The House of Government

THE HOUSE OF GOVERNMENT

The House of Government.

(Courtesy of the House on the Embankment Museum, Moscow.)

THE HOUSE OF GOVERNMENT

A SAGA OF THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION

YURI SLEZKINE

PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS

PRINCETON AND OXFORD

Copyright © 2017 by Yuri Slezkine

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Jacket illustration by Francesco Bongiorni / Marlena Agency

Jacket design by Chris Ferrante

Unless otherwise noted in the caption, all images are courtesy of the House on the Embankment Museum.

All Rights Reserved

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Slezkine, Yuri, 1956- author.

Title: The House of Government : a saga of the Russian Revolution / Yuri Slezkine.

Description: Princeton : Princeton University Press, 2017.

Identifiers: LCCN 2016049071 | ISBN 9780691176949 (hardcover : acid-free paper)

Subjects: LCSH: Moscow (Russia)—Politics and government—20th century. | Communists—Russia (Federation)—Moscow—Biography. | Apartment dwellers—Russia (Federation)—Moscow—Biography. | Victims of state-sponsored terrorism—Russia (Federation)—Moscow—Biography. | Moscow (Russia)—Biography. | Apartment houses—Russia (Federation)—Moscow—History—20th century. | Moscow (Russia)—Buildings, structures, etc. | Political purges—Soviet Union—History. | State-sponsored terrorism—Soviet Union—History. | Soviet Union—Politics and government—1936–1953. | BISAC: HISTORY / Europe / Russia & the Former Soviet Union. | HISTORY / Revolutionary. | HISTORY / Social History. | POLITICAL SCIENCE / Political Ideologies / Communism & Socialism.

Classification: LCC DK601 .S57 2017 | DDC 947.084/10922—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016049071

British Library Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available

This book has been composed in Kazimir Text and Kremlin II Pro

Printed on acid-free paper. ∞

Printed in the United States of America

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

This is a work of history. Any resemblance to fictional characters, dead or alive, is entirely coincidental.

Sometimes it seemed to Valène that time had come to a stop, suspended and frozen around an expectation he could not define. The very idea of his projected tableau, whose exposed, fragmented images had begun to haunt every second of his life, furnishing his dreams and ordering his memories; the very idea of this eviscerated building laying bare the cracks of its past and the crumbling of its present; this haphazard piling up of stories grandiose and trivial, frivolous and pathetic, made him think of a grotesque mausoleum erected in memory of companions petrified in terminal poses equally insignificant in their solemnity and banality, as if he had wanted to both prevent and delay these slow or quick deaths that seemed to engulf the entire building, story by story: Monsieur Marcia, Madame Moreau, Madame de Beaumont, Bartlebooth, Rorschash, Mademoiselle Crespi, Madame Albin, Smautf. And him, of course, Valène himself, the house’s oldest inhabitant.

GEORGES PEREC, LIFE: A USER’S MANUAL

Mephisto:

There lies the body; if the soul would fly away,

I shall confront it with the blood-signed scroll.

Alas, they have so many means today

To rob the Devil of a soul.

JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE, FAUST,

TRANS. WALTER KAUFMANN

CONTENTS

Preface

XI

Acknowledgments

XVII

BOOK ONE | EN ROUTE

PART I | ANTICIPATION

3

1.  The Swamp

5

2.  The Preachers

23

3.  The Faith

73

PART II | FULFILLMENT

119

4.  The Real Day

121

5.  The Last Battle

158

6.  The New City

180

7.  The Great Disappointment

220

8.  The Party Line

272

BOOK TWO | AT HOME

PART III | THE SECOND COMING

315

9.  The Eternal House

317

10.  The New Tenants

377

11.  The Economic Foundations

408

12.  The Virgin Lands

421

13.  The Ideological Substance

454

PART IV | THE REIGN OF THE SAINTS

479

14.  The New Life

481

15.  The Days Off

508

16.  The Houses of Rest

535

17.  The Next of Kin

552

18.  The Center of the World

582

19.  The Pettiness of Existence

610

20.  The Thought of Death

623

21.  The Happy Childhood

645

22.  The New Men

665

BOOK THREE | ON TRIAL

PART V | THE LAST JUDGMENT

697

23.  The Telephone Call

699

24.  The Admission of Guilt

715

25.  The Valley of the Dead

753

26.  The Knock on the Door

773

27.  The Good People

813

28.  The Supreme Penalty

840

PART VI | THE AFTERLIFE

871

29.  The End of Childhood

873

30.  The Persistence of Happiness

887

31.  The Coming of War

912

32.  The Return

924

33.  The End

946

Epilogue: The House on the Embankment

961

Appendix: Partial List of Leaseholders

983

Notes

995

Index

1083

PREFACE

During the First Five-Year Plan (1928–32), the Soviet government built a new socialist state and a fully nationalized economy. At the same time, it built a house for itself. The House of Government was located in a low-lying area called “the Swamp,” across the Moskva River from the Kremlin. The largest residential building in Europe, it consisted of eleven units of varying heights organized around three interconnected courtyards, each one with its own fountain.