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spaceflight material culture was increasing in volume as well. The Twenty-

  first Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) in

  1959 gave official sanction to independent private collecting organiza-

  tions for the first time in Soviet history. Although stamp collecting had

  been tolerated in the Soviet Union as unavoidable to generate income

  from foreign sales of stamps, post officials in the Soviet Union did little

  to encourage domestic collection before the 1960s.20 Official sanction of

  collecting societies was, in part, a concession to rising economic expecta-

  tions in the Soviet Union, especially among the youth. The generation

  born after World War II had no firsthand knowledge of the deprivations

  through which their parents had lived. Therefore they expected more

  than their parents did. Through official and semiofficial channels the

  state attempted to meet those expectations.

  There were two primary areas of space-themed collecting in the So-

  viet Union during the early to mid-1960s—stamps and the small lapel

  pins, the znachki. The former were the products of tightly government-

  controlled production. The latter came from diverse organizations with

  little oversight on matters of design and message. Young people expected

  that these promises made to an older generation would be kept for them

  as well. The historian Joel Kotek has discussed the importance of direct-

  ing the youth movement by Khrushchev-era leaders in the Soviet Union

  during the late 1950s and early 1960s.21 He has outlined the need for

  Soviet attention in that matter, including the avid competition with the

  United States for the post–World War II youth movement. Rising expec-

  tations of postwar youth was therefore not unique to the Soviet Union.

  220  Cathleen S. Lewis

  Much of the Western-oriented material culture research and writing

  on collections (and collecting societies) carry the assumption that per-

  sonal collecting is a consequence of a fully developed consumer society.22

  This assumption excludes noncapitalist societies from the discussion. The

  logic is that only consumer societies have adequate disposable income to

  support collecting nonessential goods.23 This presumption neglects the

  obvious fact that all economies harbor markets, and governments have

  limited influence over supply and demand no matter what the ideology of

  the state. Although the existing literature overlooks collections in social-

  ist societies, especially the Soviet Union, it is possible to draw appropriate

  conclusions from this literature on the history of collecting in the USSR.

  Historians have traced the origin of modern political and social re-

  strictions against collecting and consumerism to the emergence of medi-

  eval sumptuary laws, which restricted the material trappings of affluence

  to the rich and powerful.24 Centuries ago in European societies, outward

  signs of affluence were held as an indication of elevated status in society.

  Socialist and Communist regimes shunned such displays to avoid the

  appearance of class distinction. When the sumptuary philosophy of Com-

  munism in the USSR conflicted with the nascent consumerism of the

  1960s, the promise of domestic satisfaction overrode ideology. Although

  the post-Stalinist turn to consumerism was illusory, the illusion was as

  important as Marxist ideology was to the state and would be invoked

  even during declarations of approaching Communism. While Marxism

  decried consumerism as a philosophy, the impossibility of infiltrating

  private lives completely and obligatory tolerance of market forces dictated

  that at least a rudimentary consumerism existed in the Soviet Union.

  Throughout the history of the Soviet Union there have been periods

  when the government has publicly tolerated or even encouraged consum-

  erism. The most notable period of toleration was during the period of

  the New Economic Policy (NEP), when the state sought to harness small-

  market forces to induce economic growth.25 The film industry during the

  NEP was one example of a Soviet state-sanctioned field that developed as

  a direct consequence of these liberalized economic policies. The imple-

  mentation of the five-year planning cycles in 1928 ended official tolerance

  of independent domestic trade.26

  Even during years in which small profits were tolerated, domestic

  economic transactions bore the burden of state ideology. The favored

  transactions were those that increased foreign trade and generated rev-

  From the Kitchen into Orbit  221

  enues for the state. Few consumer goods were available for domestic con-

  sumption. Later, during the period of rapid industrialization followed by

  World War II, the public had little expectation of consumer goods. By

  the late 1950s, after Khrushchev’s “secret speech,” when Stalinist ideol-

  ogy had lost its motivating value, a transformation took place, granting

  consumer production a new, higher status.27 This shift in culture is an

  indication of attempts to provoke consumerism as a driver of economic

  development. Whereas Soviet rhetoric had been against consumption, its

  political rhetoric acknowledged an economic multiplier effect that pro-

  vided economic benefits to society. As a result, Soviet anticonsumerism

  only campaigned against personal consumption, not state consumption.

  One of the consequences of de-Stalinization had been a loosening

  of the political economy to the point where even if the society had not

  achieved an “unlimited good” status, the limitations on expectations

  had relaxed. Although the concept of the unlimited good society might

  seem to be contrary to Khrushchev’s 1961 proclamations of impending

  Communism at the fall party congress, it was not. The presumption of

  expanded wealth matches the expectation of having all needs satisfied

  for the population.28 It was also consistent with the actions of the state at

  the time that, while unwilling to acknowledge ideological and economic

  flaws, it was willing to use tactics that roused consumerist tendencies,

  especially among the youth in the country. This vicarious support of indi-

  vidual consumerism provided a limited answer to the high expectations

  among the population for rewards after the sacrifices of World War II.

  There are two schools of thought among those who acknowledge and

  study the growth of consumerism in the Soviet Union during the 1960s.

  The first is the unmet-demand school that asserts that the Soviet state

  sought to satisfy built-up consumer demand with illusions consisting of

  exhibitions of unavailable consumer goods and offers of malfunctioning

  products.29 They base their arguments on the growth of exhibitions of

  consumer goods and the change in interior design during this period.30

  The abandonment of Stalinist aesthetics coincided with the increased ap-

  pearance of consumer goods. The second argument is a Marxist interpre-

  tation that criticizes late Soviet materialism as a departure from Marxist

  principles.31 The former approaches the history of Soviet consumerism

  through the material evidence of the time. The latter argument adheres

  closel
y to the philosophical underpinnings of the Soviet state and at times

  ignores the reality of commercial exchange.

  222  Cathleen S. Lewis

  Art historian Susan Reid, in her discussion of consumption in Soviet

  society, has analyzed Khrushchev’s tentative steps to depoliticize consum-

  erism in the Soviet Union. Focusing on the Nixon-Khrushchev “kitchen

  debate” in Moscow at the American National Exhibition in 1959, Reid

  traced how Soviet domestic expectations and international politics col-

  lided at the display of the General Electric kitchen. Although the “kitchen

  debate” was between the representatives of the two superpowers, it re-

  flected the conflict that the Soviet Union was having within itself.32 Even

  before the declarations of the Twenty-second Party Congress in 1961,

  Khrushchev had promised that the USSR would pass the West economi-

  cally, but Soviet domestic economic reality challenged the credibility of

  that promise. The display of a state-of-the-art American kitchen made

  the inconsistency even more apparent, revealing that what was a com-

  monplace expectation for American households was beyond fantasy for

  Soviet ones.33 Even as the Americans displayed appliances, Khrushchev

  insisted that space hardware was a surrogate for Soviet domestic appli-

  ances, arguing that Soviet space accomplishments compensated for the

  lack of consumer goods. Soviet washing machines were display objects at

  the Exhibition of Economic Achievements, as American objects had been

  at the 1958 Moscow exhibition. Models of spacecraft displaced the appli-

  ances at the Exhibition of Economic Achievements (Vystavka Dostizhenii

  Narodonogo Khoziastvo, or VDNKh) within a few years.34

  The two types of small collectible items available to the Soviet popu-

  lation in the 1960s, stamps and znachki, illustrated the subject matter

  of spaceflight. The former did so under the tight control of the Ministry

  of Post and Telegraph, with its well-established conservative limits on

  design. The latter did so with little centralized control over design or dis-

  tribution. These differing situations offer an opportunity to compare the

  messages on human spaceflight that each presented to the Soviet public.

  Differences in origins could possibly generate differences in messages.

  Stamps

  Stamp collecting had a long history in Russia and the Soviet Union.

  In the nineteenth century, stamp collecting promoted tourism and geo-

  graphical education among the collecting intelligentsia. In the twentieth

  century, a strict interpretation of Bolshevik dogma on the part of midlevel

  postal bureaucrats placed collecting stamps among other bourgeois activ-

  From the Kitchen into Orbit  223

  ities that should never receive domestic encouragement if not prohibited

  outright.35 In his history of the pre–World War II Soviet stamp bureau-

  cracy, Jonathan Grant has pointed out that regulating stamp collecting

  reflected a deeper requirement for Soviet control of society. Grant argues

  that Soviet strict control of philately during the period between 1929 and

  1939 indicates their larger desire to maintain state control of the larger

  society.36

  Although postal bureaucrats did not choose to eliminate collectible

  stamps altogether, the stamps that resulted from this era were largely

  destined for consumption abroad. The method of restricting collecting

  to foreign markets was quite simple: stamp denominations determined

  the market. The more interesting and aesthetically appealing stamps

  were issued in high denominations. Higher-denomination stamps were

  airmail stamps that were destined for foreign destinations.37 Even when

  they were more aesthetically pleasing, their messages were strict inter-

  pretations of Soviet propaganda. They became “visual statements of the

  values that the regime espoused and desired to foster among the popu-

  lation. In this light, these virtual representations revealed the regime’s

  conception of how Soviet society should be structured.”38 After Stalin’s

  death the organization and methods of Soviet philately did not change

  significantly. The stamps produced through the 1950s were full of pro-

  paganda and continued to recap Soviet industrial, technical, and military

  accomplishments. Instead of depending on symbols and quick slogans,

  these stamps took on more ponderous tones: “In the post-Stalin years,

  Party platforms continued to occupy a prominent place on Soviet stamps

  but were presented in a different manner. Gone were the brief heroic

  slogans of the Stalin era that urged economic mobilization and in their

  place were rather lengthy excerpts from Party congresses.”39 Despite their

  best intentions, the Ministry of Post and Telegraphs was not producing

  stamps whose messages drew attention either at home or abroad.40

  The design for airmail stamps did not vary much from domestic

  ones, despite the fact that they were destined for consumption abroad. So-

  viet industrial achievements and social and political milestones were the

  themes that dominated airmail stamps. This trend continued through

  the 1930s, when in 1939 at the New York World’s Fair the Soviet Pavilion

  featured stamp exhibits that recounted Soviet aviation endeavors.41 More-

  over, even in the 1960s stamps continued to include long quotations from

  party congresses. The resulting stamps left an unsatisfied appetite for

  224  Cathleen S. Lewis

  aesthetically pleasing and inspirational stamps at the dawn of the space

  age. Furthermore, they were ineffective as instruments of propaganda,

  spreading the message of Soviet accomplishments to largely capitalist

  communities that might not learn of these accomplishments otherwise.

  Around the same time, domestic regulations loosened and stamp collect-

  ing became part of an officially sanctioned social organization in the late

  1950s and early 1960s. The Twenty-first Party Congress was the first time

  that collecting organizations were officially recognized as independent

  social groups, receiving official party sanction. Thus the atmosphere for

  the domestic collection of stamps was set before the flight of Yuri Gaga-

  rin. The first Vostok flight provided new imagery for Soviet stamps.

  In anticipation of Gagarin’s flight on April 12, 1961, the Soviet Min-

  istry of Communications prepared three stamps for distribution in the

  denominations of three, six, and ten kopeks.42 The ministry released

  these stamps within days of the flight. Youth magazines promoted their

  sale and collection. For example, the magazine Pioner devoted the inside back cover of its August 1961 issue to these stamps.43 Each of the three

  stamps was consistent with traditional Soviet approaches to the design

  and marketing of stamps. The three-kopek stamp in a domestic-mail de-

  nomination provided only the basic details of Gagarin’s flight. The top of

  the stamp carries the title “Man from the Country of Soviets in Space.”

  Around Gagarin’s portrait are the words “First Cosmonaut in the World.”

  On either side are pictures of a generic rocket and an illustration of the

  Hero of the Soviet Union medal that Khrushc
hev had awarded him im-

  mediately after his flight. The design of the stamp could easily be mis-

  taken for the graphic equivalent of the front page of Pravda. There was no effort at aesthetic innovation.

  The six-kopek stamp for international mail followed the post-

  Stalinist tradition of bearing long quotations from party officials. The

  two-part stamp illustrates Vostok, a ballistic missile, and a launch vehicle rocket flying over the Kremlin with a radar dish on the side on the top portion that carries the postage mark and the same title as the three-kopek

  stamp. The lower portion carries the quotation from Nikita Khrushchev’s

  early statement about the Gagarin flight: “Our country was the first to lay

  down the path to socialism. He was the first to enter space, and opened

  the new era in the development of science.”44 The largest denomination

  stamp in the first Gagarin set was similar to the other two. The ten-kopek

  stamp, too, features an image of Gagarin’s launch vehicle flying over the

  From the Kitchen into Orbit  225

  Kremlin and the title “Person from the Land of the Soviets in Space.”

  However, this foreign-envelope postage stamp did not have an additional

  section with a quotation from Khrushchev because a long quote in Rus-

  sian was of little value to the international public.

  These first stamps honoring Gagarin were created and distributed in

  a short time period. It is not surprising that the ministry made little effort

  to transform the aesthetic approach to stamp design at that time. There

  had been no shake-ups within the ministry to change its manner of do-

  ing business. It had merely adapted the message of human spaceflight

  to its format of miniaturizing Pravda or Izvestiia headlines into a stamp format. Subsequent stamps that honored the flights of Vostok 2 through

  Vostok 6 were similar in detail. For example, the set of stamps that came out in honor of the dual missions of Vostok 3 and Vostok 4, which carried cosmonauts Adrian Nikolaev and Pavel Popovich, respectively in overlapping missions, are little different from the stamp issues the year before

  commemorating German Titov’s first full day in space on board Vostok

  2 in August 1961.45 In all three cases the stamp featured a portrait of the cosmonaut, his name, the date of the mission, and a stylized illustration

  of the spacecraft. In all three cases the stylization of the spacecraft did