Inhuman humanism

Ivan Davydov - about Olga Elina’s book “Pictures from the exhibition: science and technology in the early USSR”

The All-Russian agricultural and artisanal and industrial exhibition of 1923 was conceived as a breakthrough through post-war destruction into the world of science and technology. Having familiarized himself with the study on this exhibition, Ivan Davydov discusses the paradoxes of the Early Sovetest Project.

Starting from February 24, 2022, we were all in the face of the advancing barbarism, violence and lies. In this situation, it is extremely important to preserve at least the remnants of culture and support the values ​​of humanism - including for the sake of the future of Russia. Therefore, the editorial office of Gorky will continue to talk about books, reminding our readers that the world remains in the world and fiction.

Olga Elina. Pictures from the exhibition: science and technology in the early USSR (based on the materials of the All -Russian exhibition of 1923). M.: Ruthenia, 2024. Content . Fragment

Citizens and civilians go to look at miracles. They go past the intricate pavilions, among which is the famous “Mahork”, the legendary creation of the great Melnikov. Well, or rather, it is legendary for us, for them it is not yet. But they saw him, and we can only admire the photographs. Past the scenes where the performances are shown, not to say exciting, but ideologically sustained. Past of exemplary beds with giant plants (almost like on the moon at Nosov, but only here everything is present). Past of lecture halls, past restaurants, past the layouts of villages. Or not quite layouts - living peasants are settled in village houses for admonishing the public. Komsomol members sing ditties, dedicated mainly to how the world bourgeoisie will now shudder. Now for sure. Brush with ditties - not real, of course, not folk, but specially composed by the solemn occasion - are sold right there, in kiosks.

To be Kerzone fun
There is no reason:
Our factory to the village
I went out to the brows.

Khaltur, of course, is just a way to earn for an experienced version, but how can you stay here when it smells of a barbecue from restaurants? And he wanders along the veranda, sniffing, a young reporter. Someone Bulgakov M.A., on the editorial assignment composing a report on the All -Russian Agricultural Exhibition.

Olga Elina is the author of the monograph “Pictures from the exhibition” - a specialist in the history of agriculture, honest and scrupulous, defiantly avoids sweeping near -philosophical conclusions. Almost every word - long work in the archives, extremely achievable accuracy and balanced. But this is why the book turns out to be alive, and the reader as if in reality, along with Moscow onlookers from 1923, could look at a huge exhibition town: from the place where the new three -tape is now, and to the most non -casual garden. And think at the same time about the paradoxical essence of the early Soviet project.

This scope is a positivist, scented, but not completely devoid of humanitarian pathos: you just need to pull out a peasant out of centuries -old darkness, arm the advanced achievements of science - and abundance will immediately come. Sincere faith in the power of propaganda: it is worth showing (attracting advanced artistic forces to work-fluorist poets, avant-garde artists, constructivist architects), what is good and what is bad, and it will immediately become good.

The country in the ruin, the war was just over recently, the terrible hunger did not have time to forget, the international situation, it seems, cannot be called calm - the dull modern pragmatist, which is alien to this scope, it seems that the republic definitely has more important things to do. But no: impressive forces and means are allocated to organize a giant agricultural exhibition in the center of Moscow, which did not manage to get used to the capital's status. In order to show the world that Bolshevik Russia is not just alive, but already rushed to prosperity, but to teach the Russian peasant what, in fact, to do so that prosperity becomes a reality.

Commissions are organized, committees are being established where professional revolutionaries are sitting next to the elderly professors who, even before any revolution, created exemplary farms, experienced grains and introduced the villagers to the basics of agronomy. After fifteen years, some will be planted, and some will simply kill, but no one, of course, thinks about it while everyone plunges into work, acquire a salary, couriers, and official cars. Bureaucracy flourishes, piles of papers (to the joy of future historians) grow, circulars fly in the province with a demand to mobilize participants and spectators ... intrigues are weaving: it is not clear to the last, for example, whether Comrade Trotsky will perform at the exhibition. And Comrade Shchusev throws some work to Mr. Shekhtel: even a decline modernist can come in handy in this matter. Thousands of people go to work, pavilions grow, are sown by exclusive varieties of cereals and vegetables of space in the center of Moscow ... Poets compose poetry about the exhibition, newspapers print the speeches of the leaders and reports of journalists that at the exhibition you can see and what to eat. The discovery turns into a grandiose show, and then visitors flow along the river along the river-pioneers, Komsomol members, proletarians, Soviet servants, city loafers and advanced peasants, who got to know the main Soviet secret and finally heal in a happy abundance.

At the exhibition-somewhere above this has already been said-there are two mini-runs. One reproduces (possibly slightly exaggerating) traditional peasant life, with Luchina and Soh. Another - shows a new life, with a light bulb and a tractor. Spectators should make sure that the light bulb is better. By the way, this is true: with a light bulb is better. The peasants are promised prizes and prizes. But they themselves are scandalized from time to time, because they are not always good and not even regular.

It is quite in the spirit of the era: almost the human zoo.

In general, this is a rare case: a historical work, the author of which does not let in any fashion tricks, pushes the reader in a living element, literally - into a crowd of visitors to the exhibition organized a hundred years ago. But the reader, unlike other visitors, already knows what will happen next. What will happen to the peasantry in the state of workers and peasants, what will happen to an abundance ... and so on.

The exhibition, which is not particularly characteristic of Soviet propaganda events, is concentrated on positive. There are no enemies, only the road from an almost bright present to the dazzling future. Peasants are taught to sow rye, and not exterminate the kulaks as a class. But for some reason, this is precisely what makes it clear what was not even in the early Soviet project. There was no man. The place of man was taken by an average worker with standard characteristics. You can do anything with him, he is not a pity. Well, they did. And they did. This is just material. Consumable material.

Veliky Rodchenko has a photo "Street". Sleeping from above. Bridge, human shadows on the pavement. And instead of people - dashes under the shadows. People as stands for their own shadows. The real horror turned out, although the author did not think about anything like that, of course. And this is the essence of Soviet enthusiasm. In the future, perhaps paradise on Earth, but instead of people in this paradise-some kind of physical education.

Elina’s book is honest as a photograph, and the story of one scientific and propaganda event, this helps to consider. And it also has a huge number of excellent illustrations.

The exhibition is arranged in order
To
You can take it,
On! Look! Libe!
But our exhibition is -
Not a lady with an induced face.
Our exhibition is equipment.
Our exhibition -
Going to battle!

This is Alexei Gastev, a poet, a revolutionary, a theoretician of the Proletcult, the exhibition met with enthusiasm and wrote poetic editorials for newspapers about it. In 1939, he was shot in Kommunarka.