The Trial of Lenin: Legitimating the revolution through political theater, 1920-23

Russian Review

Volumn 61, Issue 2, 2002, Pages 235-248

  Wood, Elizabeth A ^a  

^a Massachusetts Inst of Technology   (United States)

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EID: 34248074228     PISSN: 00360341     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1111/0036-0341.00225     Document Type: Review

References (113)

1. "Sud nad Leninym," Pravda, 22 April 1920.
2. This article is part of a monograph on the agitation trials, Performing Justice: Agitation Trials in Revolutionary Russia, 1920-1933 (forthcoming).
3. Nikolai Karzhanskii, Kollektivnaia dramaturgiia: Material dlia rabot dramaticheskikh studii i kruzhkov (Moscow, 1922), 12, 66.
4. Occasionally historians give 23 April as Lenin's birthday rather than the 22d. The reason for the discrepancy is that Lenin's birthday was 10 April 1870 in the Old Style calendar which was used in the Russian Empire at that time. This calendar differed from the European and later Soviet calendars by twelve days in the nineteenth century and thirteen in the twentieth. Thus, in the nineteenth century the New Style date would have been the 22d; this is the date that was commonly used in 1920.
5. Richard Wortman, Scenarios of Power: Myth and Ceremony in Russian Monarchy, 2 vols. (Princeton, 1995, 2000).
6. Two other fascinating studies of court ritual in medieval Russia are Robert O. Crummey, "Court Spectacles in Seventeenth-Century Russia: Illusion and Reality," in Essays in Honor of A. A. Zimin, ed. Daniel Clarke Waugh (Columbus, OH, 1985);
7. and Nancy Shields Kollman, "Ritual and Social Drama at the Muscovite Court," Slavic Review 45 (Fall 1986): 486-502.
8. James Von Geldern, Bolshevik Festivals, 1917-1920 (Berkeley, 1993);
9. Richard Stites, Revolutionary Dreams: Utopian Vision and Experimental Life in the Russian Revolution (New York, 1989), 83-88;
10. E. A. Speranskaia, ed. , Agitatsionno-massovoe iskusstvo pervykh let Oktiabria: Materialy i issledovaniia (Moscow, 1971);
11. Katerina Clark, Petersburg, Crucible of Cultural Revolution (Cambridge, MA, 1995);
12. Frederick Charles Corney, "Writing October: History, Memory, Identity and the Construction of the Bolshevik Revolution, 1917-1927" (Ph. D. diss. , Columbia University, 1997).
13. For a fascinating discussion of the theatrical and film versions of trials see Julie A. Cassiday, The Enemy on Trial: Early Soviet Courts on Stage and Screen (DeKalb, IL, 2000).
14. Ju. M. Lotman, "The Decembrist in Everyday Life: Everyday Behavior as a Historical-Psychological Category," in Ju. M. Lotman and B. A. Uspenskii, The Semiotics of Russian Culture, ed. Ann Shukman (Ann Arbor, 1984), 71-123.
15. In Pravda, "Sud nad R. K. P. ," 18 February 1921;
16. "Novaia forma agitatsii," 21 November 1920;
17. and "Sud nad Leninym i Trotskim," 15 February 1921;
18. and Sud bespartiinykh rabochikh i krest'ian nad Krasnoi Armiei (Moscow, 1923).
19. As Lenin noted in November 1920, "the bourgeoisie is slandering us tirelessly with its whole apparatus of propaganda and agitation. " V. I. Lenin, "Rech' na VseRossiiskom soveshchanii politprosvetov," in his Polnoe sobranie sochinenii, 5th ed. (Moscow, 1960-65), 41:406-7.
20. "Novaia forma agitatsii"; "Sud nad R. K. P. "; "Sud nad Oktiabr'skim perevorotom 1917 goda" (typescript) (1922), in Rossiisskii gosudarstvennyi voennyi arkhiv (RGVA), f. 9, op. 13, d. 93, ll. 143-44.
21. "Sud nad R. K. P. "
22. "Sud nad Sovetskoi vlast'iu. "
23. "Sud nad novoi zhenshchinoi," Pravda, 20 February 1921.
24. For further discussion see Elizabeth A. Wood, "The Trial of the New Woman: Citizens-in-Training in the New Soviet Republic," Gender and History 13 (November 2001): 524-45.
25. F. K. , "Privet novomu godu," Pravda, 5 January 1921.
26. "Instruktsii otdelam rabotnits po provedeniiu 'nedeli fronta' . . . po organizatsii 'suda nad RKP'" (1920), Tsentral'nyi gosudarstvennyi arkhiv istoriko-politicheskikh dokukmentov g. Sankt-Peterburga, f. 1, op. 1, d. 924.
27. Sud bespartiinykh rabochikh i krest'ian nad Krasnoi Armiei, 5.
28. M. Antonov, "O kul'tprosvetakh," Pravda, 16 March 1921.
29. Furmanov, "Formy agitatsii i propagandy," Krasnoe znamia, 28 October 1920.
30. "Sud nad Leninym i Trotskim"; "Amnistiia 400 krest'ian"; and "Bespartiinye krest'ianskie konferentsii," Pravda, 15 February 1921.
31. Letter by the playwright Vsevolod Vishnevskii (date unknown), cited in Iu. Osnos, V mire dramy (Moscow, 1971), 62.
32. "Sud nad Leninym. "
33. "Politicheskii otdel 1-go raiona Moskovsko-Vindavsko-Rybinskoi zheleznoi dorogi Moskovskoi seti, 26/IV [1920]," Rossiiskii gosudarstvennyi arkhiv sotsial'no-politicheskoi istorii (RGASPI, formerly Rossiiskii tsentr khraneniia i izucheniia dokumentov noveishei istorii, RTsKhIDNI), f. 111, op. 22, d. 153, l. 18.
34. Sof'ia Vinogradskaia, "Pervye gody: Rasskazy," Novyimir, 1957, no. 10:46-48.
35. "Politicheskii otdel 1-go raiona Moskovsko-Vindavsko-Rybinskoi zheleznoi dorogi Moskovskoi seti, 26/IV [1920]," RGASPI, f. 111, op. 22, d. 153, l. 18.
36. In addition to the article in Novyi mir, Vinogradskaia also published Rasskazy o Lenine (Moscow, 1965), which tells substantially the same story (pp. 106-7).
37. Her sister Polina Semenovna Vinogradskaia also published two volumes of memoir materials, Pamiatnye vstrechi (Moscow, 1972)
38. and Sobytiia i pamiatnye vstrechi (Moscow, 1968). A whole study could be written on the myths of Lenin in the Khrushchev years, the renewed attempts to make him seem more human and thus free of the "cult of personality" that Stalin was being accused of.
39. "Doklad agitatsionno-prosvetitel'nogo podotdela dorpolita Moskovsko-Vindavsko-Rybinskoi zheleznoi dorogi s 1/III po 1/IV/1920 god" (20 April 1920), RGASPI, f. 111, op. 22, d. 153, l. 14.
40. Even in June 1920, though, the whole Vindava line had only an acting head of its political department ("Shtaty dorpolita M-V-R zh. d. " [18 June 1920], RGASPI, f. 111, op. 22, d. 880, l. 60).
41. "Biulleten' no. 12 Informatsionnogo-instruktorskogo otdela Glavnogo Politicheskogo Upravleniia NKPS, 26 aprelia 1920 g. ," RGASPI, f. 17, op. 60, d. 19, l. 145.
42. See also RGASPI, f. 111, op. 22, d. 153, ll. 9-10.
43. Npolkom Umrikhin, "Pamiatka dlia komissarov sluzhb chastei i uchastkov" (12 February 1920), Rossiiskii gosudarstvennyi arkhiv ekonomiki (RGAE), f. 1884, op. 3, d. 154, l. 6 ob.
44. RGASPI, f. 111, op. 22, d. 378, ll. 73-75.
45. On 12 January 1920 the Orgbiuro of the party Central Committee resolved officially to mobilize experienced political workers from the Red Army to the railroads as quickly as possible. About eight hundred were actually transferred. This was followed by a general transfer of Communists from other areas to the railroads ("Doklad" [8 August 1920], RGASPI, f. 17, op. 60, d. 19, l. 20).
46. Two months later the Ninth Party Congress (March-April 1920) considered the matter of the railroads so important that it passed a special resolution ordering Glavpolitput "urgently to improve transport through the organized influence of experienced Communists" (VKP[b] v rezoliutsiiakh i resheniiakh s"ezdov, konferentsii i plenumov TsK [Moscow, 1941], 1:335
47. cited in E. H. Carr, The Bolshevik Revolution [New York, 1950-53], 2:220).
48. On the general struggle over the relations between Glavpolitput and the railroad workers' union see Leonard Schapiro, The Origin of the Communist Autocracy (Cambridge, MA, 1977), 253-61;
49. James Bunyan, The Origin of Forced Labor in the Soviet State, 1917-1921 (Baltimore, 1967), 181-212;
50. William G. Rosenberg, "The Social Background to Tsektran," in Party, State, and Society in the Russian Civil War, ed. Diane P. Koenker et al. (Bloomington, 1989), 349-73;
51. and Robert Thomas Argenbright, "The Russian Railroad System and the Founding of the Communist State: 1917-1922" (Ph. D. diss. , University of California at Berkeley, 1990).
52. Bunyan, Origin of Forced Labor, 183-84
53. (from Izvestiia glavnogo komiteta po vseobshchei trudovoi povinnosti 1 [March 1920]: 45-47
54. Sobranie uzakonenii, 1920, no. 8, art. 52).
55. Argenbright discusses the "demonstration effect" of the railroad tribunals. They were held in public and "their purpose was to inculcate ideals, not just punish" ("Russian Railroad System," 358).
56. Umrikhin, "Pamiatka. "
57. "Doklad agitatsionno-prosvetitel'nogo podotdela Dorpolita Moskovsko-Vindavsko-Rybinskoi zheleznoi dorogi s 1/IV po 1/V 1920 g. ," RGASPI, f. 111, op. 22, d. 874.
58. Orlando Figes and Boris Kolonitskii, Interpreting the Russian Revolution: The Language and Symbols of 1917 (New Haven, 1999);
59. B. Kolonitskii, "Antibourgeois Propaganda and Anti-'Burzhui' Consciousness in 1911," Russian Review 53 (April 1994).
60. Lenin, "Reply to the discussion on the report of the Central Committee" (30 March 1920), Collected Works (Moscow, 1965), 30:469 (emphasis added).
61. Karzhanskii, Kollektivnaia dramaturgiia, 66.
62. A. Serafimovich, "Svoei sobstvennoi rukoi," Petrogradskaia pravda, 18 April 1920.
63. L. A. and L. M. Vasilevskie, Sud nad samogonshchikami: Delo Karpova Tikhona i ego zheny Agaf'i po obvineniiu v izgotovlenii i tainoi torgovle samogonkoi ([Moscow], 1923), ii;
64. "Predislovie," in Sud bespartiinykh rabochikh i krest'ian nad Krasnoi Armiei.
65. "Politsud: Instruktsiia k postanovke instsenirovannykh sudov" (Khar'kov, 1922), found in RGVA, f. 9, op. 13, d. 108, l. 16;
66. Gr. Avlov, Klubnyi samodeiatel'nyi teatr: Evoliutsiia metodov i form (Leningrad-Moscow, 1930), 92-93.
67. "Otzyv o materialakh PRIVO: Terarmeets - dezertir: Agitsud nad terameitsem" (20 December 1923), RGVA, f. 9, op. 13, d. 97, l. 459.
68. See also B. D. Sverdlov, Sovetskaia propaganda v 20-e gody (Moscow, 1990), 40.
69. 49P. M. Kerzhentsev, Tvorcheskii teatr, 5th ed. (Moscow-Petrograd, 1923);
70. V. N. Vsevolodskii-Gerngross, Istoriia russkogo teatra, 2 vols. (Leningrad-Moscow, 1929), 302.
71. "Politsud: Instruktsiia"; Vsevolodskii-Gerngross, Istoriia russkogo teatra, 397;
72. A. Rozinskii, "K voprosu o formakh politprosvetraboty," Put' politrabotnika, 1921, no. 8:50.
73. In one trial, for example, the judges were played by two students, one employee, and two army stable workers ("Sud nad Sovetskoi vlast'iu").
74. In a similar vein some observers of the Show Trials of the 1930s believed that they were real because of this very appearance (obviously illusory) of free speech. As A. J. Cummings, a British observer, noted in conjunction with the Metro-Vickers trial: "The narrative method is effective and impressive; for the prisoners are allowed virtually to tell the story themselves. We are permitted to know nearly everything relevant to the accusations they say to their interrogators. All that we are not permitted to know is what the interrogators say to them" (The Moscow Trial [London, 1933]
75. cited in Friedrich Adler, "The Witchcraft Trial in Moscow," The Opposition: At Home and Abroad [Nendeln, Lichtenstein, 1975], 20n).
76. "Otzyv o materialakh k instsenirovannym sudam (izd. U. V. O. )," RGVA, f. 9, op. 13, d. 97, ll. 109-10.
77. "Organizatsiia proletarskikh prazdnikov," in Proletarskie prazdniki v rabochikh klubakh, 2d ed. , ed. N. K. Krupskaia (Moscow, 1924).
78. M. Shishkevich, "Metodika agit-sudov" in Sbornik agit-sudy, ed. V. Boichevskii, V. Malkis, and M. Shishkevich (Moscow, 1926), 5.
79. Stites, Revolutionary Dreams, 80-83.
80. Leon Trotsky, "Dnevnik," Trotsky Archive, Houghton Library, Harvard University, bMS/Russ 13, T3731, p. 110
81. also translated in Trotsky's Diary in Exile 1935 (Cambridge, MA, 1958), 80;
82. discussion in Mark D. Steinberg and Vladimir M. Khrastalev, The Fall of the Romanovs (New Haven, 1995), 287-88.
83. N. Antonov, Karl I - Liudovik XVI - Nikolai II (Moscow, 1918);
84. K. N. Berkova, Protsess Liudovika XVI (Moscow, 1920);
85. Protsess Zhirondistov (Iz istorii Velikoi frantsuzskoi revoliutsii) (Petrograd, 1919, 1920);
86. P. A. Kropotkin, Velikaia frantsuzskaia revoliutsiia (Moscow, 1917, 1919, 1922).
87. Antonov, Karl I, 14.
88. Von Geldern, Bolshevik Festivals, esp. chap. 6.
89. Corney, "Writing October. "
90. "Agitsudy, disputy i ustgazety (dokladchik tov. Abserman)," Protokol utrennego zasedaniia Klubnoi sektsii Konferentsii politprosvetrabotnikov X-i str. div. , 2 okt. 1923 g. , RGVA, f. 9, op. 13, d. 111, l. 226.
91. A. Sipachev, "Massovaia rabota, kak rezul'tat organizatsionnoi samodeiatel'nosti iacheek kluba," Politrabotnik, 1922, no. 1:75-80.
92. The classic works on separation, liminality, and reabsorption into the community are Arnold van Gennep, The Rites of Passage (Chicago, 1960);
93. and Victor W. Turner, The Ritual Process: Structure and Anti-Structure (Chicago, 1969).
94. See also Victor Turner, Dramas, Fields, and Metaphors: Symbolic Action in Human Society (Ithaca, 1974).
95. A. K. Mavrogan, ed. , Spisokmaterialov dlia raboty dramkruzhkov v klubakh (Moscow, 1925), 3.
96. S. Fainblit, "O formakh politraboty," Put' politrabotnika, 1921, no. 6:5.
97. For one historian's groundbreaking discussion of Russians and the courts see Stephen P. Frank, "Popular Justice, Community, and Culture among the Russian Peasantry, 1870-1900," Russian Review 46 (July 1987): 239-65. A very popular play at the turn of the twentieth century was "Shemiakin sud," which satirized the corruption and venality of the courts.
98. N. A. Troitskii, Tsarizm pod sudom progressivnoi obshchestvennosti, 1866-1895 gg. (Moscow, 1979).
99. Such reports were published in official journals, including the government's own Pravitel'stvennyi vestnik, as well as in new publications that sprang up to capture the public interest. For discussion of the fascination with jury trials and the connection between law and literature in nineteenth- and twentieth-century Russia see Harriet Murav, Russia's Legal Fictions (Ann Arbor, 1998).
100. For more on the jury trials per se see Jurgen Baberowski, Autokratie und Justiz: Zum Verhaltnis von Rechtsstaatlichkeit und Ruckstandigkeit im ausgegenden Zarenreich 1864-1914 (Frankfurt, 1996);
101. and Samuel Kucherov, Courts, Lawyers, and Trials under the Last Three Tsars (Westport, CT, 1974).
102. G. V. Plekhanov, "To Russian Society [1879]," cited in Franco Venturi, Roots of Revolution: A History of the Populist and Socialist Movements in Nineteenth-Century Russia (Chicago, 1960), 607.
103. The list of publications on trials of revolutionaries in the years 1905-30 is too long to cite here. Suffice it to say that almost every issue of the journals Byloe and Katorga i ssylka carried information on trials. For references see Venturi, Roots of Revolution, 721-836;
104. Troitskii, Tsarizm pod sudom, 292-335;
105. idem, Tsarskie sudy protiv revoliutsionnoi Rossii (Saratov, 1976);
106. M. Lemke, Politicheskie protsessy v Rossii 1860-kh gg. (Moscow-Leningrad, 1923);
107. and M. N. Kovalenskii, Russkaia revoliutsiia v sudebnykh protsessakh i memuarakh (Moscow, 1924).
108. F. N. Samoilov, Po sledam minuvshego (Moscow, 1954), 314-24
109. reproduced in A. V. Tolmachev, ed. , Podsudimye obviniaiut (Moscow, 1962), 247.
110. Eugene Huskey, Russian Lawyers and the Soviet State: The Origins and Development of the Soviet Bar, 1917-1939 (Princeton, 1986), 119n.
111. It is even possible to view these trials of Lenin and the Communist party as a transmogrified and secularized version of the kenotic (Christ-like) ideals of medieval Russia (Michael Cherniavsky, Tsar and People: Studies in Russian Myths [New York, 1961]). As in the ideal medieval world one can see in the Soviet political realm a longing for union between ruler and ruled. The mock trial in this early period was the one place where the ruler appeared to submit to the will of the people. Not surprisingly, these heroic versions of the agitation trials died out almost entirely once Stalin came to power following Lenin's death.
112. Degtiarev, "O novykh formakh politraboty,"
113. and M. Gekker, "Istoricheskie otdeleniia i politrabota v Krasnoi Armii," both in Put' politrabotnika, 1921, no. 8:44-45, and 52, respectively;