptuary
practices that had symbolized Stalinism.
The material culture of this period of spaceflight came from less
tightly restricted circumstances than had previous Soviet material cul-
ture. The resulting artifacts displayed less of the Stalinist socialist realist norms than other forms of culture did and thus took on the appearance
of the neoconstructivist style that was gaining acceptance in the Soviet
Union in the late 1950s and early 1960s. In addition, the designers of
these new modernist styles did not have the intellectual baggage that had
burdened the previous generation. They could create designs that were
constructivist in form but were devoid of ideological content. In contrast
to their modernist appearance, the message that these objects conveyed
was the same conservative one that the cosmonauts spoke, acted, and
lived. These conservative messages did nothing to challenge the current
state of the Soviet Union but sought to reinforce the regime. The material
culture of the space program, however, was unique in that it was ubiqui-
tous and unavoidable for the Soviet population. The museums, exhibits,
and collectibles were widespread, sprouting up in towns and cities all
over the USSR that claimed an affiliation with spaceflight. They com-
bined the constructionist images and conservative message to create a
long-enduring symbolism that would not disappear as other symbols of
the USSR did.
This chapter applies the lens of recent research on the changes in
material and public culture in the USSR during the 1960s to analyze a
unique collection of spaceflight-related collectibles. Each item represents
the efforts to promote spaceflight in the USSR. The biographies and ide-
alized lives of the cosmonauts had mimicked tho
se of the previous gen-
eration on Stalin’s aviation heroes. In contrast, these new products did
not resemble similar items from the previous generation. They were pro-
duced for individual consumption and not for collective use. The public
impact on material culture was very limited under Stalin. After his death
the Soviet party and government were willing to make concessions to
consumer demand, but only in small ways. One of their major conces-
sions was the release of collecting societies from close police scrutiny
that the party had established in the 1930s as a guard against unregulated
consumerism.8 Another was the abandonment of Stalinist neoclassical
216 Cathleen S. Lewis
style and allowing architects and designers to return to constructivism.
Although these changes did much to change the presentation of cosmo-
naut culture, they did not change the content meaningfully.
Khrushchev had learned from Stalin that the most effective domes-
tic propaganda involved the promotion of mass celebrations.9 By enlist-
ing public participation, government programs gained credibility while
undercutting the potential for alternative public cultures to emerge. For
the human spaceflight program to have effective propaganda, it was nec-
essary to encourage as wide participation as possible among the Soviet
population. However, the space program operated in semisecrecy and
did not allow popular participation in planning and staging activities.
Mass participation in the space program had to take place after the fact.
One way in which the Soviet population could share in the growing mo-
mentum of the space program was to read cosmonaut biographies, but
reading was a solitary act that did not generate the synergy of a group
activity even when done so among school groups and youth organiza-
tions. And books, even when they did impart lasting memories, did not
have the staying power of material goods. Group demonstrations were
ideal, but the number of successful missions limited their occurrence.
At its peak in the 1960s the Soviet human spaceflight program had two
missions per year. Yet the USSR did have a well-established collection of
social organizations through which to stage mass activities. Beginning at
school age with the Young Pioneers, and through young adulthood in the
Komsomol and the Communist Party, information and activities could
be channeled to all ages of the Soviet population.10 The Pioneer and the
Komsomol organizations had been previously instrumental in the orga-
nization of mass activities of the Soviet Union.11 They had contributed to
the reduction of illiteracy in the 1920s, facilitated political indoctrination
in the 1930s, and organized the war effort among youth during World
War II. Youth organizations sought to unify Soviet young people in the
aftermath of the devastation of the war.
Books, magazine articles, and speeches had been the traditional
modes of dissemination of Soviet culture. However, in order for books,
articles, and speeches about spaceflight to be effective, people had to in-
vest a significant amount of time to read or listen to them. More visceral,
enduring, and unavoidable contact comes with the very visible material
culture that rose out of this period. The small collectible items that per-
vaded Soviet society at the time contributed to this culture. Their origins
From the Kitchen into Orbit 217
were the loosening of political mores on personal collecting within the
USSR. One of the ways the late 1950s differed from the Stalinist era was
that the postwar generation was not as malleable as previous generations.
The revolution was ancient history, as was industrialization and collec-
tivization. The Soviet Union had been the victor in World War II. This
generation had no reason to sacrifice as their parents and grandparents
had. And Khrushchev had publicly abandoned the overt use of terror to
enforce party rule. The Soviet leadership recognized that young people
would require some liberalization of government policy to maintain sup-
port. The most readily accomplished and least socially disruptive areas
of liberalization were the relaxation of laws and rules governing hobbies
and contacts with the outside world. By relaxing rules concerning hob-
bies, the Soviet government sought to encourage the limited acquisition
of personal property, including collections. The controlled internation-
al contacts with the world would take place under the auspices of well-
orchestrated international youth events, such as biennial socialist World
Festivals of Youth and Students, in which the USSR was an active partici-
pant since its inception in 1947. These two shifts in policy set the stage
for a groundswell of collecting activity that became the centerpiece of
Soviet spaceflight popular culture.
The most personal way to promote participation in space activities
would be the encouragement of collecting memorabilia about programs.
However, the Soviet Union was distinctive among Western cultures at
the time for its tradition of prohibiting or discouraging individuals from
collecting trinkets. From the late 1920s individual collecting of such
common items as stamps was discouraged, but in the early 1960s the
Soviet government sought to reverse this policy and encourage personal
collecting.12 Personal collecting was a small concession to consumerism
that could act as a pressure valve for frustration with conditions in the
country.13 Conditions in the Soviet Union had not improved significantly
since the death of Stalin, as the Soviet regime had promised. This relax-
ation of restrictions against private ownership also coincided with the
space program, providing an additional justification for allowing individ-
ual celebration. Two fields that received the most official encouragement
were postage stamps and znachki (small lapel pins).14 Stamp collecting
had remained a controlled activity in the Soviet Union since the 1920s.
The government introduced the collection of lapel pins as souvenirs as a
new activity in 1957, just before the launch of Sputnik.
218 Cathleen S. Lewis
The Changing Aesthetics of the Thaw
By the 1930s the modernism that had once led the way in revolution-
ary aesthetics had all but ceased activities in the Soviet Union in the fields
of art, architecture, and design. Increasing Bolshevik dominance of civil
society, culminating in Stalinism, discouraged the freethinking ideology
of modernism. Some proponents of the movements left the country; oth-
ers gradually burrowed into their respective professional infrastructures,
adapting to the changing political aesthetics of the time.15 Experimenta-
tion with the modern idiom continued for some time into the 1930s, but
it did not meet with any degree of success. Architects and designers had
conceded to official sentiments that pseudoclassicism was closest to the
Russian ideal and seemed to abandon the modernist movement in design
and architecture of the 1920s and early 1930s.16 Importantly, in all cases
Stalin’s imposition of socialist-real
ist aesthetics in art (including fine art
and literature) put an end to the political discussions that had been previ-
ously attached to modernism.17 Henceforth aesthetics and design would
become secondary to politics.
Stalin’s death in 1953, however, emboldened the dormant modernists.
In November 1955 the Soviet Union of Architects renounced “ornamen-
talism,” Stalin’s preferred design that included monumental buildings
and palatial interior designs that ruled Soviet architecture for a genera-
tion.18 Khrushchev’s announcement of de-Stalinization strengthened the
resolve of designers in the late 1950s and early 1960s toward a revival.
This time the proponents were not arguing for another ideological path
to Communism, but argued that modernism was the appropriate style
to complement de-Stalinization and the construction of Communism.
Designers reignited the call for nichegeo lishnego (nothing superfluous) in the 1960s, but this was not a call for revolutionary culture. Rather,
it was an attempt to remove from everyday Soviet life as many vestiges
of Stalinist ornamentalist design.19 The expression had a dual meaning.
The first meaning referred to the slogans of constructivism of the 1920s.
The second made a direct connection to Khrushchev’s de-Stalinization
campaign against the kult lichnosti (cult of personality). In a strict sense these new movements in design and architecture, being purely aesthetic,
were not the same as the movements of the 1920s and 1930s. The aes-
thetic minimalism of these influences was evident in much of everyday
From the Kitchen into Orbit 219
life in the USSR during the 1960s; however, it was not accompanied by
the political messages of the previous movement. The designers made
no claims to efficiency, durability, or mass utility. Minimalism was read-
ily apparent in the material culture of the space program. However, the
messages that these objects carry were not different from their socialist-
realist analogues, even in their portrayal of spaceflight. Unlike the mod-
ernist movements of the previous generations, these messages did not
offer challenges to regime.
Soviet Col ecting
By the mid-1960s monuments and museums dedicated to space-
flight were on the increase inside the Soviet Union, and a smaller form of