Supplicants and Citizens Fitzpatrik

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Supplicants and Citizens: Public Letter-Writing in Soviet Russia in the 1930sAuthor(s): Sheila FitzpatrickSource: Slavic Review, Vol. 55, No. 1 (Spring, 1996), pp. 78-105Published by: The American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies

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Supplicantsand Citizens: Public Letter-WritingnSoviet Russia in the 1930s

Sheila Fitzpatrick

"Which one of us had never written letters to the supreme powers... If they are preserved, these mountains of letterswill be a veritabletreasure trove for historians." l So wroteNadezhda Mandelstam, alwaysa sharp-eyed anthropologist of Soviet everyday life.2 Historians whohave encountered this treasure trove in Soviet archives newly openedover the past fewyears are likely to agree. The great volume of public

letter-writing-the "mountains" of complaints, denunciations, state-ments of opinion, appeals, threats and confessional outpourings thatordinary Russians3 sent to Soviet political leaders, party and govern-ment agencies, public figures,and newspapers-constitutes one of themajor discoveries associated with the opening of the archives.4 This

My thanksto Jeffrey rooks, David Fitzpatrick, atriona Kelly, Gary Saul Morson,StevenPincus,Richard Saller and LewisSiegelbaum fortheir omments n this rticlein various versions, nd to those at Berkeley,Harvard, University f Texas at Austin,

UniversityfWisconsinatMadison and SydneyUniversity,s well as membersoftheRussian Studies workshop t theUniversityfChicago, who offered elpful ommentson thepaper version.

1. Nadezhda Mandelstam,HopeagainstHope:A Memoir, rans.Max Hayward NewYork:Atheneum, 1970), 93. Thanks to GolfoAlexopoulos forcalling this passage tomy attention.

2. Myuse of this term does not followthat of recent German scholarshiponAlltagsgeschichte,.g.AlfLiidtke, d., TheHistoryfEverydayife, rans.WilliamTempler(Princeton:Princeton University ress, 1995), whichtends to conflate the subjectof"everydayife" withthatof resistanceto authority.

3. By "ordinaryRussians," mean the people without fficial ower or positionsometimesreferred o as subalterns. have not askedGayatri pivak's question, "CantheSubalternSpeak?" (LarryGrossberg nd Cary Nelson, eds.,Marxismnd the nter-pretation f CultureUrbana: University f Illinois Press, 1988]), since in the presentcontext,he/she bviouslycan.

4. Though the archives have opened up a new dimension to the topic, earlierworkon differentspectsofRussian and Soviet public letter-writinghould be nmen-tioned. On petitions n the imperial period: GregoryL. Freeze,From upplicationoRevolution: DocumentaryocialHistory f mperialRussia (Oxford: OxfordUnliversityPress, 1988) and Andrew Verner, DiscursiveStrategies n the 1905 Revolution:Peas-ant Petitions fromVladimir Province,"Russian Review54, no. 1 (1995); on Sovietpetitions:Merle Fainsod, Smolensk nder ovietRule (London: MacMillan & Co., 1958)(esp. chap. 20: "The RighttoPetition")and MargaretaMominsen,Hilfmir,meinRecht

zu finden:Russische ittschriftenonIwan demSchrecklichenis GorbatschowFrankfurt:Propylien Verlag, 1987); on Sovietcomplaints:Nicholas Lampert,WhistleblowingntheSovietUnion:A Study fComplaintsnd Abuses nder tate ocialismNewYork:SchockenBooks, 1985); on Soviet lettersto newspapers:A. Inkeles and K. Geiger, "CriticalLetters to theEditorsof theSoviet Press:Areas and Modes of Complaint," AmericanSociological eview17 (1952) and idem.,"Critical Lettersto the Editors of the SovietPress: Social Characteristicsnd Interrelations f Criticsand theCriticized," bid. 18(1953); C. Revuz, van Ivanovitch crit la Pravda Paris: EditionsSociales, 1980); Ste-

SlavicReview 5, no. 1 (Spring 1996)



Supplicants nd Citizens 79

phenomenondeservesclose attention rompoliticalscientistsnd spe-cialistsin culturalstudiesas well as social historians. n thisessay I

willexplore the topic through n examination ofthedifferentenresofpublic letter-writingn the1930s,as revealed n the declassified ilesof Soviet archives,5 through nalysisof the characteristicropes,rhe-toricalstyles nd modes of self-representationmployedin theselet-ters.6

I use theterm public" to distinguish etterswritten o public fig-ures and institutions rom heprivate etters hat ndividualswrotetofriends nd family. ut the"publicness" ofsuch etterswasonlypartial;and this ncompletepublicnessis one of the letters'mostproblematicand interestingspects.Though sent to public addressees,7 majority

ofthe etters eal withpersonalquestions,ranging romhousingprob-lems and grievancesagainst spouses to loneliness and loss of faith.True, a substantialminority f the lettersdeal withpublic matters,whether n the form fcomplaints boutbureaucratic buses ofpower

phen White, "Political Communications in the USSR: Letters to the Party, State andPress," Political Studies 31 (1983); Small Fires: Letters rom the Soviet People to 'Ogonyok'Magazine 1987-1990, selected and ed. by Christopher Cerf and Marina Albee with LevGushchin (New York: Summit Books, 1990); and Dear ComradeEditor:Readers' Letters otheSovietPress underPerestroika, rans. and ed. Jim Riordan and Sue Bridger (Bloom-

ington: Indiana University Press, 1992).5. The data base for this essay are some hundreds of citizens' letters (usually filed

as Pis'ma trudiashchikhsia" r "Pis'ma rabochikh krest'ian")culled fromn variety of stateand partyarchives, both central and regional. The most valuable collections of citizen'letters were found in Gosudarstvennyi rkhiv Rossiiskoi Federatsii (GARF, formerlyTsGAOR), particularly f. 5446, op. 81a (Vyshinskii) and op. 82 (Molotov); Rossiiskiigosudarstvennyi rkhiv ekonomiki (RGAE, formerly TsGANKh), particularly f. 396(Krest'ianskaia gazeta); Rossiiskii tsentrkhraneniia i izucheniia dokumentov oveishei storii(RTsKhIDNI, formerlyTsPA IM-L, particularly f. 78 (Kalinin) and f.475 (Glavsevmor-put'); Tsentral'nyigosudarstvennyi rkhiv Oktiabr'skoirevoliutsii i sotsialisticheskogotroi-tel'stvagoroda Moskvy TsGAOR g. Moskvy), particular f. 1474 (Rabkrin); Tsentral'nyigosudarstvennyirkhiv storiko-politicheskoiokumentsatsiiankt-PeterburgaTsGA IPD, for-merlyLPA, the Leningrad partyarchive), particularly the secret filesof theobkom nderZhdanov, f. 24, op. 2v and 2g; Tsentral'nyi osudarstvennyirkhivgoroda Sankt-Peterburga(TsGA S-P, formerlyLGA, the Leningrad state archive); PartiinyiarkhivNovosibirskoioblasti (PANO); and GosudarstvennyirkhivNovosibirskoi blasti (GANO). Because of mytopical interests when I was doing this research, my sample may be biased in favor ofletters from peasants, letters from women and denunciations. Because the largestnumber of denunciations fall in 1937 and 1938, and because the only year for whichletters to Krest'ianskaiagazeta are preserved is 1938, the last year-s f the 1930s are alsolikely to be overrepresented.

6. A recent work that has influenced my analysis of letters is David Fitzpatrick,Oceans of Consolation:Personal Accountsof Irish Migration to Australia (Ithaca: Cornell

University Press, 1995).7. Usually, but not always, these were officials. But note that public figures likewriters, scientists and Polar explorers also received many letters of similar type. Onletters to Otto Schmidt and other Polar explorers, see John McCannon, "Backstage atthe North Pole: Realities behind the Arctic Myth in the Soviet Union, 1932-1939,"paper presented at 27th National Convention of AAASS, Washington, DC, October1995; forAcademician Pavlov's urgent appeal to citizens to stop writing to him abouttheir health problems, see his letter to the editor, Izvestiia, 22 January 1936, 6.



80 Slavic Review

or statements f opinion about public policy.But these letterswererarelypublished,even when sent to newspapers n the hope of publi-

cation.Whilemany "opinion" lettersdid achieve a restricted ind ofpublicity y their ncorporation ntosummaries n the stateofpublicopinion sent to the Politburoby Pravda,President Kalinin and othermajor recipientsof citizens' etters, his happened without he knowl-edge ofauthors. n some cases, those who wrote etters n publicmat-ters either eft themunsigned (if the opinions were sufficientlynti-Soviet) or requested that their names be withheld n any subsequentinvestigation if the letter was a denunciation of local officialswhomightretaliate).

Most "public" letters of the 1930s, particularly after the early years

of thedecade,were written y single authors,notby groups, ollectivesor associations.Thus, "public"etter-writingasessentiallyform f ndi-vidual, rivate ommunication8 ith he uthoritiesntopics oth rivate ndpublic. his paradox suggests wovery mportant ines of enquiry.First,this activitymust be taken very seriously by anyone seeking insightintotheprivate ives of Sovietcitizens, heir rticulation f identitysindividualsand their ense ofthemselves s social beings. Second, forall the qualifications that have to be attached to the term "public" inthis context, the writingand reading of these letters to the authoritiesis as close to a public sphereO as one is likely to get during the Stalin

period. In a period when information flow was sharply restricted,cit-izens' letters (along with the NKVD's reports on "the mood of thepopulation") constituted one of the few modes of transmission of pub-lic opinion that continued to function.

There are many distinct genres of letters in the archives: com-plaints, denunciations, petitions, requests for assistance, confessionalletters, letters of opinion, threatening letters. Patriotic citizens wroteletters of advice on public policy and signed their names. Angry citi-zens sent lettersof abuse and invectiveanonymously. Abandoned wives,widows and orphans wrote plaintive pleas for help; lonely peoplepoured out their hearts and asked for understanding. Prisoners andtheir relatives appealed for amnesty; disenfranchised persons peti-tioned for reinstatement of civil rightsand passports; recent migrantsfrom villages asked for urban residence permits; poor people askedfor all kinds of "material help," including shelter, old clothes andmoney; parents sought to have their children admitted to universitiesand sometimes orphanages. People wrote letters to the authorities formany differentpurposes: to get housing, to get ustice, to get a job, to

8. Although thecommunication n public letter-writing ent twoways, twouldbe prudent to avoid theBakhtinianconceptof"dialogism" M.M.Bakhtin, he DialogicImagination,ed. Michael Holquist,trans.CarylEmersonand Michael Holquist [Austin:University fTexas Press, 1981]).

9. I do not use the term public sphere" nthe special senseassociatedwithJurgenHabermas, Structural Transformation f the Public Sphere:An Inquiry into a CategoryofBourgeoisSociety, rans.Thomas Burger, Cambridge: MIT Press, 1991).




collectchild support,to defend an arrestedrelative, o finda missingone, to hurt a neighbor,to get rid of their boss, to warnabout plots

and conspiracies,to complain about high prices.Letterswere writtento solve problems,resolvedisputes and settle scores. People wrote na spiritof duty,malice, ambition, oneliness,despair.

Most ettersweresigned, hough minority ereanonymous.Theselatter anonimki)sually contain abuse of the regime, hreats r denun-ciations.Most ettersmanifest paternalistic onstruction f authority:justice is invoked, as well as compassion and charity;many writersportray hemselves s supplicantsand victims,mphasizingtheirpow-erlessness. Most writers ailored theirself-presentationo a conven-tionalsocial stereotypesimple peasant,widow and the ike); still, ometook pains to emphasize their individuality, elatingvivid personalhistories.

All sortsofpeople wrote etters, nd theywroteto manydifferentaddressees. Political leaders such as Stalin,Molotov and Kalinin re-ceived many etters, s did all centralparty nd stateagencies, espe-ciallytheprocuracy nd the secretpolice. At the regional level, partysecretarieswererecipientsofmany etters.Newspaperswere anothermajor destination.Hardlyanyof these etterswerepublished, thougha luckyfew were boiled down to a shortparagrapheach for the"Sig-

nals from heLocalities"or "Readers' Letters" olumn that ome news-papers ran.What the newspapersdid-and it was one of theirmostimportant unctions-was toprocesscitizens' omplaints, orward hemto the appropriate authoritiesforaction and in some cases conducttheirown investigations.

It is impossible to know either how many etterswere sent to theauthoritiesn the 1930s or howrepresentativehesurvivingetters reof the totalnumberof etters hatwere sent.The onlyquantitative ataavailable are incompleteand relate only to particular nstitutionsnspecificyears.'0Had I chosen to base thisessay on a single "popula-

tion" of letters forexample,those in theKrest'ianskaiaazetaarchivefor1938), could have made more or lessmeaningful tatementsbouttheir statistical istribution. ut I took a differentpproach, less likethat of a census-takerhan that of a botanistexploringthevariety fplant ife n an unfamiliar errain.WhenI encountered typeof etterthat was new to me,I noted it;once I had encounteredthesame typeof letterrepeatedly, classified t as a species and gave it a name. Thedistinctive ropertiesnd markingsf these species (genres),as well as

10. For example, Leningrad party nd state nstitutionsprobably excluding theNKVD) reportedly eceived about a thousand lettersper day in 1936 (TsGA IPD, f.24, op. 2g,d. 46,1. 13),and thenewspaperKrest'ianskaiaazetareported figure lmostas high a year earlier (Krest'ianskaia azeta, 10, 22 and 24 July 1935). As Leningradobkom ecretary, hdanov was receiving 150-200 citizens' etters day in 1936 (TsGAIPD, f. 24, op. 2g, d. 46,1. 13),whileMolotovwasgetting bout 30 a day at Sovnarkomat the same period (GARF, f. 5446, op. 82, d. 51,1. 259). In mid-1939the Soviet stateprosecutor's officewas receiving 1,500 complaints a day (GARF, f. 5446, op. 81a, d.93,1. 17).



82 Slavic Review

their place in the natural ecology of theirregion,are the subject ofthis article.

The first enre I will examine is the confessional etter ispoved').This is not confession n theChristian ense'1or in the broader mean-ing of an admission of guilt hat s the first efinition f the word giveninDal"s dictionary.t isDal"s second definition hat pplies: "a sincereand completeconfession soznanie) r explanation ob"iasnenie) fone'sconvictions, houghts nd actions." 2 I choose tobeginwith hisgenre,even thoughothers ikecomplaints nd denunciationswereemployedmore frequently,o that readers will get an immediate taste of the

unmistakeably ersonal lavorofmanyof the"public" letters hatpeo-ple wrote o political eaders,and evento newspapers nd governmentinstitutions. uch letterswere written o Stalin, as one might xpect,buthe was not theonly recipientand itwas not purely "Stalin cult"phenomenon.There seem to be similar etters n the archives of allSovietpolitical leaders,'3 ncluding regional partybosses.

An archetypal onfessional etterwas sentto Zhdanov in 1935 byEkaterina Burmistrova,n upwardly-mobileworker vydvizhenka)howas strugglingn school and in trouble on this accountwithher localparty ommittee. Deeply-respected omrade Zhdanov," she wrote n

a rambling nd emotional letter, I beg you not to refuse to listen tomy confession ispoved') nd help me understand my actions and theatmospherethat surroundsme . . ." In contrast o many etter-writers,Burmistrovahad no specificdemands or requests,though she hopedfor a personal meeting;nor was she seeking punishment for thoseresponsiblefor her unhappiness. She was simply xpressingher mis-ery,her confusion and her sense of inadequacy and rejection. I can'tgo on, I have no other resort . . They have turnedmywhole soulupside down, mynerves will not stand it" the letter s fullof suchphrases. As withmany writers, eelingsof isolation and abandonment

came through clearly. Writtendiagonally in the marginon the lastpage are the words: "Comrade Zhdanov, I couldn't find a commonlanguage with them" (members of her local party committee).'4

A request for "a personal conversation, even if only for five min-utes" is also the postscript to a plaintive letter that Anna Timoshenko,wife of a partyofficial n the Western oblast',wrote to the first ecretaryof the obkom,.P. Rumiantsev. Timoshenko's subject was her "own un-

11. Thus Foucault's reflections n confession,grounded in itsmeaningin Chris-

tian ritual,do not have particularrelevance to the discussion thatfollows MichelFoucault, Historyf Sexuality,rans. RobertHurley [New York: VintageBooks, 1990],vol. 1).

12. Tolkovyilovar' hivago elikorusskagoazykaVladimira alia, 2nd ed. (St. Peters-burg, 1881), vol. 2.

13. E.g. in the Kalinin and Lunacharskiifondsn RTsKhIDNI, the Molotov andVyshinskiifondsn GARF,theKirov and Zhdanov (obkom)fondsn TsGA IPD and theEikhe (kraikom)fondn PANO.

14. TsGA IPD, f. 24, op. 2v, d. 1522,11.215-18.



Supplicantsand Citizens 83

bearablytormenting amily ife." She had writtenRumiantsevmanylettersn thepastbuthad never sentthem "theywere all ofa personal

character");now she could not refrainfrompouring out her heart,and beggedRumiantsev o findtimeto read her letter nd to reply.'5A wrongedwife, edova, wrote to thewest Siberian party ommit-

tee toprotest othagainsthermistreatmentyherhusband, memberof thedistrict arty lite,and thebrusquedismissalofhercomplaintsbythedistrict arty ommittee "Theysaid he didn'tbeatyouhe didn'tdo anything articular.We can't forcehim to livewithyou ... It is hisprivate ife").Sedova's storywas about her misery;her plea was forasympatheticar: "I'm not askingthekraikomnd theraikomor Sedovto live withme, but I am a human being I don't want to be thrown

overboardand I don'twant people tomakefunof me ... I amunhappyif[you]push me awaytherewillbe no point to my ife." 'A 1935 letterfroma LeningradKomsomol membermade an un-

usual confessionabout religion:writing nonymously o as to avoidtroublefor singing n a churchchoir,she asked Stalin to close downher churchand thus"save youthfromthat nfection . . The churchsinging s so sad and comforting,t's a terrible emptation.." 17

Some confessional etters ame frommen."I am a memberofyourpartyand write to you openly what is in myheart,"wrote a youngcommunist o Stalin in 1936.He and his wife, oth Petrogradworkers

in 1917,had fought n therevolution nd later volunteered s worker"25,000-ers"duringcollectivization.While theywereout in thecoun-tryside, is wife had been savagelyattacked bykulaks. She had neverregained her health,thoughtheymoved out of the cityon doctors'orders,and had recently ied.

I misshera great eal,comrade talin.And now findmyselflonein thedepths f theprovinces,arfrom herailroad,ndmoreoverI havebecomeverympressionablendneurotic.he windwhistlingatthewindow fthe zba ndtheblackquietnessredestroying e.

If werewithmywife twouldn't e so terrible. .

Appeals forhelp,sent n hugenumbersto the authoritiesn theStalinperiod, constitute he second genre."Help, they re throwingme outon to the street,mymother s 76, I lost three sons in theCivilWar,[Ihave] a mentally-illhild,myheart s weak,myhusband is in a mentalhospital.Help me quickly."}'t his telegram, ent in 1940 to Sovnar-kom,offers capsuleversionofthetypical victim" etter,whoseobjectwas to obtain some kind ofhelp or favor.Such writers suallyrepre-sentedthemselves s weakand powerless, ictims f a "bitter ate"and

15. SmolenskArchive,WKP 386, 91-92.16. PANO, f.3, op. 11,d. 41, 11. 72-73. The translation eproducesthepunctua-

tionof theoriginal.17. TSGA IPD, f.24, op. 2v,d. 1518,1. 106.18. Ibid.,d. 2224,11.44-48.19. GARF,f. 5446, op. 81a, d. 24,1. 69.



84 Slavic Review

adverse circumstances.( The help they equestedwas of variouskinds:many simplytold a hard-luck tory nd asked for money,which wassometimesgiven.2' Eikhe,first ecretary f the west Siberian kraikom,received many etters romwomen trying o trace husbands who owedchild support.A single mother n Leningrad asked Kirov to findhernine-year-oldon a place in an orphanage"or else givehim to theRedArmyto be broughtup." "I haven't even got enough forbread," shewrote. "My son and I go hungry, verything as been sold. I have nobedding left,no pillows, nd both of us are barefoot nd in rags." 2 Alaborerwroteto Molotov askingforcast-off nderwear (bel'e) or hisfamily and/or job as an investigator or the NKVD).2

In Zhdanov's mail as Leningrad first ecretary, lmost a third fallcitizens' etterswere about housing: crowded apartments, amp anddecaying partments, ightsn communal apartments, ontestedrightsto living space, threats f eviction,pleas forroomsfromfamilies ur-rently renting a "corner" in a kitchen or corridor.24 Molotov's mail,like Zhdanov's, was full of pleas about housing.One letter, igned bythreeMoscow children,begged himto rescue theirfamily f six fromlife n six square metersunder the stairs n Lubianka alley.25Requestsforhousing and otherfavorscame to Molotov frommembersof theSoviet elite as well as ordinarypeople. Three youngmembersof the

Writers'Union, successfulbutpoorly housed,wrotea joint letterbeg-ging for "normal" livingconditions.26 A pianist living with his preg-nant wife and grand piano in a room of ten square meters made asimilarrequest;and a child-prodigy iolinistasked fora car to drivehim to school.27These elite lettersbelong to a special sub-genreofclient-to-patronommunications,forMolotov, like almost all Sovietpolitical leaders, acted as a patronto a stable of regularclients fromthe intelligentsia.

Because of his previous position as stateprosecutor,Vyshinskii'smail as deputy chairman of Sovnarkom n 1939-1940 included many

appeals fromwives,mothersand daughters (and occasionally hus-

20. For an analysisof petitionsof thiskind for restoration f voting rights, eeGolfo Alexopoulos, "The Ritual Lamen-t: poiled Identities and Discourses of Rehal-bilitation n the 1920s and 1930s," paper presented at 27th National ConventionofAAASS, Washington,DC, October 1995.

21. For examples ofresponses, ee TsGA IPD, f.24, op. 2v,d. 1514,1. 41. In onecase, thesum of 100 rubleswas specified.

22. TsGA IPD, f.24, op. 2g,d. 768, 1.117. For anotherplea to place children nan orphanage, see ibid., . 24, op. 2v, d. 1554, 1. 66.

23. GARF,f.5446, op. 82, d. 27, 1.28.24. Calculated fromTsGA IPD, f.24, op. 2g, d. 4, 11. -6. The next most popularcategories (in order) were requests for passports and Leningrad residence permlits,appeals against judicial sentences, requests for work, appeals from prison-er-s or amil-

nesty and requests for places in educational institution-s.

25. Ibid.,d. 64, 161.26. Ibid.,d. 77, 11.9-10. The writerswere Pavel Nilin, Gennadii Fish and Lev

Rubinshtein.27. GARF,f.5446, op. 82, d. 56, 1.133; ibid., . 72, 1.34.




bands, fathers nd sons) of arrested persons, mainly great purge vic-tims. "[My husband] did not commit any crimes, nd his health and

personal qualities makehimincapable of crime. have lived withhimfor40 yearsand know him tobe an absolutelyhonestman," wrotethewifeof a beekeeper fromSaratov.28 Myhusband has been in prisonalmost a yearand half,"wrote thewifeof one Hans Erman, probablya career army fficer. A terrible ewardfor20 yearsofhonest, elflesstoil!" "I ask of you truth nd only truth, s a representative f theregime," his same letter oncluded, "and I beg you for t,as a humanbeing."29

Denunciation is the genre of public epistolary ommunication hatto many people epitomizesthe Stalin period.3"The large number of

denunciations n all typesof archives state,party, ity, egional,mil-itary nd so on, in addition tothestill naccessibleKGB archives) howthat this form of letter-writingas indeed common at all levels ofstalinist ociety nd thatthe authorities ften acted on the denuncia-tions.But I foundseveralunexpectedfacets fthese etters. irst,mostdenunciations were signed,not (as Soviet folk wisdom has it) anony-mous. Second, denunciation was a multi-purpose ool thatmightbeused for wholerangeofpurposes, ncludingexpressing oyalty o theregime; protectingoneself from the accusation of notdenouncing;tryingo settle coreswith ompetitors, ersonalenemiesand tiresome

neighbors; obliquely offering ne's services to the NKVD as an in-former; xpressingoutrageat corruptionor otherbureacratic buses;seekingjustice nd the redressofgrievanceswhichthe writer ad beenunable to gain through he courts or by other means.

A major categoryof denunciation is the "loyalty"denunciationwritten y one communist gainstanotherand dealingwithpoliticalsins like contactswithformeroppositionistsor foreigners nd anti-Soviet talk. Since itwas a communist'sdutyto denounce, such lettersusuallycontain little n thewayof explicationof motivesor self-justi-fication. hus a communist tudent t theMilitaryAirAcademybaldlycommunicateddamaging nformation n Otto Schmidt, he Arctic x-plorer:"I consider itnecessaryto informyou that O.Iu. Schmidt wasclosely acquainted withTishauer,who has been arrested s a Germanspy . .''931 Non-communists also wrote "loyalty" denunciations, thoughless routinely.An officeworker, eeling t herduty ogive nformationabout her neighbor's anti-Sovietconversations to the wonderfullyimagined "StateArchivesforthe ProtectionoftheTranquillity fourHappy Fatherland,"32wrotedirectly o Zhdanov lest her information

28. GARF,f.5446, op. 81a, d. 348, 11. 5, 101-2.29. Ibid.,d. 93, 11. 19, 321, 323-24.30. For a moredetailed discussionofdenunciations, ee Sheila Fitzpatrick,Sig-

nals fromBelow: Soviet Denunciations of the 1930s,"NCSEER report 1994), an ex-panded versionof which s forthcomingnJournal fModern istory,ecember 1996.

31. RTsKhIDNI, f.475, op. 1,d. 16,1. 36.32. The fulltitleof thisnon-existentnstitutionwas "Gosudarstvennyerkhivyo

okhrane pokoistviianashei schastlivoirodiny stroiashchegosiaotsializma."



86 Slavic Review

"fall nto thehands ofsome stillunmaskedscoundrel"who mighthavepenetrated the security agencies.33 There were many such denuncia-

tions of neighbors, especially neighbors in communal apartments. Inmany cases the writer clearly hoped to get a neighbor evicted or ar-rested so as to free up living space.34

Malice, self-interestand party duty were not the only stimuli todenunciation. A quest for ustice was at least the ostensible motive ofmany denunciations written by subordinates against their bosses andby ordinary people against officials.These letters,filed byKrest'ianskaiagazeta's archivists under the heading "abuse of power (zloupotreblenievlast'iu)," belong to a special category on the borderline between de-nunciations and complaints.

Most "abuse" denunciations came frompeasants and were directedagainst kolkhozchairmen.35 They were appeals to higher authorities(including newspapers) to intervene and correct the misbehavior oflower officials,usually framed in terms of indignation and a demandfor justice. A typical rural "abuse" letter details the sins of kolkhozleaders (stealing from the kolkhoz,monopolizing kolkhoz ssets, drunk-enness, favoritism,rudeness to kolkhozniks),ften labeling them "ku-laks" for good measure, and ends with a call to "punish the rascals astheydeserve." "These kulak scum take the grain and sell 16 kilos [onthe market] for 50 rubles a pud, while honest toilers go hungry.Com-rades, where is your vigilance (sic) twenty years of Soviet power andthis kind of abomination and terrorizing of the dark masses contin-ues." 36 Peasant "abuse" lettersmightalso be framed as calls forrescue."Save our kolkhoz," kolkhoznitsaegged Krest'ianskaiagazeta,describinghow her kolkhozhad been bankrupted and "brought to ruin" by itsleaders.37 Punishment rather than rescue is the leitmotifof this denun-ciation of an anti-semitic trade-union boss: "In the twelfthyear of thegreat October revolution, that poisonous, harmful bedbug, who longago should have been crushed and annihilated, still sits behind the

chairman's desk. Poluzadov ought to be slapped down to get rid of hisdesire to insultJews once and for all." 38

Complaints, a genre closely related to denunciations, may be dis-tinguished fromthem by a primary stress on the writer's victimizationrather than the subject's misdeeds and the need for punishment. Never-theless, the line is a fine one. The writer of the "bedbug" denunciation,for example, had almost certainly been a victim of Poluzadov's anti-Semitism. Conversely, the women who wrote a complaint in 1933 abouttheirneighbors' drinking parties concluded with a call forpunishment:

33. TsGA IPD, f. 24, op. 2g,d. 14,1.84.34. Occasionly this hope was made explicit: see TsentralPnyimunitsipial'nyi rkhiv

g.MoskvyTsMAM),f.1039,op. 2, d. 2140, 1. 6 (courtesy fViktoriiaTiazhel'nikova).35. Q.v. Sheila Fitzpatrick, Stalin's Peasants: Resistance and Survival in theRussian

Village fter ollectivizationNewYork:OxfordUniversity ress,1994),chap. 8.36. RGAE,f. 396, op. 10,d. 128,1.159.37. Ibid.,d. 161, 11. 9-51.38. GARF,f. 5451, op. 14,d. 68 (4),1. 30.



Supplicantsnd Citizens 87

"We women workers living at no. 10, Dukhovskii Lane ask that thoseguilty of causing disturbances be made to answer for it and give us

some peace at night."39 Of course, some complaints were not denuncia-tions, for example, a letter sent to Molotov by a Moscow engineer,indignant after spending a whole day in vain search for shoes for hischild:

Today I wentround more than40 shops and everywherell you heardwas the answer NO. They turned up in one storebut what kind ofshoes were those, crudelymade nd costing 5 rubles.Of course that'snothingto you, but for a personearning 150-180 rubles or even 250rublesa month t is very, ery xpensive.. .4'

Opinions,suggestions and advice constitute a genre of their own.

A wide range of suggestions for the improvement of Soviet life andstate policies was offered in citizen's letters: to remove all "rab" and"slug" words from Russian language because of their servile connota-tions; to pass a law against blat; to limit the sale of alcoholic beveragesnear factories; to prohibit betting at the racetrack; to prevent discrim-ination against non-smokers in offices; to establish a socialist alterna-tive to the Nobel Prizes to reward "heroism, great discoveries, [and]selfless struggle for the good of the world"; to allow Old Believerspremises for religious services; to remove the stigma from "former

people" and let those who were deported from Moscow and Leningradreturn to their homes.4' There are also occasional attempts to openan ideological discussion: a Siberian tekhnikum tudent student wroteto Eikhe in 1935 asking his opinion on an issue under dispute amonghis classmates-whether it was possible to "build communism in onecountry."42

While many of the "opinion" letters are essentially apolitical, oth-ers stake out political positions that range from strongly critical toultra-loyal. Ultra-loyalistswere those who not only accepted but evenexaggerated regime values, especially with respect to watchfulness and

suspicion of possible "enemies," "wreckers" and foreign spies. At thetime of Kirov's murder, one Leningrader wrote offeringto "avenge"Kirov by personally carryingout the death sentences against his mur-derers. AfterRadio Moscow played the funeral march from Chopin'sB-flatPiano Sonata on the day that Zinoviev and Kamenev were exe-cuted, a vigilant citizen wrote to alert Molotov to this coded trotskyitesignal, evidence that enemies had penetrated the state arts committee.Other writerswarned that publishing statistics on pig-iron productiongave valuable information to the fascists and expressed dismay that

39. TsGAOR g. Moskvy, . 1474, op. 7, d. 72,1. 42.40. GARF, f.5446, op. 82, d. 51,11.248-49.41. GARF,f. 5446, op. 82, d. 51,1. 144; ibid.op. 81a, d. 24,11.48-49; GANO, f.47,

op. 5, d. 120,1. 155; TsGA IPD, f.24, op. 2g,d. 46, 1. 10; GARF,f.5446,op. 82, d. 108,11. 9-22; TsGA IPD, f. 24, op. 2g, d. 46, 1. 11; ibid., . 47,1. 157;GARF,f. 5446, op. 82,d. 51, 1.276.

42. PANO, f. 3, op. 9, d. 10,11. 57-59.



88 Slavic Review

Lenin's image had been cheapened by ts reproduction n the new 30-ruble note.43

Among the critical letters a larger group than the ultra-loyal),signed outright ttacks n Stalinor hispolicies are rare butnot totallylacking. n 1930,for nstance, communist rom erezovkanear Odessasigned his name to a letter oPravda trongly riticizing talin's article"DizzywithSuccess" as a weapon in the hands of the Party's nemies,and expressingthe hope that comrade Stalin would "recognize hismistake nd return o the correct path."44To be sure, etters f suchboldness are rarelyencounteredafter930. But some later letterstoMolotovand other political leaders directly riticize he addressee forspecificactions or statements. or example, while the engineerwhowroteto Molotov about children'sshoes blamed "do-nothings n thecommissariats" orshortages,he added that"this doesn't absolve youfrom esponsibility,"orMolotov had "loudly proclaimed to the wholeUSSR and thewholeworldthat n thenexttwoyearspriceswould fall,but in a few months prices forshoes, clothingand other things n-creased.Oy,howbadlythatturnedout . . ."45

More often, signed criticismof political leaders was directed atsecond-tier igures ikeLitvinov,Kollontai and Lunacharskii to namethreepopular targets, uspected by manycommunists f "bourgeois"

or "liberal"tendencies).The following,writtenn 1936, s one ofmanyattackson the commissarforforeign ffairs:

Whatkindofperson s Litvinov? trickyellowwho ong ago suc-cumbed othebourgeoisie.oon he willput monoclenhiseye ndplayBismarck. is opinionof .V.Stalins known o everyone ereandabroad.... Litvinov ants he aurelwreaths f thebourgeoisie,not thepraiseof theproletariat,hichnauseateshim .. Curryingfavorwith ourgeoisministerssnotdiplomacy,t's hameful!4'"

Regime policies on issues like education were often riticized, ndsometimessuch criticismhad broader

implications.For

example,a

low-level oviet officialwho described himself s "a Sovietpatriot"forthepastfifteen earswrote to Kirovat the end of 1932 to saythathisloyaltywasbeing severely estedbytheregime'shandlingoffood short-ages. In particular,he said, he could not understand"whywe haveforsaken ur children.Mywifeworks nrailroad schoolno. 5 inPskov.She saysthat when a doctor inspectedthe children's health it turnedout thatabout 90 percentwere weakenedfrommalnutrition.. " Howcould thishappen when "we arebuildingthefuture f all mankind"?47

Distinguishedbytheirproprietorial ttitude o theregime nd con-

fident ssumptionof theright oreprimand t,Leningradworkerswere

43. TsGA IPD, f.24, op. 2v, d. 727, 1. 341; GARF, f.5446, op. 82, d. 51, 11. 13-23; TsGA IPD, f.24, op. 2v,d. 1554; GARF,f.5446, op. 82., d. 56,1. 331.

44. GARF. f.3316, op. 16a, d. 446,1. 190.45. GARF,f.5446, op. 82, d. 51, 11. 48-49.46. TsGA IPD, f.24, op. 2g,d. 226,1. 38.47. Ibid.,op. lb, d. 449,1. 73.




particularlyikely owrite dmonitoryetters. eningraders'criticismswere directed mostfrequentlyt elite privileges nd theParty'sgrow-

ing alienation fromtheworkingclass.48 ometimes theyconveyed aveiled threat, s in the signed letterto Zhdanov,datedJune 1937, inwhicha communistworker who had just been firedfor drunkennessand absenteeism) complained thatthe factory osses had become anew rulingcaste, treating heworkers ven worsethanthe capitalistshad done: 'Justthink, omrade Zhdanov,how manyofus are candi-dates forthetrotskyites,lthough alwaysstruggled nd will strugglefor socialismagainst capitalism,but as for others n the same positionas I am, I can't answer for them, only I hear them cursingSovietpower.9Anonymous etters ften xpressedsimilar entiments. 1935

anonimka romLeningrad complains that"the apparats .. are filledwithprinces,aristocrats nd clergy[.]These creatures sit in all theapparats nd most have partycards. But the worker has no righttoworkin the apparats[,] heyare all drivenall out so as not to be aneyesore ..

The anonimka s a genre with its own characteristic ropes. Onetrope is anger,oftenexplosively xpressed,directedagainstmembersof the old and newprivileged lasses,foreignersndJews.The Russianrevolutionwas part of an international ewish onspiracy, nd Stalinand Kirov had sold out to theJews, ccordingto one Leningradano-nimka f1934.Workerswere fedup withJewish omination nd wouldsoon end it by anotherrevolution, nother asserted.5' The threat nthesecond letter s not unusual. AfterKirov'smurder,many nomimkimake sinister eference o it,warning, orexample,that fpriceswerenot lowered,other political leaders would share Kirov'sfate.52 1936anonimkarom convict, omplainingthat"onlywomen and orphansremain in Soviet collective farms nd the husbands of these womenall sit in damp jails like yourThilman," warns thattheremight beuprisings nd war ftheregimedid notrelease"at least thekolkhozniks"

fromprison.Sarcasm is anothercharacteristic rope in anonimki.Writers om-monlyeither focused their barbs on the gulf between therhetoricof"great Soviet achievements"and Soviet reality,or ridiculed the re-gime'shypocrisyncondemningcapitalistgovernments oroppressingtheircitizens. "So this is a glorious epoch," wrote one anonymouswritern 1936.But "forme thefollowing hingremains ncomprehen-sible . . .We have a colossal armyofconvicts, ensofmillionsofthem,who are overflowinghe ails, thecamps,and the [labor]colonies . ..

48. E.g. TsGA IPD, f. 24, op. 2g,d. 48,1. 223.49. TsGA IPD, f.24, op. 2g, d. 47,11.147-49.50. Ibid.,op. 2v,d. 1518,1. 62.51. Ibid.,d. 1518,1. 9, and d. 727,1. 367.52. Ibid.,d. 1518,11. 1, 14.53. GANO, f.47, op. 5, d. 206, 1. 148. ErnstThailiman as a Germiiainomiymunist

leaderwhose imprisonment ythe nazis was thesubject ofmany ndignanltrticles nthe Soviet press.



90 Slavic Review

In the majority fcases the accusation aRainst hem s completely ra-zen, crassand based entirely n lies . . ."' 4An anonimka ent to Pravda

in 1930 notes sarcastically hat the first ive-year lan had omitted tobudgetforthenecessarybuildingof prisons:"the supreme potentate(Caucasian PrinceStalin) and his faithful ervant peasantstarosta al-inin) forgot bout that .. 55

The language56 of Soviet "public" lettersalso merits attention.Manyletters choose a comradely salutation as the mode of address: "Dear(dorogoi) omrade," as in "Dear comrade Vyshinskii" or "My dear com-rade Stalin,"57 though the more formal "respected/deeply respected(uvazhaemyi,mnogouvazhaemyi)omrade" also occurs. Communists andKomsomol members often signed their letters "with communist (Kom-somol) greetings," or sometimes "with comradely greetings." Partymembers might give the number of their party card (especially whenwriting denunciations). Workers often identified themselves by factoryas well as by name. In some letters, political leaders are addressed withthe familiar second person singular (ty),58 ut a sense of intimacy ismore often conveyed by other means. "Give some thought to this ques-tion, talk it over in theKremlin," a communist worker advised Zhdanovin a letter on foreign policy.59 "Ekh! Mikhail Ivanovich! Check this

out ...,"

wrote an anonymous denouncer of plots to President MikhailKalinin.60 Some uneducated writers used the salutation "Good day!"One letter toKrest'ianskaia azeta begins as ifthewriterhad just knockedon the editorial door: "Good day, comrade staffers!A kolkhozniks hereto see you."61

Some writersattempted to blend the intimacy of comradeship withthat of supplication, as in a communist agronomist's appeal whoseflavor is hard to convey in English: "TovarishchZhdanov,chutkii, odnoi-pomogi Comrade Zhdanov, dear sensitive one, help me)." 152Others soft-ened comradely criticism with a sense of shared historical mission, as

in the exalted ending of a worker's complaint about elite privileges:"

"I remain, with respect and in the conviction of the victory of com-munism, N.A. Kosoch. 2 April, 1937, 3 o'clock at night. Myfive little

54. GARF,f.3316, op. 40, d. 14,1. 100.55. Ibid.,op. 16a, d. 446,1. 100.56. The argument n thissectiondoes not depend on the Saussurian distinction

between angue ndparole Ferdinandde Saussure, CoursenGeneral inguistics,d. andtrans.CharlesBallyand AlbertSechehaye [NewYork:Philosophical Library, 1959)]).

57. E.g. GARF,f. 5446, op. 81a, d. 93, 1. 323; TsGA IPD, f.24, op. 2v,d. 2224, 1.

46. 58. TsGA IPD, f.24, op. lb, d. 449,1.72 (1932 letter-oKirov fromiiyoungwvotrker-vydvizhenets).

59. TsGA IPD, f. 24, op. 2g, d. 226,1. 38.60. GARF,f. 1235, op. 141, d. 2070,1. 4.61. The Russian, retaining the original punctuationand spelling, s "dobry en,

tavarichi obotniki.vam kolkhoznik."GAE f.396, op. 10,d. 161,1. 289.62. TsGA IPD, f. 24, op. 2g, d. 47,1. 147.63. Ibid.,d. 48,1. 223 (my emphasis).




the historian and no doubt the original addressee as well), readingsuch lettersmay be a moving experience.Writing ettersto the au-

thorities urelywas, or at least could be, as much a formof popularcultureand an expressionof popular creativity s the amateur theat-ricals and balalaika playingthat are usually listed under these head-ings. The line between popular letter-writingnd popular writing nthe iterary ense is a fine one, and there are signs thatmanyamateurwriters efused odraw t.The readerswho deluged Krest'ianskaiaazetawith ettersof complaint,denunciation and enquiry were also spon-taneously sending the newspaper "artistic" production-drawings,poems,and short tories-that theyhoped would be published.7" ome-times hegenredistinction implymelts way:anonymous ndictments

of Soviet power are crafted n classical quatrains,while "abuse ofpower" letters come illustrated with cartoons. In one such case, thewriterlartist nded his letter by requesting a job as a caricaturist withthe newspaper.77

An item in Krest'ianskaia gazeta's mail that straddles the boundarybetween letter-writing nd popular art is an essay in fairy-tale skazka)form under the title "Exploits (podvigi) of the Hooligan Knave S.M.Tychinkin." 78

In thedark littlevillage of M. Kemary . resounded the name of theFirst of August kolkhoz . . Why it grew (sic) communist kolkhoz hair-man E.E.Vaseev was sent to it with Soviet spiritand a communistheart. Vaseev did not touch strongdrink, nd all the masses lovedVaseev . . . But for those who were stealing from the kolkhoz, ifebecame dreary.Vaseev would not let them steal from hekolkhoz,so]theythrew hemselves n Vaseev, wantingto force him out,but thestalwart ommunistpushed off he rascals. Who was the head of therascals? Tychinkin Stepan Mikhailovich . . . There was no end to thebeatingsand hooliganism,there s not enough paper to describeallhis tricks ..

The collective authors79) asked the newspaper "to publish our note(zametka)," commonly expressed desire, despite the infrequency of itsrealization.

Many writers to newspapers also indicated their commitment topublication by giving titles to their letters, usually modeled on head-ings in the Soviet press: "Which of Them Are Class Enemies?" "Take

76. Krest'ianskaiaazeta,10July1935. In theperiod 5-8 July, hepaper received90 drawingsand 45 poems and shortstories. Citizens also sent poems and otherliterary ompositionsto obkomecretaries: ee, for example,TsGA IPD, f.24, op. 2v,d. 1554, 1. 66.

77. See RTsKhIDNI, f.475, op. 1,d. 2, 1. 79 forthe quatrainsand RGAE, f. 396,op. 10, d. 67, 1. 33, and ibid.,d. 129, unpag., forcartoons.The request fora job is ind. 129.

78. RGAE, f.396, op. 10, d. 26, 11. 37-39.79. There were 6 signatories, identifyinghemselves s "sympathizersof the

CommunistParty]" nd 4 as "kolkhozniks."



94 Slavic Review

AppropriateMeasures,""Illegal Business,""Is This Not Wrecking?"(A kolkhozeterinaryeldsherand perhaps,udgingbyhiselegant cript,

a former cribe),V.V. Smirnovheaded his denunciationof a kolkhozchairmanwith a whole arrayof decoratively-inscribedlogans: "A se-rious signalfrom Red Potiagino'kolkhoz,iatskii el'sovet,ol'shesol'skiiraion, aroslavl' oblast'.THERE CAN BE NO MERCY FOR ENEMIESOF THE SOVIET PEOPLE/THEY ARE PROTECTING ENEMIES- - - UNPUNISHED CRIMINALS"8'1

Even lettersnotwritten o newspaperswere sometimesgiventitlesby their uthors.82 his bringsus back to an earlierquestion about the"publicness" of public letter-writing.Given the very small chance ofgetting a letter published and the much greater chance of evoking

official response (investigation of a dispute, punishment of an of-fender, accelerated access to a scarce good),83 the rational goal of writ-ing letters was not publication but official intervention. Yet many let-ter-writerspersisted in asserting the contrary. This suggests that theflood of readers' letters to newspapers and journals in the era of gor-bachevian glasnost'84 was no accident and that perhaps what Sovietletter-writerswanted all along was to get their letters into print andtheir opinions into the public sphere.

Letter-writers f the Stalin era did their best to master the languageof Pravda.85 Soviet epithets, party argon and rhetorical devices wereused exuberantly and sometimes incongruously: "It is not a kolkhoz uta nest of gentryand gendarmes," "A CLUSTER OF FORMER PEOPLEhas gathered in the house," "Degenerate elements have wormed theirway onto the kolkhozboard," "We are now waging decisive war withgrabbers (rvachi)," Revolutionary legalitywas brazenly violated," "Theywere deaf to [my] signals," "[He] took the path of terror," "More thanonce I unmasked [them]..,but the district eaders hide my unmaskingsunder the blanket," "An incorrigible opportunist and hidden trot-skyite," "A self-seeker (shkurnik)with a party card," "This handful of

80. RGAE, f.396, op. 10, d. 86,1. 406; PANO, f. 3, op. 9, d. 10,1.295; RGAE,f.396, op. 10,d. 142,1. 141; GARF,f.3316, op. 64, d. 1854,1. 258.

81. RGAE,f.396, op. 10, d. 161,11.24, 29-32.82. Q.v. the 1936 letter to Rumiantsevheaded "A sel'kor's ignal," Smolensk Ar-

chive,WKP 355, 219.83. Of letters ent to Krest'ianskaiaazeta n 1937-1938, less than 1% were pub-

lished but almost60% were sent out for nvestigation,nd responses outcomes)werereportedon 33% (RTsKhIDNI, f. 17, op. 114, d. 857, 11. 7-31 [Orgburoresolution

"On thesituation n Krest'ianskaiaazeta," 12 April 1938]).84. See Cerf et al., eds., Small Fires 1990) and Riordan and Bridger,eds., Dear

Comrade ditor 1992).85. By "the language ofPravda," mean the vocabulary,rhetoricaldevices and

conventionsof style nd format haracteristic f the central partynewspaper. This isnota Foucauldian discourse,on which ee Michel Foucault, TheArcheologyfKnowledgeand theDiscoursenLanguage, rans.E.M.Sheridan Smith New York: PantheonBooks,1982).



Supplicants and Citizens 95

kulak hold-outs (nedobitki),"Whiteguardists, rotskyitesnd wreck-ers." 86

Quotationsfrom talin are to be foundin the etters f the 1930s,though ess often and moreambiguously) han one might magineonthe basis of the "model letters" occasionally published in the press.87A handful of phrases seem to have lodged firmly n the popular mind."Cadresdecide verything" as one of them,used both as boilerplate andas a pointed remark from mistreated employees.88 Another was "Lifehas becomebetter, ifehas becomemore cheerful"-sometimes used ironi-cally.89But perhaps the most popular of all Stalin's tropes in the late1930s was a phrase borrowed fromAesop's fables, "wolves in sheep'sclothing."9( "Let them uncover who she is, tear offthe mask ... [from]

the wolf in sheep's clothing"; "Those wolves in sheep's clothing arehappy to harm our party in the kolkhoz at every turn"; "We need toknow how to recognize the enemy in sheep's clothing who is conspic-uously showing devotion to Soviet power but thinking like a wolf."9tl)

Like memoirists and actors, those who write letters to the author-ities are involved in a sort of performance. Many cast themselves inparticular roles and draw on established social stereotypes and rhe-torical conventions in enacting them.2 There are many orphans in theSoviet letter files-perhaps even more than there were in real life.t'3

Some writers cited their parentless state and upbringing in an or-

86. RGAE, f.396, d. 128, 1. 158; TsGAOR g. Moskvy, . 1474, op. 7, d. 79, 1.86;GANO, f.47, op. 5, d. 206,1. 76; PANO, f.3, op. 9, d. 10,1.1434; ibid., p. 11,d. 41, 1.31; RGAE,f.396, op. 10,d. 161,1.49; ibid., . 87,1. 281; ibid., . 86,1. 391; RTsKhIDNI,f 475, op. 1, d. 10, 1.2; ibid., . 9,1. 8; GANO, f. 47, op. 5, d. 206,1. 77; RTsKhIDNI, f.475, op. 1,d. 9,1. 108.

87. For a "model" letter llegedly fromkolkhozniks,eaded "Destroy theEnemywithoutMercy," ee Krest'ianskaiaazeta, 5January1938, 3. On thetreatmentfStalin

in Leningrad letters, ee Sarah Davies, "The 'Cult' of the Vozhd':Representations nLettersfrom1934-1941," forthcomingnRussianHistory.88. RTsKhIDNI, f.475, op. 1,d. 2,11.39-40; TsGA IPD, f.24, op. 2v,d. 1534, 1.

176, 183.89. See TsGA IPD, f.24, op. 2v,d. 1514,1.37 for a literaluse (about Leningrad's

soccerteam);and ibid., . 3548,1.62 (forpopularcomments n priceincreasesreportedby theNKVD).

90. In his speech to the Februar-y-Marchlenum (1937), Stalin asked why"ourleading comrades... have not managed to discern the real face of theenemies of thepeople, have notmanaged to recognizewolves n sheep's clothing, ave notmanagedto tear the masks off hem" I.V.Stalin,Robert H. McNeal, ed. Sochineniia,Palo Alto:StanfordUniversity ress, 1967],vol. 1 [XIV], 190 [my mphasis]).

91. TsGA IPD, f 24, op. 2g,d. 14,1.1; RGAE,f.396, op. 10,d. 128,1. 159; GARFf 3316, op. 64, d. 1854,1. 258.92. These epistolaryperformances iffer n important espectsfrom heface-to-

face interactions escribedbyErvingGoffmann ThePresentationf elfnEverydayife(GardenCity:Doubleday & Co., 1959).

93. In seventeenthcenturyRussian petitions,virtually ll petitioners refertothemselves s "orphans" of their ords (sirotyvoi). ee Krest'ianskiehelobitnyeVII v.Iz sobraniiGosudarstvennogostoricheskogouzeiaMoscow:Nauka, 1994).



96 Slavic Review

phanage as evidence of their mpeccableSovietvalues: "vigilanceandjustice were implanted in my childhood." 4 Others used them as a

synecdochefor the powerlessness nd vulnerabilityhat mustarousecompassion.The orphanedChurkov iblings, hildrenofdeportedku-laks, played on thisresponsewhen petitioningfor the returnof thefamily zba.95 he presentation f selfas weak, poor,uneducated, pow-erlesswas perhapsmosttypically ployused bywomen and children.But it was also used by peasants. "Comrades, help,we appeal to youforhelp, formentalcapacity sic) . . ." "We are uneducated (malogra-motnye),t is easyto fool and rob us." 6

Women writers requentlywrote as mothers. n many cases, thiswas because theywere writing n theirchildren'sbehalf, sking that

son or daughterbe admitted to college, givenmedical treatment rreleased fromprison.Mothers of Red Armymen had a practical pur-pose for thus dentifying hemselves, ince a rangeof special benefitswereavailable to them.7Some women cite thefactthattheir hildrenwere communists,Komsomol membersor vydvizhentsys evidence oftheirworthas Soviet citizens. Women asking for "materialhelp" in-variablymention the plightof theirchildren,barefoot and in rags,"without crustofbread." A peasantwomanwriting nonymously ocondemn cursing and hooliganism in her village signed the letter"Mother." 8

Male letter-writersften presented themselves s patriots.A state-mentof communist artymembershipwas one obviousway of makingthisclaim,but manyreinforced t withreferences o specific ervicestothe revolution for xample, servingntheRed Guards,volunteeringfor the Red Army, ighting andits n the fareast or the Caucasus). Asan epistolary rope, sheddingblood in the civilwar had the greatestresonance."I am a communist ince 1918 and lost myhealth an arm)forthe new life.""I have already paid mydebt withblood, fighting nthe fronts fthecivil war.""[We] did notspare [our]blood and fought

the parasites."

9

In anonimki, favorite legitimizing device was to signthe letter "Veteran of the Civil War" or (in Siberia) "Red Partisan." 100

There were women patriots, too. One of them, asking Kirov's help ona familymatter in 1934, described herself as "a member of the bolshe-vik partysince March 1917" who had been arrested byjunkers in 1917,taken part in the battle of Pulkovo and so on. Three years later, the

94. TsGA IPD, f. 24, op. 2v, d. 1534,11. 176, 183.95. Smolensk Archive,WKP 355, 129-32.

96. Fromletters oKrest'ianskaiaazeta n RGAE f.396, op. 10,d. 161,1.289; ibid.,d. 128, 11. 6-69 (paraphrase).

97. See RGAE, f. 396, 7. d. 26,11. 207-8.98. GARF, f. 3316, op. 41, d. 85,11.41-43.99. GARF,f.5446, op. 82, d. 51,11.248-49; TsGAOR g. Moskvy, . 1474, op. 7, d.

72,1. 121; RGAE,f.396, d. 128,1. 159.100. GARF, f. 5446, op. 82, d. 27,1. 172; GANO, f.47, op. 5, d. 179,1. 170; PANO,

f. 3, op. 9, d. 9, 126.




same woman wrote to Zhdanov asking help in a new family risis. tis interesting onote that his ime-no doubt inresponse to the public

revaluation of thefamily ssociated withthe debate on abortionandanti-abortion aw of 1936-she introduced a subtle change into herself-representation:ot only a revolutionary atriotnow but also aparent, heappealed to Zhdanovin 1937"as a member fthe bolshevikparty ince March 1917 and as themotherfthreehildren."" Anotherformof patriotic dentificationwas as a correspondentfromthe fac-tory rvillage rabkor,el'kor),hat s a public-spiriteditizenwhowroteto thenewspaperon a regularbasis, voluntarily nd withoutpay, "sig-naling" local bureaucratic nefficiencynd "unmasking" wrongdoers.The rabkorlsel'korovementof the 1920s had much in common with

thatofAmericanwhistleblowersn the 1970s,exceptthat oviet targetswere not corporate executives but anti-Soviet ngineers and corruptkolkhozhairmen.During collectivization, numberof village corre-spondents were murderedby"kulaks."Though theformal nstitutionwas lapsing by the late 1930s, the image of the fearless truth-tellerretained its appeal and many peasant authors of "abuse" lettersadopted the el'kor ersona."I am persecuted s a sel'kor" asa familiarrefrain.10

The trope of past oppression-prerevolutionary poverty,miseryand exploitation-served bothas an appeal to compassion and as evi-dence of pro-Sovietsympathies.Kolkhozniks escribed themselves sformer oor peasantsand batraks; ld Believerspointedout thattheytheyhad been persecuted under the tsar.'103 I was illegitimate,mymother worked as a batrachkan Tverguberniia,"wrotea communistadministratormbroiledin a local feud,seekingto establishher cre-dentialsas one who had suffered nder the old regime. In childhoodI experienced great poverty,"noted the wifeof an arrested factorymanagerin her appeal on behalfofher husband in 1937."'

Self-identifications a workerwas anotherwayofestablishing o-

viet oyalties. n theeyesof"worker"writers,his tatus arriedspecialrights, ncludingtheright o criticize heregime.Such men expectedthe authorities o listento themand the archival recordsuggests hattheirexpectationswere ustified.They announced their worker den-tity roudly;for xample,one writer ignedhimselfworker lashchev,Vasilii Fedorovich,memberof the union ofriver ransport f Bobrov-skiicreek,employed continuously n rivertransport ince 1908 up tothe present day." IOF Of course, the "worker" label was also used ma-nipulatively. Anonymous letter writers frequently signed themselves

101. Letters n TsGA IPD, f. 24, op. 2v, d. 727,11. 335-36; and ibid., p. 2g,d. 47,1. 272 (my emphasis).

102. RGAE, f. 396, d. 86,11. 391-92; Sniolensk Archive,WKP 386, 144-47.103. RGAE, f. 396, d. 128, 1. 159; and Smolensk Archive,WKP 190, 26; TsGA IPD,

f.24, op. 2g,d. 47, 1. 157.104. TsGA IPD, f. 24, op. 2v, d. 1514,1.23; ibid., . 2220, 1.10.105. GANO, f. 288, op. 2, d. 902,1. 6.



98 Slavic Review

"Odessa worker," Production worker," Worker t the Putilov plant,""Old worker" nd the like.106

In the course of the 1930s, writers ncreasingly ften representedthemselves s achievers. The quintessentialachievers of the decadewere shockworkersudarniki)nd stakhanovites,ver-fulfillersf normswhoweresingledout for rewards nd public recognition.Three Kom-somol workers rom he Moscow metroconstruction roject added thephrase "decorated shockworkers udarniki-znachkisty)"o their signa-tureson a denunciation of politicians n theirnative southOsetiia. 07

Another writer dentifiedherself as "an obshchestvennitsa,nitiatorofthe movementofwives of engineering-technicalersonnel in the cityofLeningrad,forwhich was decorated bythegovernment."08To bea vydvizhenets-thats, someone promotedfromthe lower classes intoa while-collaradministrativeor professional position-constitutedachievement, nd a number of letter-writersescribed themselves nthis way.'(9 Usually this conveyed pride in havingrisen fromhumbleorigins.But Sedova, the Siberian wrongedwifeencountered earlier,gave it a different wist, erhaps unintentionally,n a poignantfinalsentence that made upward mobility eemjust another form of up-rooting: "I am a vydvizhenka,n orphan." II(

It would be misleading, however, to give the impression that all

letter-writers resented themselves as embodiments of a few recogniz-able social types. On the contrary, a distinct sub-group of writersstressed their individuality and the particularity of their experi-ences."' The repertoire of such writers might include philosophicalreflection, irony (as distinct from the sarcasm that was a stock-in-tradeof many expose letters), introspection, emotional display and analysisof psychology and motivation.

Confession (ispoved') is the genre in which individualized autobiog-raphy and uninhibited emotional display are the norm. "I thirsted forboiling, vital activity,"wrote a young Leningrader describing the spir-

itual odyssey that ended in her resignation from the Komsomol.I wanted othrowmyselfntowork o as toforgetmyselfs an indi-vidual kakndividuum),o lose countoftime, o submergemyselfntheworries,oys and excitementf the collective. thoughthatcouldfind ll that nly n theKomsomol ollective. utfromhefirstI wasdisappointed.. 112

106. GARF, f.5446, op. 82, d. 42, 1.115;TfsGAPD, f.24, op. 2v,d. 727,11. 03-9;ibid., . 1518,1. 8.

107. GARF, f.5446, op. 82, d. 42, 1.103.

108. TfsGAPD, f.3, op. 11,d. 41, 11.172-73.109. SmolenskArchive,WKP 386, 322-3; TsPA IPD, f.24, op. 2g,d. 15, ll. 92-3;ibid., p. lb, d. 449, 1.72.

110. PANO f.3, op. 11,d. 41,11.172-73.111. It is not clear, however, hatthisreflects general ncrease in self-conscious-

ness about identity omparable with thatdiscovered in ElizabethanEngland by Ste-phen Greenblatt Renaissanceelf-Fashioning.romMore oShakespeareChicago: Univer-sity fChicago Press,1980]).

112. TsGA IPD, f.24, op. 2v. d. 772,11.23-24.




But not all letters about emotional distress belonged to the confes-sional genre. A communist schoolmaster wrote to Zhdanov in 1934

imploring him to find out the truth about the death of his daughter,an engineer on the Caucasus railway who had died in mysterious cir-cumstances afterhaving endured sexual harrassment from bosses andcolleagues. In her grief,the author's wife had become convinced thatthere had been some kind of cover-up; she would wake him in themiddle of the night to ask where their daughter was and whether shehad been shut away in a mental hospital. The wife suspected her hus-band of involvement in the cover-up, even though he had sent lettersand petitions in all directions. "Life has become hell," the letter con-cludes.' 13

Another man's life was hell for different reasons: 31 years old in1937, he was an orphan who had worked as a shepherd and agriculturallaborer and had lived on the street as a homeless besprizornyieforejoining the kolkhoz nd the Communist Partyin the early 1930s. Despitehis lack of education, he was promoted to head a rural soviet and then,in September 1937, to the much more formidable job of chairman ofa district soviet. Here, coping with the aftermath of his predecessor'sarrest as an enemy of the people, he was completely out of his depth,tormented by his "political and general illiteracy" and the mockery of

unnamed people who called him "durak." By his own description, hewas wracked by "nervous illness" and unable to eat ("In two and a halfmonths of such a life. . ., I have lost as much as ten kilograms fromthe weight of the organism"). He begged to be relieved of his posi-tion.1 4

An engineer, who was the daughter of an Armenian father killedin ethnic strifeduring the civil war and a mother who died as a refugeeshortly afterwards, described these circumstances and her privilegedupbringing in her brother's apartment in the Dom Pravitel'stva in Mos-cow before outlining her immediate problem: she was about to be fired

from her job for consorting with persons now exposed as trotskyites(the year was 1937), even though her association with themwas relatedto her work as an informer for the NKVD.1"5 A woman wrote to Mol-otov protesting the Moscow soviet's decision to evict her from theapartment she had occupied for twelve years on the grounds that onlyher former husband had claim to it. This was a true irony of fate, shewrote, because she had just managed to graduate with a degree inanimal husbandry, seven years afterher husband had lefther with the"cruel words" that she was a mere housewife who had "lagged behindpolitical life." 116

An older woman sent Zhdanov an eight-page letter about her trou-bles at work, dwelling with a touch of wry humor on the conflicts

113. Ibid.,11. 48-52.114. Ibid.,op. 2g,d. 48,11.197-203.115. Ibid.,11. -8.116. GARF, f.5446, op. 82, d. 64,1. 206.



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provoked by her prickly nd zealous character, nd with sadness onher personal isolation and over-dependence n thecompanionshipof

theworkplace."7A man whose wifehad been arrested s a spywroteto Molotov explaining thatthiswas somethingof which she was usttemperamentallyncapable:

She is nota complex erson, ot someonewhohides hings.. Withmy haracter,mighte able to conceal hefact hat omemisfortunehad happened o me. Shecould not.She"unloaded" verythingeryquickly,ndeedwordswereunnecessary-her eelings ere ootrans-parentnot to see them ven fyouwerenotparticularlyooking.cannot elieve hat he washiding omekindof dark ecret nder

mask of simplicity 18

The most remarkableand extended epistolary utobiography sixpages, in the copy typedby Kresttianskaiaazeta) was penned in 1938by a Voronezh' peasant in hisearlyfifties, .I. Poluektov.1 Poluektov'sletterhas an "abuse of power" theme,but it disdains the stylistic on-ventional of the genre,beginning nsteadwitha shrewd sociologicalanalysisof his kolkhoznd discussionof its eadership problems.Thenit gets down to theheartof the matter: Now I will say what kind ofperson I am (chtoa za chelovek)nd how I ended up in Losevo in the

Dzerzhinskiikolkhoz." oluektovwas the son of a peasantwith aspira-tionstobetterhimself,which he inherited.Beforethe revolutionbothfather nd son triedthepathsof self-bettermenthatwere then avail-able: consolidation offamilyand under theStolypinreform nd, forthe son, apprenticeshipto a merchant n the neighboringtown ofPavlovsk."I ... began to studycommercial matters, ubscribing o abusiness (tovarovedenie)ournal and also enrolling in bookkeepingcourses . . . Myfather lways discouragedme fromgoingintoagricul-ture..." The family's tatusas "Stolypin" peasants and the generallycapitalist rendoftheirprewaraspirationswere to cause themtrouble

in theSoviet period. "Even now theycall my father stolypinite ndsome kolkhozniki,hom have rakedoverthecoals for misbehavior nthenewspaperor at a general kolkhoz] eeting, ven threaten o teachme a lesson' ..." Called up in 1916,Poluektov became a junior NCOwho "tried to get promoted to the senior ranks" until the Februaryrevolution devalued that avenue of advancement.AfterFebruaryhewas elected to his local armycommittee, egan to read revolutionaryliterature nd made a militant ublic speech againstthewar thatnearlygothimarrestedbythekerenskyites. is unit "dissolved into bolshe-vism" ust before the October revolutionand he returnedto Losevo,wherehe was quickly lectedto variousoffices,wheremyfirstctwasto confiscate heproperty fmy former]master."Stillwithone footin the town and one in the village,he held low-level dministrative

117. Ibid.,op. 2v,d. 1534,11.176-83.118. GARF, f.5446, op. 82, d. 56,11.13-16.119. RGAE, f.396, op. 10,d. 19,11.200-6.




positions in Pavlovsk and participated n organizing the first osevokolkhoz uring the civil war. n 1922, to his lasting chagrin,he muffedhis chance of oining the Communist Party:"I wrote an applicationfor admission to thePartybut mycomrade withwhomI shared digs[inPavlovsk] mashedmydesire so badlythat toreup theapplication,but later it turned out thattheydekulakized that comrade and senthim to Karaganda." When he tried to oin the Party ater, he was re-jected after omeone objectedthathewasthe son of a Stolypinpeasant.Makingthe bestofthings, oluektov came back to thevillage for goodin his late forties,working s accountant n the kolkhoznd the villageco-op after ollectivization,while his sons acquired themore glamor-

ous status of tractor-drivers.t the time ofwriting, e combined thepersona ofmodel citizenand Kulturtraigeriththatof kolkhozadfly.A pillar of the kolkhoz rama circle, choir, ham radio group, literacyand civil defence societies,and the InternationalSocietyfor Aid toPolitical Prisoners,he indubitably njoyed tweaking he noses of kol-khoz eaders in his dual capacityas guardianof financialprobity as amember of thekolkhozuditing commission)and muckrakingel'kor.

Since letters re texts hat re read as well as written,t remains toconsider thequestionofresponse.'2"The degreeand kind ofresponse

that ould be expectedfrom he authorities s obviously rucial to one'sunderstanding f thephenomenonofpopular letter-writing.flettersare writtenwithout nyreasonableexpectationofresponse,this s one-waycommunication hatpresumablyhas little ignificancen thegen-eral pictureof state/societyelations. f, on the otherhand, citizensreasonably on the basis of experience) expect a responseto their et-ters, he communication s two-waynd thepublic significance f theprocess is much enhanced.

We have only incompleteand non-systematicnformation n theresponses of the authoritiesto citizens' letters.A stream of official

instructionshroughout he 1930s ordered all institutions o respondto citizens' letters n a timelyand conscientious manner. Unfortu-nately, hese same instructions ote thatmanyauthorities ailed to dothis.By a roughestimatebased on mywork n various archives,per-haps 15-30 percentof the lettersthat have been preservedreceived

120. The discussion that follows is not framed in terms of response theory andit should be clear from my analysis so far that I do not share the view that a text hasno meaning apart than that which the reader imparts to it (see Stanley Fish, Is There

a Text n thisClass? TheAuthorityf nterpetiveommunitiesCambridge,Mass.: HarvardUniversity Press, 1980]). I would like at this point to acknowledge the inspiration ofGary Saul Morson's "Training Theorists" (AAASS NewsNet, May 1995, 7-8), whichprompted me to think more deeply on the uses and abuses of theory and to devisethe technique of "counter-footnoting" used above (on response theory) and in notes2, 3, 8, 9, 11, 56, 85, 92 and 111. A counter-footnote is required when the text containsa concept or keyword that may, contrary to the author's intention, arouse a condi-tioned "theory" reflex in the reader. The note tells the reader which canonical workhas been involuntarily invoked and warns him/herto disregard it.



102 SlavicReview

some kind of response, hat s, provoked omekindof bureaucraticactionor order oact.Thefigure ises o70 percentnsomearchives

if we expand the meaning f "response" o include a bureaucrat'sinstructiono a secretaryotype uta handwrittenetter.Whatpro-portion f all letters urvivesn thearchivess,ofcourse, nknown.

Forall thedeficienciesf the data,however,t s clear that etter-writing as indeed a form f two-wayommunication. riters ouldreasonably ope for response o their ettersnd had the right ocomplain fthey eceivednone. Officials eresupposed to respondand could be reprimandedorfailingodo so.Ofcourse, hereweremany orms f possibleresponse.Responses ould be perfunctoryrinvolve erious nvestigationsf citizens' omplaints. heycould sup-

portpetitions r deny hem. hey ouldpunish hetarget fa denun-ciation etter r,on occasion, unish hedenouncer.One can geta sense of therangeofresponses y surveyinghe

disposition f some of thecasesmentioned arlier n this rticle.shall startwithpositive utcomes. he grieving idower rapped nthe onelyforestwasgiven job in Leningrad; he tormented omso-molka assentto a sanatoriumor rest; he etter rom he school-master atherwasforwarded o theCaucasusforelucidation f thecircumstancesfhisdaughter'seath.Thekolkhoznitsa'slea to"Saveour kolkhoz" asforwardedyKrest'ianskaiaazeta oregional uthor-ities,whose nvestigationed to thefiring f the kolkhozccountant;and Poluektov'setterwasforwardedoo,thoughn this ase there snosign hat ninvestigationesulted. wo ofthe hree oungmembersoftheWriters' nionwhoaskedMolotov orhousing eceivedt;andZhdanovwassufficientlympressed ythe ycophantic athematiciantocall "urgently"or "serious" eport n his Bases f NewAlgebra.TheChurkovrphans roused sympatheticesponsenRumiantsev'soffice"Fix things orthe kids ustroi etishek],"isassistantwrote othe ocalsoviet hairman),lthough,s itturned ut, ven hiswasnot

enoughto getthem heir zbaback once local bosses had gottheirhandson it.Vyshinskiiesponded onscientiouslyo theappealshereceived rom risoners' elatives,venthough isresponses idnotusuallyhelpthevictims.n theErman ase,he calledfor review ythechiefmilitaryrosecutornd thenwrote o Erman'swifewith henews hat heeight-yearentence ad beenupheld.He tried ofollowthe ameprocedurenthebeekeeper's ase,butwhen hereport amein, tshowed hat hemanhadbeensummarilyxecutednSaratovn1937.Perhapsunderstandably,yshinskiieft heappeal ofthebee-keeper'swife nanswered.

Shafran's equest o paintZhdanov'sportraitwas dismissedwiththe curtnotation File (Archiv),"nd there s no signofanyreply otheoutpouringsfthedistraughtydvizhenkand thewrongedwives,thecry fdistressromhevydvizhenetsromoted eyondhisabilities,or the etters fopinionfrom heangry ngineer nd theLitvinovcritic.n general, pinion ettersarelyeceived eplies. utthat s notto say theywere gnored.Newspapers egularlyompiled ummaries




(svodki) f correspondencereceived on various topics for the infor-mation ofgovernmentnd party eaders. The letter bout overflowing

jails, for xample,wasincluded na 1936 summary entbyKrest'ianskaiagazetato theconstitutional ommission.Letters ould maketroublefortheir uthors.The student's nquiry

about thepossibility fbuildingcommunismprovokedan immediatepolice investigation f trotskyitenfluence n his school (though thewriter imselfwasthought aive rather handangerous).The feldsher'sdenunciation was investigatednd found to be groundless;moreover,thereportnotedominously, hewriter imself ad "a lot ofdisgracefulthings bezobraziia)nd abuses" to answer for.With "abuse of power"letters, here was always the possibility hat the denunciationwould

backfire nd damage the author. Sometimes it was the denouncersratherthan their ntended victimswho ended up in prisonor underinvestigation by the NKVD.'2'

From thisrange of responses, t is evidentnot only thatpopularletter-writingn the Stalin period was a two-way ransactionbut alsothat t could be a bitofa gamble forthe nitiator. utonlysomekindsof letterscarried a real risk, ust as only some kinds of letterswerelikelyto bring their writers angible benefits.To understandthe dis-tribution foutcomes, t is useful to think f letter-writersn terms ftwomajorcategories, supplicants"and "citizens."These twotypesofletter-writereem to inhabit different orlds,thoughtheir etters ieside byside inthearchives nd the writers hemselvesmighthave beenneighbors.The supplicantwas implicitly subjectrather han a citizen.He senthis privatecomplaints,requests,petitions nd confessionstoan authority igure maginedas a benevolentfatheror father-confes-sor) or a patron. Women letter-writersere often upplicants, s werepeasants.Supplicants' ettersmight skforustice as well as mercy, uttheydid not invokerights. heyportrayed heir uthors s victims nddwelton theirmiseries and misfortunes.upplicants' letters, houghsent to public figures nd requestingthem to act in theirofficial a-pacity,dealt withprivate nd personalconcerns.Anotherkind ofsup-plicant etterwas partofa transaction etween client and patron,theclientnormallybelongingto the cultural and scientific lite,and thepatronto the communist olitical eadership.Elite supplicantstendedto be conspicuouslydeferential nd generouswith lattery.atrons ikeMolotovresponded to theirclients'requests n a routine,businesslikemannerthat mplied acceptance of thepremiseof patronagesystemseverywhere:hat hepatron'sability o look afterhisclients s an indexas well as a prerogativeof power. For supplicants, etter-writingas

not a risk-takingnterprise, ince the worst f the ikely utcomes wasthat their etter would be ignored.Writing supplicant'sletterwassomething ike buyinga ticket n the state lottery anotherpopular

121. For examples, see RGAE, f.396, op. 10, d. 64, 1. 165; ibid.,d. 68, 11. 7-78;ibid., . 143,1. 211.



104 Slavic Review

pastime in Stalin's Russia): it cost little,carried no obligationsandoffered he chance, howeverremote,of a big win.

Supplicant etter-writing,houghwidespread,was almostnever dis-cussed in Sovietmedia or official nstructions. rareexceptionwas a1936 article by the veteran party ournalist,Lev Sosnovskii, urgingnewspapers and otherrecipientsof such letters obe moreresponsiveto theproblemsof the ittleman,whileexpressing hehope that ittlemen would learn to approach the agencies of Soviet power "not liketimid supplicantsbut like masters." 22 Obviously many supplicants'letterswere ignoredbut there were also manythatwere not.Myownimpressionfrom hearchives s thatobkomecretaries,23 in particular,wereoften uite responsiveto appeals from rdinarypeople-indeed,

thatharking o thepleas ofwidows and orphanswas one of the moresatisfying spects of a senior communist administrator's ob, providingreassurancethat Soviet power reallywas on the side of thepoor andhumble,and leaving a glowof conscious virtue.

The citizen was a more "modern"figure han the supplicant. Cit-izens wrote letters to the editor or the Politburo to stateopinions,criticizepolicies, suggest mprovements, low the whistleon corruptofficials, oint out miscarriages f ustice and denounce wrongdoersas their duty s a citizen."They acted,or claimed to act, n thepublicinterest;ftheyhad privatemotivesforwriting, heyconcealed them.

Theyused the anguage ofrights nd amongtherights hey mplicitlyclaimedwas theright obe heard. Citizens often ddressedparty ead-ers as "comrade" and werewillingto remind themof thepromisesofthe revolution. This was particularly rue of urban workers n the"citizen" category.) he majority f citizen etter-writersere male andurban,but the rural citizen, n the person of thesel'kor, as a recog-nizable figure.Though lettersof citizens were filedas "secret" in thearchives, theywere essentiallypublic communications n form andcontent-and also in aspiration, udging bythe stubbornly eiterated

hope of publication.Yet citizens, nlikesupplicants,were taking riskwhen theywrote their etters.They were more gamblersthanbuyersof lottery ickets.Manycitizens' ettershad no possibility f a pay-offthat would directly enefit heirauthors.Othersmightbring ndirectbenefitse.g. by getting id of a corruptboss or abusive kolkhoz hair-man),but could also damage the writersf thetargets fdenunciatoryletters ound out who had written hem. Opinion" lettersmightmakean impactvia being included in a "public opinion" summary entupto thePolitburo;buttheymight lso bringtrouble to the author ftheopinions expressedoffended omeone in authority. he NKVD made

a practiceof trying o discover identitiesof the authorsof anonimki

122. L. Sosnovskii, Letter from he EditorialBoard," Izvestiia, May 1936, 4.123. The cases I know best are those ofEikhe in Novosibirsk fromPANO files),

Kirovand Zhdanov in Leningrad (TsGA IPD) and Rumiantsev n the western blast'(Smolenskarchive).

Supplicants and Citizens Fitzpatrik

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