Into the Cosmos Read online

  8. Jonathan Grant, “The Socialist Construction of Philately in the Early Soviet Era,”

  Comparative Studies in Society and History 37, no. 3 (July 1995): 476–93.

  9. Nina Tumarkin, Lenin Lives! The Lenin Cult in Soviet Russia (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1983); Jeffrey Brooks, Thank You, Comrade Stalin! Soviet Public Culture from Revolution to Cold War (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2000); and Karen Petrone, Life Has Become More Joyous, Comrades: Celebrations in the Time of Stalin (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2000).

  10. The Lenin All-Union Pioneer Organization (Vsesoiuznaia pionerskaia organizatsiia imeni V. I. Lenina), known as the Pioneers, was a mass, scoutlike organization for children ages ten through fifteen in the Soviet Union. Komsomol, the Communist Youth Union (Kommunisticheskii soiuz molodëzhi), was the youth wing of the party for students ages fourteen through twenty-eight, after which one could petition to full party membership.

  11. Catriona Kelly, “‘Thank You for the Wonderful Book’: Soviet Child Readers and the Management of Children’s Reading, 1950–75,” Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History 6, no. 4 (Fall 2005): 719–20.

  12. Grant, “Socialist Construction of Philately in the Early Soviet Era,” 476–93.

  13. Both economic and social studies of the Soviet postwar population have indicated that the need to rebuild the economy and continue economic growth that would maintain the USSR’s role in world affairs built expectations among the populace that the victor against fascism would reward its population with some portion of its new status and building wealth. Susan J. Linz, “World War II and Soviet Economic Growth, 1940–1953,” in The Impact of World War II on the Soviet Union, edited by Susan J. Linz (Totowa, N.J.: Rowman and Allenheld, 1985); and Elena Zubkova, Russia after the War: Hopes, Illusions, and Disappointments, 1945–1957, translated by Hugh Ragsdale, in the New Russian History series, edited by Donald J. Raleigh (Armonk, N.Y.: M. E. Sharpe, 1998).

  14. Stamps and znachki were not the only miniature objects that were for sale and collection in the former Soviet Union. There existed also palekh-style miniatures ( palekh are the traditional Russian lacquered miniatures that were originally religious icons, but under Soviet rule they became secular and marketed for export) that portrayed Gagarin and other space themes. See in Boris Groys, Ilya Kabakov: The Man Who Flew into Space from His Apartment, installation review (London: Afterall Books, 2006), plates 20–23: 20.

  K. V. Kukulieva, B. N. Kukuliev, and O .V. An, portrait of Yuri Gagarin, lacquer painting; 21. K. V. Kukulieva, B. N. Kukuliev, and O .V. An, portrait of Konstantin Tsiolkovsky; 22.

  K. V. Kukulieva, B. N. Kukuliev, and O .V. An, portrait of Yuri Gagarin and Sergei Ko-

  308  Notes to pages 218–220

  rolyov, lacquer painting; 23. K. V. Kukulieva, B. N. Kukuliev, and O .V. An, portrait of Yuri Gagarin, lacquer painting, from book of postcards Syn Rossii (Son of Russia) (Moscow: Izobrazitel’noe iskusstvo, 1987).

  15. Vladimir Paperny, Architecture in the Age of Stalin: Culture Two, translated by John Hill and Roann Barris (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002).

  16. Arthur Voyce, “Soviet Art and Architecture: Recent Developments,” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 303 (January 1956): 104–15. The issue theme is “Russia since Stalin: Old Trends and New Problems.”

  17. Christina Kiaer, Imagine No Possessions: The Socialist Objects of Russian Constructivism (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2005).

  18. The Union of Architects issued the 1955 “Directive of the Party Design and Construction”; see Victor Buchli, “Khrushchev, Modernism, and the Fight against ‘Petit-Bourgeois’ Consciousness in the Soviet Home,” Journal of Design 10, no. 2 (1997): 161–76. “Ornamentalism” was the euphemism for Stalinist neoclassical “wedding cake” architecture.

  The Directive of the Party Design and Construction used the term in 1955 when overturn-ing Stalin’s directives on design.

  19. Ibid., 175.

  20. Stamp collecting had its origins in British and American industrial capitalism, and these origins might have tainted the hobby for midlevel Soviet officials who determined stamp issues. Steven M. Gelber, “Free Market Metaphor: The Historical Dynamics of Stamp Collecting,” Comparative Studies in Society and History 34, no. 4 (October 1992): 742–69. Until the official allowance of independent-collecting societies in 1961, Soviet sanction of domestic philately was grudging at best. The philately journals appeared spo-radically over the years and the Philately Society reported directly to the NKVD; see Grant,

  “Socialist Construction of Philately in the Early Soviet Era,” 476–93.

  21. Joel Kotek, Students and the Cold War (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1996).

  22. Russell Belk, Collecting in a Consumer Society (London: Routledge, 1995); and Philipp Blom, To Have and to Hold: An Intimate History of Collectors and Collecting (Wood-stock, N.Y.: Overlook Press, 2003). Belk and Blom assume that collecting societies develop as consequences of leisure and affluence of a well-developed capitalist society.

  23. Belk, Collecting in a Consumer Society, 3; and Steven M. Gelber, “Free Market Metaphor: The Historical Dynamics of Stamp Collecting,” Comparative Studies in Society and History 34, no. 4 (October 1992): 742–69.

  24. Belk, Collecting in a Consumer Society, 6–7.

  25. The New Economic Policy (NEP) took place between 1921 and 1928. The Tenth

  Party Congress approved the policy in recognition of the fact that the peasantry withdrew from economic exchange under the policy of War Communism that sanctioned mass state appropriation of goods. The policy allowed peasants and other small producers to sell their surpluses for a small profit and thereby encouraged production as the Bolsheviks sought to rebuild the Russian economy after World War I and the Civil War. This period also coincided with a relaxation of Civil War–era restrictions on cultural activities. In both cases the relaxed rules were considered short-term ideological sacrifices to regain pre–

  World War I economic and social stability; see E. A. Preobrazhensky, The Crisis of Soviet Industrialization: Selected Essays, translated by Donald A. Filtzer (White Plains, N.Y.: M.

  E. Sharpe, 1979) and Russia in the Era of NEP: Explorations in Soviet Society and Culture, edited by Sheila Fitzpatrick, Alexander Rabinowitz, and Richard Stites (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1991).

  26. Stalin instituted central planning in the form of the First Five Year Plan in 1928

  Notes to pages 221–225  309

  to extract as much wealth as possible from the countryside to control the economy and finance industrialization.

  27. Alex Levant, “The Soviet Union in Ruins” (MA thesis, Methodologies for the Study of Western History and Culture Master’s Program, Trent University, 1999), 102.

  28. The Marxist definition of Communism is “from each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs.” This is distinct from socialism, which is defined as “from each according to his abilities, to each according to his work.”

  29. Brooks, Thank You, Comrade Stalin! , xvii–xviii, states the philosophy behind Khrushchev’s belief: “After Stalin’s death, Khrushchev increased public expectations about the quantity and quality of the state’s gift to society, but his promises to match and surpass Western Living standards went unfulfilled. . . . Along with the emphasis on consumerism, Khrushchev opened society to a degree by limiting repression as easing censorship. Intellectuals took advantage of Khrushchev’s ‘thaw’ to champion ‘sincerity,’ the antithesis of the formative tethos, but nonetheless left much of the performative culture intact. In the end, neither Khrushchev not his successors were willing to discard the ritualistic certainties from which they derived legitimacy. Their performative culture lingered on in a semi-moribund state until Brezhnev inadvertently turned it into self-parody.” Reid,

  “Cold War in the Kitchen,” explains the practical significance of Khrushchev’s activities.

  30. Buch
li, “Khrushchev, Modernism, and the Fight against ‘Petit-Bourgeois’ Consciousness in the Soviet Home,” 161–76.

  31. Levant, “Soviet Union in Ruins,” 97.

  32. The “kitchen debate” was an impromptu debate between Nixon and Khrushchev at the opening of the American National Exhibition in Moscow, on July 24, 1959, among the American household appliances display that had been a focus of the United States’s exhibit at the 1958 Brussels World’s Fair.

  33. Reid, “Cold War in the Kitchen,” 223–24.

  34. Marquis Childs, “Moscow Exhibits Stress Sputniks,” Washington Post and Times Herald, June 24, 1958, A16.

  35. Grant, “Socialist Construction of Philately in the Early Soviet Era,” 476–93.

  36. Ibid., 476.

  37. Ibid., 481.

  38. Ibid., 484.

  39. Ibid., 492–93.

  40. The Soviet Ministerstvo sviazi is the Ministry of Communications; however, the traditional translation is Ministry of Post and Telegraph, alluding to the pre-twentieth-century origins of the name.

  41. Anthony Swift, “The Soviet World of Tomorrow at the New York World’s Fair, 1939,”

  Russian Review 57 (July 1998): 376.

  42. The Ministerstvo sviazi issued stamps in five denominations in 1961 (after revaluation of the ruble in 1961): one, three, four, six, and ten kopeks. The one-kopek stamp paid for delivery of domestic postcards. The four-kopek stamp delivered domestic envelopes.

  The six- and ten-kopek stamps delivered international postcards and letters, respectively.

  43. “Marki dlia kollektsii,” Pioner (Moscow), August 1961, n.p. (inside back cover).

  44. Vostok Stamp with Khrushchev Quote, 6 k, in Moscow, USSR, postage stamp, Smithsonian Institution National Air and Space Museum, USSR Ministerstvo Sviaz, April 1961.

  45. Vostok 3 launched on August 11, 1962, with Adrian Nikolaev on board. While that craft was still in orbit, Pavel Popovich launched on board Vostok 4 on August 12, 1962.

  Both craft remained in orbit until August 15, 1962.

  310  Notes to pages 225–233

  46. The first model of a Vostok went on display inside what was soon to become the Kosmos Pavilion at the Exhibition of Economic Achievements in Moscow: “Vostok Model Is Shown to Public in Moscow,” New York Times, April 30, 1965, 10.

  47. Voskhod 1 launched on October 12, 1964, and landed on October 13. The mission’s technological significance was that the craft carried a crew of three, making it the first multipassenger human space mission. The mission’s added political significance came from the fact that the crew was in orbit at the time when the Politburo removed Nikita Khrushchev from power.

  48. Voskhod 2 was the second mission of the modified Vostok hardware. Pavel Belaev commanded the mission and pilot-cosmonaut Aleksei Leonov performed the first spacewalk on this daylong mission beginning March 18, 1965.

  49. “Marki Dlia Kollektsii,” Pioner (Moscow), August 1961, n.p. (inside back cover).

  50. Samuel A. Tower, “Looking into New Soviet Issues,” New York Times, June 22, 1975, 143.

  51. The Pioneer organization magazines, Pioner and Semena, continued to run “Marki dlia kollektsii” (Stamps for collectors) and “Dlia kollektsioner” (For the collector) articles on an alternating basis in the monthly magazines throughout the 1960s. The latter followed the stamp issues. The former announced the release of znachki, coins, and special issue medals.

  52. Sergei Ivanovich Ozhegov, Slovar’ russkogo iazyka (Moskva: Izdatel’stvo “Sovetskaia entsiklopediia,” 1968), 228.

  53. German Evgenevich Kruglov, Chto takoe faleristika (Minsk: Polymia, 1983), 9.

  54. Ibid., 20.

  55. V. N. Il’inskii, Znachki i ikh kollektsionirovanie ( Posobie dlia fileristov), 1976 , Izdanie vtoroe pererabotannoe i dopolnenie (Moscow: Izdatel’stvo “Sviaz’,” 1977); and V. A. Omel’ko, Nagradnye znaki obshchestvennykh organizatsii u muzeev, vol. 1, Nagrady za osvoenie kosmosa catalog (Moscow: N.p., 2002).

  56. These were the official magazines of the Pioneer organization.

  57. The voluntary Znanie Society promoted public scientific education and published this journal.

  58. V. N. Il’inskii, Znachki i ikh kollektsionirovanie ( Posobie dlia fileristov), 1976, Izdanie vtoroe pererabotannoe i dopolnenie (Moscow: Izdatel’stvo “Sviaz’,” 1977) describes the history of the collection of the pins. Kruglov, Chto takoe faleristika, offers a history of the pins themselves, including useful information on their production and materials. V. N.

  Il’inskii, V. E. Kuzin, and M. B. Saukke, Kosmonavtiki na znachkakh sssr, 1957–1975: Katalog (Moscow: Izdatel’stvo “Sviaz’,” 1977), is the most comprehensive catalogue of space-related znachki.

  59. Frederick C. Barghoorn, “Soviet Cultural Diplomacy Since Stalin,” Russian Review 17, no. 1 (January 1958): 41–55.

  60. Kruglov, Chto takoe faleristika, 10.

  61. “Neobychnaia Kollektsiia,” Ogonek (Moscow), February 12, 1961, 26.

  62. Il’inskii, Znachki i ikh kollektsionirovanie (Posobie dlia fileristov), 6.

  63. These are the official terms that Russian falerists use in classifying their collections. Other historians use a more elaborate classification system that addresses all znachki, not focusing specifically on space-related ones; see Victor C. Seibert, “Falerists and Their Russian Znachki,” Numismatist (June 1979): 1,198–202.

  64. Il’inskii, Kuzin, and Saukke list at least twenty-three enterprises that manufactured space znachki as of 1975; see V. N. Il’inskii, V. E. Kuzin, and M. B. Saukke, Kosmonavtika na znachkakh sssr, 1957–1975: Katalog (Moscow: Izdatel’stvo “Sviaz’,” 1977), 143–44.

  Notes to pages 234–244  311

  65. V. A. Omel’ko, Nagradnye znaki obshchestvennykh organizatsii u muzeev, vol. 1, Nagrady za osvoenie kosmosa Katalog (Moscow: N.p., 2002), 6.

  66. The “K” stands for kopeek, the Russian penny.

  67. Omel’ko, Nagrady za osvoenie kosmosa katalog. This is a catalog of these awards.

  Although it does not list the recipient of each award, it does state the issuing organization, the purpose of the award, and the starting dates and cycles for each award.

  68. Il’inskii, Znachki i ikh kollektsionirovanie (Posobie dlia fileristov), 9, 112, and 143.

  Tompak is a copper and zinc alloy that is an inexpensive alternative to copper and gold in costume jewelry. The Shcherbinsk Factory is an optical facility in the suburbs of Moscow.

  69. Ibid., 9.

  70. Childs, “Moscow Exhibits Stress Sputniks,” A16; Waggoner, “Brussels Invites the World to Its Fair,” 6; “U.S. and Soviet Agree to Exchange of Exhibits,” Washington Post and Times Herald, December 30, 1958, A5; and “Text of Speeches by Nixon and Kozlov at Opening of Soviet Exhibition,” New York Times, June 30, 1959, 16.

  71. Iurii Sal’nikov, director, Iurii Gagarin, film (Moscow: Ekran, 1969).

  72. Grant, “Socialist Construction of Philately in the Early Soviet Era,” 493.

  73. Il’inskii, Kuzin, and Saukke, Kosmonavtiki na znachkakh sssr, 1957–1975: Katalog, 6.

  74. Il’inskii, Znachki i ikh kollektsionirovanie (Posobie dlia fileristov), 15.

  75. Frank H. Winter, “The Silent Revolution or How R. H. Goddard May Have Helped Start the Space Age,” paper presented at the Fifty-fifth International Astronautical Federation Congress, October 4–8, Vancouver, Canada, 2004. Winter goes into some detail about how the image gained popular international acceptance.

  76. Il’inskii, Kuzin, and Saukke, Kosmonavtiki na znachkakh sssr, 1957–1975: Katalog, 143.

  77. Voskhod launched on October 12, 1964, with commander Vladimir Komarov, engineer Konstantin Feoktistov, and physician Boris Ëgorov. The March 18, 1965, launch of Voskhod 2 carried commander Pavel Belaev and pilot Aleksei Leonov.

  10. Cold War Theaters

  1. I am not arguing that the government “staged” the events in the traditional use of the word. Rather, I think it is important to recognize the narrative value of convening larg
e, enthusiastic, celebratory demonstrations of the people so soon after the border closure.

  2. On Khrushchev’s role in the Berlin Crisis, see, for example, Vladislav M. Zubok,

  “Khrushchev and the Berlin Crisis (1958–62)”, in Cold War International History Project (CWIHP): Working Paper No. 6 (Washington, D.C.: Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, 1993). On the events leading up to the construction of the Berlin Wall, see Hope M. Harrison, Driving the Soviets up the Wall (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2003) or Harrison, “Ulbricht and the Concrete ‘Rose’: New Archival Evidence on the Dynamics of Soviet-East German Relations and the Berlin Crisis, 1958–61,” CWIHP: Working Paper No. 5 (Washington, D.C.: Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, 1993).

  3. Dietrich Staritz, Geschichte der DDR (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1996), 96.

  4. Ibid., 101.

  5. This was meant to perform a deterrent effect: to convince people that it was not worth it to steal from the government (ibid., 104). Staritz uses the pancake example to show that prosecutors did not pursue every case—this baker was given a fifty-deutschemark fine for

  “privatizing” ten pancakes. For his reluctance to imprison the baker, however, the court sentenced the prosecutor to three years in prison.

  312  Notes to pages 244–248

  6. Staritz (ibid., 105) has noted that by 1950 the percentage of East Germans claiming no religious affiliation had risen by less than 2 percent (to 7.6 percent from 5.9 percent).

  7. Ibid., 105.

  8. Collectivization had previously unleashed revolts in the countryside (ibid.). Workers in Leipzig already had begun striking in May because of falling wages; see Gareth Pritchard, The Making of the GDR (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2000), 202.

  See also Hermann Weber, Geschichte der DDR (Munich: Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag, 2000), 164–65.

  9. Weber, Geschichte der DDR, 164.

  10. Volker Berghahn, Modern Germany: Society, Economics, and Politics in the Twentieth Century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982), 219.