Barrett Ziegler

Platonov and his Communist Critiques: Not invited to the Party

Andrei Platonov’s dedication to communist ideology should have made him a significant figure within the Party. His extensive technical training allowed him to write with knowledge on the current and future state of communist economics in the Soviet Union. His writings were often rooted in his exposure to common Soviet people and the Party’s economic projects.

There was a “genuine” quality in his writing that lost him the Party’s favor and complicated his relationship with Joseph Stalin. Once, in a meeting with Party elite, Stalin called Platonov a

“fool, idiot, and a scoundrel,” only to later call him “a prophet, a genius.” It is curious that such a “prophet” would not be published uncensored within his home country, within his own lifetime. Also odd is that such a disgraceful author would survive the Stalinist Purges with little harassment by the Party. Platonov’s communism evolved with the politics around him; he often tried to appeal to what the Party, and Stalin, wanted from him. His devotion to communism would make the Party’s ideology a type of religion to Platonov – and its patriarch: Stalin. But, he would be accused of departing from the approved communist ideology a number of times, most pointedly in Kotlovan and Schastlivaia Mockva, surrounding the development of his literary voice.

The beliefs of Platonov and the communist Party were based on popular schools of thought present in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Most notable for Platonov were the futurist movement and the Proletkul’t, both founded by Alexander Bogdanov. Ayleen Teskey attributes the optimism present in much of Platonov’s early works to Bogdanov’s considerable Ziegler 2 influence on the young author1. One focus of Bogdanov is the influence of laborers on the world around them. This writing on the agency of humans on their surroundings also becomes a primary focus for his paper on “Organizational Science”2 where he describes a system of four organized realities. Bogdanov presented his thoughts to the All-Russian Association of

Proletarian Writers in October 1921, where a young Platonov was in attendance:

“(1) The primal world environment-- … where the world is a

chaotic mass of elements with practically no organization.

...

(4) The highest level—the human collective-- …On this level life

expands and reconstructs the world.”3

This speaks to the very nature of communism; to establish a human collective based on class- consciousness. This consciousness would expand the value of life beyond the individual and would work to encompass the entirety of the collective and was necessary for humanity to exist apart from the chaos of nature. An idea prevalent in Platonov’s later work, Kotlovan4 (1930), is that of a conflict between the worker and the natural world. It is by exhibiting their agency upon the world that the workers have meaning and develop value. This leads towards the

1Ayleen Teskey, “Platonov and Fyodorov. The influence of Christian philosophy on a Soviet writer”, page 23.

2Published in Tekhtologiya 1922.

3Ayleen Tyskey, Platonov and Fyodorov. The influence of Christian philosophy on a Soviet writer. 25. Emphasis added.

4In this essay, The Foundation Pit is occasionally referred to by its phonetically Russian title, Kotlovan, depending on the sources’ preferences. Ziegler 3 production of an ideal collectivized society where the value of life has expanded beyond the individual to affect the world. This theme that the idea of being human is expanded by the expression of agency on nature is another founding principle of the Prolitkul’t movement, “the connection of spiritual and physical labor.”5

Considering this connection between the spirit and labor, we can see how many in the

Party saw Platonov as a counter-revolutionary; the Party, too, subscribed to Bogdanian ideas of labor. Platonov’s writings display a common theme of the proletariat overcoming a lack of efficiency -- this to mean that protagonists often faced challenges such as too little food, too few tools, or corrupt officials. If read by a Party member Platonov’s work could be seen as an attempt to discredit the Soviet industries and, ultimately, Soviet labor. As the contemporary

Bogdanov equates the two, labor with spirit, Platonov’s writings now become an attempt to discredit the Soviet spirit as well -- the spirit of Stalinist communism.

Both the Party and Platonov were influenced by Nikolai Fyodorov’s ideas as well. His contribution to futurist thought is significant. His writings introduce many ideas from the manipulation of Earth’s weather patterns to a solar energy replacement for expendable fossil fuels.6 While Fyodorov does assert the importance of human agency on the workings of nature, like Bogdanov, his conclusion differs from simply expanding human consciousness. Cosmism

5Ibid. 26.

6Ayleen Tyskey, Platonov and Fyodorov. The influence of Christian philosophy on a Soviet writer. 15-16. Tyskey hints at the drought of 1891 as a point of history which drew Fyodorov’s attention toward the mortality of man, holding humanity back from developing themselves ethically. The fight against death was a distraction from man’s true “ethical commitment” (93). These projects mentioned above are the first step in his “Regulation of Nature”, to be followed by the reduction of human reproduction. Ziegler 4 focuses strongly on humanity overcoming death through the efforts of “men themselves”.7 This,

Fyodorov asserts, will allow mankind to pursue their “predestined…ethical commitment”8 of turning away from a past of self-centered egoism and using their knowledge to resurrect other lost civilizations. With the use of revived ethical knowledge, mankind could develop a greater human consciousness. The role of life, death, and individual value had a strong influence on

Platonov’s works, especially prevalent in Kotlovan and “Fourteen Little Red Huts” (1932), as well as on the development of Soviet ideology in the early to mid-20th century. In communist ideology, there developed the theme of a “Bright Soviet Future”9-- one of a united, ethical, mankind that was derived from Fyodorov’s ideology. In Platonov’s work the labor of the individual is valued as progress towards a similar utopian future. While this is less prevalent in his later works, such as Vozvrashchenie (1946), it is a present theme in his earlier writings.

Among these philosophical influences on Platonov, the influence of the Party’s rhetoric is not to be underestimated either. Lenin’s campaign to electrify the country drove Platonov to technical school and, after graduation, into the countryside. The work, Elektrifikatsiya (1921), details Platonov’s work with the Voronezh Land Commission. In this piece we begin to see how a young Platonov has combined Bagdanov’s theories of agency with Fyodorov’s futurism to communist ends, “communism is not only a struggle against Capital, but also against nature.

Electrification is our best form of artillery in this struggle.”10 This work is very detailed when it

7Ibid, 93. Here, I interpret this to mean the ‘sciences’, a founding tenant of futurism and a testament to rationalist ideology. The action of “men themselves” excludes the belief in religion and focuses all action on the ability of man to comprehend and control his world.

8Ibid.

9Joseph Stalin, Marxism and the National Question, 7.

10Andrei Platonov, Elektrifikatsiya. Page 12. Translated by Ayleen Teskey. Ziegler 5 describes what is to be done to accomplish the quest for electrification. His technical background allowed for specific criticisms within his work and many of the suggestions are

Platonov’s own designs when he worked with Voronezh but, were overlooked at the time due to corruption and favoritism within the Party. It may have been here that he began to feel a need to earn the Party’s recognition. This devout communist may have felt rejected by minor

Party officials and so began looking for recognition and value from the higher Soviet powers, from Stalin.

I have already discussed some similar ideological roots for both Platonov and the communist Party in Russia. But this appears to be a “chicken and egg” scenario; were the ideas present at the time influencing Platonov toward the Party or did the Party’s interest in these ideas draw an already communist Platonov towards these ideas? What I hope to explore is how the Party leaders’ voices influence Platonov, Stalin in particular. But, we should also consider

Lenin’s influence as the Father of Russian Communism and why he had less of an effect on

Platonov. It is peculiar that Platonov should be so enamored with Stalin’s communism. Why not

Lenin’s? His would be closer to the “pure communism” Brezhnev would campaign for after

Stalin’s fall. But what made each iteration of communism different?

In 1917, Lenin explicitly defined communism as “merely state-capitalist monopoly which is made to serve the whole people.”11 This interpretation of Marxism explains the deviations

Lenin performed in serving the Soviet Union. These policies had varying degrees of separation from Marx’s original definition of communism. Lenin’s New Economic Policy worked to provide

11Ayleen Teskey, Platonov and Fyodorov. The influence of Christian philosophy on a Soviet writer, 93. Ziegler 6 the bourgeois infrastructure Marx required for a Socialist state, but was executed under a

“communist” government. This would “serve the people” but also gave concessions to capitalism. Other policies were explicitly contrary to the idea of communism, such as Lenin’s endorsement of a dictatorship.12 But here, Lenin was enforcing his idea of a “state monopoly”.

Oddly enough, Bogdanov was a strong rival to Lenin in the years leading up to the 1917 revolution concerning the ideological leadership of the Party.13 The ideas put forward by Lenin were greatly warped by Stalin, but the results of Stalin’s reign would draw Platonov toward him instead of toward the traditional “Father of Communism.”

Let us divide Lenin’s quote into four points; a capitalist aspect, the state, a monopoly, and service to the whole people. If we examine Stalin’s policies in light of these points, I believe we can begin to understand Platonov’s attraction to Stalinist policies.

The development of industry during Stalin’s Five-Year Plans yielded results of expanded industry and established the Soviet Union’s economic power. By introducing collectivization and a command economy, Stalin had introduced a capitalist entity, where the State would profit.

Additionally, the command economy placed the State as a monopolist power over all goods.

But whereas Lenin claimed that the “state-capitalist monopoly” should serve the “whole people,” Stalin’s economic successes were the product of reversing this mentality; the deaths during his Five-Year Plans, in labor camps, and the Purges were causalities in a system where the people served the “state-capitalist monopoly” but produced more than the country had ever before.

12Richard Montague, “Marx and Lenin’s views contrasted.”

13Teskey, Platonov and Fyodorov, 24. Ziegler 7

Stalin contributes the Soviet Union’s success in the fight against capitalism to four points:

“a) On its growing economic and political might.

b) On the moral support of millions of the working class…

c) On the common sense of countries … which want to develop commercial

relations with such a client as the U.S.S.R.

d) On our glorious army, which is ready to defend our country.”14

Platonov the industrialist would agree with Stalin’s growth of the economy; between

1929 and 1932 industry increased from 54.5% to 70.7% of the nation’s gross output -- whereas, from 1913 until Stalin’s rise to power in 1929 the industrial increase was fewer than 15%.15 Lenin was unable to attain the same industrial prowess as Stalin. Given that

Platonov subscribed to Bogdonian measures of life and labor, he might assert that

Stalin’s agency was stronger than Lenin’s as evidenced by the industrial power each could muster.

The movement of people toward a collective was emphasized in both Fyodorov’s and Bogdanov’s writings. Stalin was able to draw “millions of the working class” together and illicit trade with capitalist powers while Lenin’s government was

14Joseph Stalin, “Report on the Work of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union,” International Conciliation, 395.

15Ibid, 403. Ziegler 8 unrecognized for a time by the foreign powers. Stalin’s actions are drawing the global community toward a communist collective, in the eyes of Platonov.

Evgeny Dobrenko claims that Platonov’s literary voice has developed directly from

Stalin’s writings as Platonov was well-read in Stalin’s works: “the madness of Platonov's world is the inside-out world of Stalin's narratives. Platonov's “Double Dutch” is Stalin's regular speech turned on its head, made gibberish not in its "form" but in its "content."”16 If we consider the way Stalin reversed Lenin’s communism into a system that consumed the people for the state monopoly’s benefit, perhaps Platonov’s “inside-out” Stalinist writing can be seen a return to

Marxism-Leninism. I would argue, instead, that Platonov rejects Marxism-Leninism because he desires the results and progress of the Stalinist regime, not found in the application of Leninist communism, and that he is far more influenced by Bogdanov’s theories than by Lenin’s, the two holding conflicting communist ideologies in the early 20th century.

Platonov’s ‘genuine’ quality in writing, which earned him the mixed Party reactions mentioned earlier, was a way for him to reconcile the failures of the regime with its successes without returning to the less productive school of Marxism-Leninism. Dobrenko goes on to elaborate the importance of plot in Stalin’s rhetoric and the development of “totalitarian language” in Platonov’s, saying that in Stalin’s rhetoric “language anticipates thought and does

16Dobrenko uses “Double Dutch” (here to mean Platonov’s literary style) as a reference to a quote from Stalin pertaining to Platonov’s works: “This is not Russian, it’s some kind of Double Dutch” («Это не русский, а кокой-то тарабарский язык.»). Evgeny Dobrenko, “Platonov and Stalin: Dialogues in Double Dutch,” ULBANDUS, The Slavic Review of Columbia University. 202. Ziegler 9 not give form to it.”17 The strength of the Socialist Realist rhetoric was in its metaphors and striking language, whereas Platonov’s detail and accurate, genuine, writing where the metaphorical often describes the literal instead of the theoretical -- as in the Party’s rhetoric.

When Platonov heard Stalin’s mention of his “Double Dutch” way of writing, he attempted to transition to the more accepted Socialist Realist writing. During this time Platonov wrote a number of short stories to be published in Soviet papers and produced an unfinished novel, Schastlivaia Mockva (c. 1934). But, Thomas Seifrid comments, “in the years 1934-1936

[Platonov] wrote a series of works [linked more closely] to Kotlovan and “Vprok” than to anything that followed.”18 Schastlivaia Mockva is important, then, in that it begins to articulate

Platonov’s thoughts on Socialist Realist works. Through this work Platonov portrays Stalinist policies as well-intentioned but poorly executed. Despite being critical of the changes in

Moscow, he still strives to paint Stalin in a positive light. Schastlivaia Mockva was written between 1932 and 1936 and depicts Moscow during the hay-day of Stalin’s transformation of

Soviet society.19 Phillip Bullock asserts that this work was Platonov’s critique of Socialist Realist

“kitsch”:

“Platonov sees kitsch as the denial of material human reality and the pursuit of a

false sense of coherence in the world…Any system that fails to address the sense

17Ibid. 208-210.

18Seifrid, Andrei Platonov. 178. Seifrid also notes that in Stalin’s personal copy of “Vprok” he wrote in the margins “Talented, but a bastard.” (137) “Vprok” was labeled as “kulak propaganda” by Fadeev but Stalin withheld persecution. This net ambivalence on the part of the Party would likely transfer to the review of Platonov’s Socialist Realist writings if Seifrid’s comparison is accurate.

19Phillip Ross Bullock, Phillip Ross Bullock, “Andrei Plaonov’s “Happy Moscow”: Stalinist Kitsch and Ethical Decadence,” Modern Language Review. Ziegler 10

of existential horror … is at best inadequate, and at worst unethical. Moreover,

Platonov’s ethical objection to kitsch is in large part aesthetically motivated,

since kitsch trades in the debased currency of illusions and deception…What,

then, is Platonov’s response to kitsch, to the all-pervading mendacity of Stalinist

happiness? If kitsch is the denial of shit, then an appropriate, if startling, reaction

may be the acceptance, indeed celebration, of shit.” 20

This critique of socialist realism illuminates the effort Platonov undertook to adhere to

Soviet policies in his public works while still expressing his criticisms in his private writings.

In his character Viktor Bozhko, from Schastlivaia Mockva, Platonov creates a soviet man who follows adamantly the themes propagated by the socialist realist movement; a strong work ethic, internationalism, and the communist spirit. Bozhko is, at one point, “the best shock worker… secretary of the wall newspaper, organizer of the local branches of Osoaviakhim and the International Organization of Aid for the Fighters of the Revolution.”21 As his story progresses he takes on a number of different organizations and committees while continuing to excel at each. Despite all of the

State’s accolades, Bozhko still expresses an emotional emptiness and his physical living space remains a “room [which] stays empty; tired, saddened.”22 The way Bozhko’s

20Phillip Ross Bullock, “Andrei Plaonov’s “Happy Moscow”: Stalinist Kitsch and Ethical Decadence,” Modern Language Review, 208.

21Andrei Platonov, Happy Moscow, 15.

22Ibid, 11. Ziegler 11 unfulfillment is reflected in both his physical and spiritual state is a Bogdanian comment on the State’s propagated values; Bozhko’s subscription to socialist realist ideals removes him from his agency, his ability to affect the world, and as a result cannot affect for himself complete spiritual or physical fulfillment.

Using the art of socialist realism, the State would also monopolize power over the culture of the Soviet Union -- a sphere not identified in Lenin’s quote on communism. By controlling culture Stalin created a “cult of personality” which served to expand his power as well as establishing the Soviet Realist movement. Platonov disliked and wrote against both of these products in his later works; but his communist ideals were developed by a number of interactions between his youth and when he finished

Schastlivaia Mockva around 1936, where he most explicitly argues against Soviet Realist propaganda. As a work, Schastlivaia Mockva serves to reconcile “the beauty (and horror) of both old and new Moscow. In [Platonov’s] soul…there still drifts “a last imagination about a heroic world.”23 In so much as Platonov elaborates on the physical possibilities of the Soviet Union in Elektrifikatsiya, Schastlivaia Mockva seems to explore the spiritual and emotional extents of ideal Soviet life while considering the current state. In a similar way, both works are born from his frustration with Soviet institutions;

Socialist Realism in Schastlivaia Mockva and Party bureaucracy in Elektrifikatsiya.

Because Platonov addresses more abstract themes in Schastlivaia Mockva, “where resolution is achieved not through the action of … characters but through… music and organization – through a supplementary power that creates in the reader something

23Robert Chandler’s introduction to Andrey Platonov’s Happy Moscow. Page 4. Ziegler 12 extra,”24 one is led to believe that he is searching for a more spiritual fulfillment in communism. This would develop into the weathered reconciliation exhibited in his later short stories and Vozvrashchenie.

Platonov’s focus would shift across his career but would consistently strive to challenge

Stalin, to advise him. His works during the 1920s and early 1930s, Elektrifikatsiya and a number of plays, would display his opinion of industry in rural areas and a critique of kulakization. These were open criticisms of Soviet practices, but often were directed toward corruption and mismanagement. In both Chevengr and Kotlovan, Platonov strove to exhibit a physically weathered communism sustained only by the ideals still held by the dedicated proletariat.

While this earned him much criticism from the Party, his ideological loyalty to communism saved him from the Stalinist Purges soon to follow. In both Schastlivaia Mockva and

Vozvrashchenie, a much later work, Platonov begins to explore life for the individuals under

Stalin’s communism. Schastlivaia Mockva may have a strong leaning toward metaphor, but the vignettes he uses identify strongly with life during the period of Stalin’s reformations. As one of his final short stories, we should consider Vozvrashchenie carefully. It is not the story of a worker or of any large industrial project. Vozvrashchenie is a soldier returning home from war to a working wife, a communist son, and a daughter who never met him. Hardships are displayed throughout the day of the father’s return and it is only when the he revokes his decision to leave the family, when he decides to stay with his working wife and communist son, that any commitment to communism is displayed. Should we consider this to be Platonov’s attitude? I would argue that Platonov explains himself through the soldier. His life’s works of

24Platonov, Fabrika literatury, 7. Ziegler 13 criticism were his own war. Now, in old age, this literary soldier has come home and has made his peace with the inefficiencies of Stalinist communism. He has decided to return to his own

‘family’, as it were.

Ultimately, Platonov saw himself as a loyal worker of the Party. He viewed the Party as a source of order and “as a preserver from the entropy of reified lives”25. This loyalty drew from a

Bogdanovian fear of disorder and Fyodorian themes of ethical unity. It can be argued that

Platonov saw the Party as a movement in line with his “planovoye mishleniye”, given the amount of progress the Soviet Union experienced under heavily regimented Communist rule. In his desire to be recognized as part of this movement Platonov undertook a number of projects for the Party, starting in Vorozhen and continuing into his writings, but he would not attain that recognition. Despite the number of letters he wrote directly to Stalin, letters which were delivered, Platonov never received a response. While the Party never fully endorsed Platonov’s work, it seemed that he was trying to reconcile the existential horrors of the Soviet Union to its lofty expectations. In 1934 the Union of Soviet Writers officially charged writers with being

“engineers of the human soul.”26 Perhaps Platonov’s realistic way of writing acted as a sort of confession, one way to prepare the Soviet’s earthly constructs for their utopian futures.

25Seifrid, Andrei Platonov. 134.

26Robert Chandler’s introduction to Andrey Platonov’s Happy Moscow. Page 3. Ziegler 14

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