The Mechanics and Energetics of Soviet Communism: The Poetics of Peat

Bird, Robert

doi:10.1007/978-3-031-14320-5_8

Robert Bird⁵

Part of the book series: Literatures, Cultures, and the Environment ((LCE))

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Abstract

This essay by Robert Bird (1969–2020) shows how peat dramatized the difficulties Soviet artists faced in devising representational modes appropriate to the task of socialist construction in the 1920s and 1930s. In the mid-1920s, stories by Mikhail Prishvin, Aleksandr Peregudov, and Aleksandr Iakovlev granted a voice to peat workers by augmenting existing literary forms with documentary and agitational methods. In the 1930s, artists (including Peregudov and Arsenii Tarkovskii) focused on peat’s role in the powering of socialism, dissolving the stuff of peat in the imaginary map of social and cultural forces. Later works on peat by Prishvin and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn register the resistance of nature to engineered or speculative solutions, calling into question the very possibility of representing Soviet political, economic, and social values.

Robert Bird (1969–2020) completed the present essay before his untimely death in 2020; it has been prepared for publication by the editors with assistance from his widow, Christina Kiaer, and from Sasha Artamonova and Alla Roylance.

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Notes

1.
Mikhail Prishvin, “Torf,” Sobranie sochinenii v vos’mi tomakh (Moscow: Khudozhestvennaia literatura, 1982–1986) vol. 3, 491–2. The essay was first published in six installments in Rabochaia gazeta 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8 July 1926. Prishvin conflates the inhabitants of the legendary island of Atlantis with the Titan Atlas, who held up the heavens. Cf. also M. M. Prishvin, Dnevniki 1926–1927 (Moscow, 2003) 73–6.
2.
Prishvin, “Torf,” 491.
3.
Prishvin, “Torf,” 490.
4.
Prishvin, “Torf,” 495.
5.
Maksim Gor’kii, Sobranie sochinenii, 30 vols. (Moscow, 1949–1955) vol. 24, 268; vol. 29, 477. Further quotations from this collection are cited parenthetically in the text.
6.
On the history of representations of bogs, see David C. Miller, Dark Eden: The Swamp in Nineteenth-Century American Culture (Cambridge, 1989); Karin Sanders, Bodies in the Bog and the Archaeological Imagination (Chicago, 2009); David Blackbourn, The Conquest of Nature: Water, Landscape, and the Making of Modern Germany (London, 2006) 136–53, passim.
7.
In fairness, Gorky had previously posed the issue in sexual terms; for instance, in his 1926 essay on Prishvin he found himself advocating “incest”: “man, born of the Earth, fertilizes it with his labor and enriches it with the beauty of his imagination”; Gorky, Sobranie sochinenii, 24:267.
8.
Walter Benjamin, Moscow Diary, ed. Gary Smith, trans. Richard Sieburth, preface by Gershom Scholem (Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ. Press, 1986), 51.
9.
Torf v narodnom khoziaistve, ed. B. N. Sokolov (Moscow, 1988), 11–2; see I. E. Belokopytov, “M. V. Lomonosov o bolotakh i torfe,” Torfianaia promyshlennost’ 8 (1960), 25–7.
10.
On Shatura, see Vl. Fedorov, “Shatura-gorod,” Nashi dostizheniia 7–8 (1931), 35–43. On other peat-based power stations: Dm. Semenovskii, “Elektrostantsiia na torfe,” Nashi dostizheniia no. 12 (1931), 17–25. On Lenin and peat, see Douglas Weiner, Models of Nature: Ecology, Conservation and Cultural Revolution in Soviet Russia (Pittsburgh, 2000), 23.
11.
These figures are from Torf v narodnom khoziaistve, 74; see also I. Ignat’ev, “Bogatstva ‘brosovykh zemel’,’” Nashi dostizheniia 9 (1930); George Kazakov, Soviet Peat Resources: A Descriptive Study, Studies on the U.S.S.R., no. 5 (New York: Research Program on the U.S.S.R., 1953); Jonathan Coopersmith, The Electrification of Russia, 1880–1926 (Ithaca and London, 1992).
12.
For a recent reflection on these, see Arkadii Dragomoshchenko, “Bezrazlichie,” Topos: literaturno-filosofskii zhurnal, http://topos.ru/article/2149, accessed 23 December 2008. For Blok and Nabokov, peat fires were a harbinger of revolution: A. A. Blok, Sobranie sochinenii v shesti tomakh (Moscow, 1971), 6:313 (notation of 6 August 1917); Vladimir Nabokov, Speak, Memory in Novels and Memoirs 1941-1951 (New York, 1996), 565. For Pasternak (in his poem “Marine Tsvetaevoi”), they signified the complex workings of cultural memory; Boris Pasternak, Polnoe sobranie sochinenii s prilozheniiami v odinnadtsati tomakh (Moscow: Slovo, 2003–5), 1:214.
13.
http://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Шатурская_ГРЭС, last accessed 31 December 2009. More recent figures from the parent company OGK-4 give the proportion as 2.57% (140,000 tonnes); see http://www.ogk4.ru/?obj=prod_sales, last accessed 31 December 2009.
14.
A. A. Igolkin, “Razvitie toplivno-energeticheskogo kompleksa v gody pervoi i vtoroi piatiletok. Plany i real’nost’,” Proektnoe myshlenie stalinskoi epokhi, ed. M. P. Odesskii (Moscow, 2004), 56.
15.
On the history of peat-harvesting technologies in Russia, see Ignat’ev, “Bogatstva ‘brosovykh zemel’’”; Kazakov, Soviet Peat Resources, 140–7; Torf v narodnom khoziaistve, 11–26.
16.
V. I. Lenin, Polnoe sobranie sochinenii (Moscow, 1958–1970), 44:321–2; cf. Ibid., 53:145–8 (correspondence with R. Klasson); Anonymous, “Sorokaletie plana GOELRO,“ Torfianaia promyshlennost’ 8 (1960), 3; see also S. G. Sokolov, ed., “Vyskazyvaniia V. I. Lenina i Postanovleniia Soveta Narodnykh Komissarov i Soveta Truda i Oborony o torfe,” Torfianaia promyshlennost’ 8 (1960): 27–31.
17.
See for instance Maksim Gor’kii, “Solovki,” Nashi dostizheniia no. 6, 1929, 11–2; cf. Elizabeth Astrid Papazian, Manufacturing Truth: The Documentary Moment in Early Soviet Culture (DeKalb, Ill., 2009), 131–55.
18.
Peat was featured on a Gospolitprosvet stenciled poster in six panels by V. O. Roskin from July 1921. RGALI 336.1.938.
19.
Proekt inzhenera Praita, director Lev Kuleshov, DVD (Moscow, 2008).
20.
Neia Zorkaia, Istoriia sovetskogo kino (St Petersburg, 2005), 76–81. On the event see L. L’vov, “Gidrotorf,” Izobretatel’ i ratsionalizator no. 1, 1969. The film is held at RGAKFD no. 22668. Cf. Anonymous, “Sorokaletie plana GOELRO,“ 2–3; Torf v narodnom khoziaistve, 22.
21.
Lenin, Polnoe sobranie sochinenii, vol. 35, 413; Anonymous, “Sorokaletie plana GOELRO,“ 3.
22.
Litvinov, Za shest’ millionov, RGAKFD no. 3674; for a story on a related theme, see Mark Geizel’, “Torfianiki,” Ezh no. 17, 1931, 6–9.
23.
RGALI 656.1.3365 ll.72–87.
24.
Aleksandr Peregudov, “Boloto,” Chelovech’ia vesna (Moscow: Nedra, 1926), 74–85.
25.
Aleksandr Peregudov, “Tumany,” Chelovech’ia vesna, 106–42; Aleksandr Iakovlev, “Boloto,” Literaturno-khudozhestvennye sborniki Nedra, vol. 6, 1926, 149–91.
26.
Aleksandr Peregudov, “A. S. Iakovlev,” in Izbrannye proizvedeniia (Moscow: Sovetskaia Rossiia, 1986), 2:504.
27.
RGALI 2211.1.5 ll.328–328ob. Peregudov’s information tallies with that reported by Prishvin in his essay; see Prishvin, “Torf,” 495–8. Cf. also Peregudov’s annotated press clippings on peat: RGALI 2211.1.171.
28.
An article from a penal colony newspaper illumines the context:

She has finished one “map.” She has to cross the ditch.

The KR woman [i.e., a woman imprisoned for counter-revolutionary activity] looks for a bridge. She stops in thought. She looks at her reflection in the brackish water and sees a face sad because of peat.

She decides to show off her gymnastic ability. She runs up in her narrow skirt and jumps awkwardly, right into the ditch. She clutches at the moss and scrambles out.

Sof’ia Okerman, “Torfianistki,” Novye Solovki 16 August 1925, 2; see also [Anonymous,] “Udarnik na torfu,” Novye Solovki 16 August 1925, 3.
29.
Gor’kii, Sobranie sochinenii, 30:50. Letter to Aleksandr Peregudov from 4 December 1927.
30.
V. Boichevskii, “Tvorchestvo A. Peregudova,” Novyi mir 11, 1933, 181, 182.
31.
Torfianitsa Niura. Komediia v 5 deistviiakh, 6 kartinakh (Iz zhizni torforabochikh) (Moscow, 1935).
32.
Semen Kirsanov, Piatiletka (Moscow, Leningrad, 1931), 37.
33.
See for instance poster held at the Hoover Institution: Toplivnaia promyshlennost’: Skhematicheskaia karta. Moscow, Leningrad: Gosudarstvennoe izdatel’stvo, 1933.
34.
See Gimn trudu: Sovetskoe iskusstvo iz sobraniia russkogo muzeia, DVD-Rom, Palace Editions. n.d.
35.
E. Shabad, SSSR: Sever, vostok, iug, zapad (Moscow, 1932).
36.
Ars. Tarkovskii, “Povest’ o sfagnume: Tonorama,” Radio–Dekada no. 1, June 1931, 11–4.
37.
[O. N.] Abdulov, “Kak zvuchit torf?” Radio–Dekada no. 1, June 1931, 14–5.
38.
The canvas is reproduced (without indication of source) in: D. Zuev, N. Lozinskaia, and A Trofimov, eds., Promyshlennyi realizm. Prozivodstvennaia tema v sovetskoi zhivopisi i fotografii (Moscow, 2006). This catalogue constituted nos. 24–5 of the almanac WAM (World Art Muzei).
39.
Andrei Platonov, Zapisnye knizhki: Materialy k biografii (Moscow, 2000), 345. Platonov’s “volt arc” is featured also in his story “The Sea of Youth” (Iuvenil’noe more, 1934), which elaborates on its metaphysical ramifications.
40.
David Joravsky, Soviet Marxism and Natural Science, 1917–1932 (New York: Columbia Univ. Press, 1961), 101. It should be noted that, confusingly, this “energetics” was a feature of the so-called “mechanist” faction of Soviet philosophy that was inspired in part by Aleksandr Bogdanov’s “scientific monism.”
41.
V. Boichevskii, “Tvorchestvo A. Peregudova,” 183.
42.
Aleksandr Peregudov, “Solnechnyi klad: Roman,” Novyi mir 4 (May 1932), 10.
43.
Aleksandr Peregudov, “Solnechnyi klad: Roman,” Novyi mir 7 (July 1932), 206.
44.
Aleksandr Peregudov, “Solnechnyi klad: Roman,” Novyi mir 5 (May 1932), 129.
45.
Peregudov, “Solnechnyi klad: Roman,” Novyi mir 4 (April 1932), 23. For a utopian project based on this notion of peat as a spiritual organism, see V. V. Kudriashov, Torf kak rastushchee telo (Moscow, 1929), 1.
46.
On forced labor and peat, see Blackbourn, The Conquest of Nature, 270–4; Paul Berben, Dachau, 1933–1945: The Official History (London, 1975), 93; Wolfgang Benz and Barbara Distel, eds., Der Ort des Terrors: Geschichte der nationalsozialistischen Konzentrationslager, vol. 2: Frühe Lager; Dachau; Emslandlager (Munich, 2005), 119–20 (Hamburg-Wittmoor), 546–7 (Emsland). For descriptions of the work see Wolfgang Langhoff, Rubber Truncheon: Being an Account of Thirteen Months Spent in a Concentration Camp (New York, 1935), 164–77; Heinz Hentschke, Moor und Heide ringsumher. Erinnerungen (Berlin, 1990), 83–4.
47.
Wolfgang Langhoff, Bolotnye soldaty: trinadtsat’ mesiatsev v kontsentratsionnom lagere. Rasskaz o deistvitel’no perezhitom, ill. Jean Kralik, trans. El. Kazanskaia (Moscow: Gosudarstvennoe izdatel’stvo khudozhestvennaia literatura, 1936).
48.
The resistance of peat is vividly illustrated in I. Asarov’s 1931 poem “Muck”; see I. Asarov, “Griaz’,” Krasnaia nov’ no. 2, 1931, 106.
49.
Karl Marx, Capital, ed. Frederick Engels (New York: International Publishers, 1967) 1:398; Friedrich Engels, Dialectics of Nature, trans. Clemens Duff (New York, 1940), 292.
50.
Gorky, Sobranie sochinenii, 26:333.
51.
Prishvin, Sobranie sochinenii, 5:252. See also Prishvin’s thoughts about peat and machines and his draft of a story about getting stuck with his automobile in a peat bog: M. M. Prishvin, Dnevniki 1932–1935 (St Petersburg, 2009), 451, 508, 525, 613, 820–3.
52.
Mikhail Prishvin, “Sovest’,” Izvestiia 12 August 1934, 6. For the parallel to Seamus Heaney see, for instance, his “Digging” in Seamus Heaney, New Selected Poems 1966–1987 (London, Boston, 1990), 1–2.
53.
Gor’kii i sovetskie pisateli: Neizdannaia perepiska, eds. I. I. Anisimov et al (Moscow: Izdatel’stvo Akademii nauk SSSR, 1963), 332–3 (Literaturnoe nasledstvo vol. 70); Prishvin’s letter to Gorky from 3 October 1926. In a follow-up from 6 October 1926, Prishvin retracted the suggestion to avoid confusion with the notion of vitalism in biology.
54.
Prishvin, Sobranie sochinenii, vol. 5, 480.
55.
Prishvin, Sobranie sochinenii, vol. 5, 480.
56.
Prishvin, Sobranie sochinenii, vol. 5, 476.
57.
M. M. Prishvin, “Dnevnik 1939 goda,” Oktiabr’ no. 2 (1998): 147. Prishvin also adopted other dominant images of the 1930s Soviet imaginary as metaphors for his own struggle as a writer to overcome his material; “We are all building a kind of canal,” he wrote in the “scaffolding” of his magnum opus, The Lord’s Road, a history of the White Sea-Baltic Sea Canal; M. M. Prishvin, Dnevniki 1936–1937 (St Petersburg, 2010), 683; cf. Irina Paperno, Stories of the Soviet Experience : Memoirs, Diaries, Dreams (Ithaca and London, 2009), 174–82. On Prishvin’s notion of the resistance of material to his artistic design, see Prishvin, Dnevniki 1926–1927, 204–5.
58.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, “Matrenin dvor,” Maloe sobranie sochinenii (Moscow, 1991) 3:113; further references to this edition are given parenthetically in the text. Solzhenitsyn also mentions peat farming in One Day of Ivan Denisovich as one of the professions open to former peasants (Ibid., 28).
59.
Solzhenitsyn, “Matrenin dvor,” 114.
60.
Solzhenitsyn, “Matrenin dvor,” 141.
61.
Pavel Antokol’skii, Stikhotvoreniia 1920–1932 (n.l. 1936), 159.

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Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures, Department of Cinema and Media Studies, University of Chicago, Chicago, USA
Robert Bird

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University of Colorado Boulder, Boulder, CO, USA
Jillian Porter
New York University, New York, NY, USA
Maya Vinokour

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Bird, R. (2023). The Mechanics and Energetics of Soviet Communism: The Poetics of Peat. In: Porter, J., Vinokour, M. (eds) Energy Culture. Literatures, Cultures, and the Environment. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-14320-5_8

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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-14320-5_8
Published: 07 April 2023
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