1. My use of the term is based primarily on the formulations of the Russian linguist Grigorii Vinokur, whose Kul'tura iazyka (Moscow, 1929) is most commonly cited as having laid the groundwork for modern Russian scholarship in social and cultural history and the theory of language usage.

2. Lenin, V I., Polnoe sobranie sochinenii, 5th ed., 55 vols. (Moscow, 1970), 40: 49.Google Scholar

3. Lenin, Polnoe sobranie sochinenii, 51: 121–22 (18 January 1920); emphasis in the original. Although a prolific fiction writer, Vladimir Dal’ (1801–1872) is best known today for his four-volume Tolkovyi slovar’ zhivogo velikorusskogo iazyka (1863–66).

4. See Brown, Edward J., Russian Literature since the Revolution, rev. and enl. ed. (Cambridge, Mass., 1982), 31, 34, 106–8Google Scholar. I use the term culturist here in the manner set forth by Jeffrey Brooks, who defines it as “the perception on the part of many educated Russians that they had a moral obligation to influence and contribute to the cultural development of the newly literate and to the widely shared belief that Russian literature could serve as a bridge between the classes.” See Brooks, , When Russia Learned to Read: Literacy and Popular Literature, 1861–1917 (Princeton, 1985), 317.Google Scholar

5. According to Vinokur, language purism is a kind of mood or disposition (nastroenie) most often grounded in dogma or a (frequently false) sense of tradition and directed against any sort of novelty in language form. As the most prominent example in Russian cultural history, he cites the debate between the Shishkovites and Karamzinists at the turn of the nineteenth century. Vinokur, “O purizme,” Kul'tura iazyka, 85–114. That the underlying social implications of this particular struggle between language purism and innovation was linked to the issue of national identity is well demonstrated by Iu. Lotman and B. Uspenskii in their study, “Spory o iazyke v nachale XIX v. kak fakt russkoi kul'tury (Troisshestvie v tsarstve tenei, ili sud'bina rossiiskogo iazyka'—neizvestnoe sochinenie Semena Bobrova),” in Trudy po russkoi i slavianskoi filologii, XXIV: Literaturovedenie, Uchenye zapiski Tartuskogo gosudarstvennogo universiteta, no. 358 (Tartu, 1975), 168–254. Cf. also Tynianov, Iurii, “Arkhaisty i Pushkin,” Arkhaisty i novatory (1929; reprint, Ann Arbor, 1985), 89–93.Google Scholar

6. For more on language's role in what has come to be known as “identity politics,” particularly during periods of social transformation, see Jernudd, Björn H. and Shapiro, Michael J., eds., The Politics of Language Purism, Contribution to the Sociology of Language, vol. 54 (Berlin, 1989), esp. 1–28CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Given the conventional nature of the terms highlighted throughout this paragraph, the reader should presume that, when they are used henceforth in this discussion, the quotation marks are implied.

7. See Bourdieu, Pierre, “The Production and Reproduction of Legitimate Language,” in Thompson, John B., ed., Language and Symbolic Power, trans. Raymond, Gino and Adamson, Matthew (Cambridge, Mass., 1991), 43–.Google Scholar

8. Although most of the language changes had prerevolutionary sources, the sheer number and productivity of the postrevolutionary influx served to identify them with the new Soviet order. The most comprehensive of the many contemporary accounts of the language changes of the revolutionary period is Selishchev's, A. M. Iazyk revoliutsionnoi epokhi: h nabliudenii nad russkim iazykom poslednikh let (1917–1926) (1928; reprint, Letchworth-Herts, Eng., 1971)Google Scholar. For a more comprehensive list of sources appearing between 1919 and 1934, see my article, “Tongue–Tied Writers: The Rabsel'kor Movement and the Voice of the ‘New Intelligentsia’ in Early Soviet Russia,” Russian Review 55, no. 3 (July 1996): 413n3.

9. For a discussion of the phenomenon of “leveling” in revolutionary Russia—in language as well as other aspects of daily life—see Richard Stites's Revolutionary Dreams: Utopian Vision and Experimental Life in the Russian Revolution (New York, 1989), 124–35. Ironically, Lenin himself was renowned for introducing colloquialisms and vulgarisms into his political speeches; see B. Eikhenbaum, “Osnovnye stilevye tendentsii v rechi Lenina,” LEF, 1924, no. l(5): 57–70; Lev Iakubinskii, “O snizhenii vysokogo stilia u Lenina,” LEF, 1924, no. l(5): 71–80.

10. Maiakovskii, V. V., “Revoliutsiia. Poetokhronika” (1916), Polnoe sobranie sochinenii v trinadtsati tomakh (Moscow, 1955), 1: 137 Google Scholar ( “Everywhere tongues. / They will rise up and fall. / They rise up anew, scattering sparks. / These are the streets, / that with red flag each, / call to Russia with the appeal of their glow. “). Boris Pil'niak, Golyi god (1921), Sochineniia v trekh tomakh (Moscow, 1994), 1: 17–18; these seemingly nonsense sounds are actually formed from new Soviet acronyms and stump–compounds, for example, GVIU (Glavnoe voenno–inzhenernoe upravlenie), GUVUZ (Glavnoe upravlenie voenno–uchebnymi zavedeniiami), Glavbum (Glavbumaga). Velimir Khlebnikov, Zangezi (1922), Tvoreniia (Moscow, 1987), 484 ( “Back, Bog! Move, Mog! / March, Manmuscle! / I am Maker, and might! / I am Mover, and may! I am Matter, and might!” English translation from Collected Works of Velimir Khlebnikov, ed. Vroon, Ronald and trans. Schmidt, Paul, vol. 2, Prose, Plays, and Supersagas [Cambridge, Mass., 1989], 348)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

11. Opponents of the notion of a “proletarian literature,” such as Lev Trotskii and Aleksandr Voronskii, regularly cited the dearth of truly “proletarian” literary accomplishments in the ongoing literary debates of the 1920s. Even the works of those writers who were touted by the “proletarian” writers, such as Dmitrii Furmanov, Iurii Libedinskii, and Aleksandr Serafimovich, made little use of linguistic markers of working-class speech. See L. D. Trotskii, (Speech to a meeting of the Central Committee Press Division on Communist Party policy toward literature), in “K voprosu o politike RKP(b) v khudozhestvennoi literature” (9–10 May 1924), Vtiskakh ideologii: Antologiia literaturno-politicheskikh dokumentov, 1917–1927, ed. Karl Eimermacher (Moscow, 1992), 247. For a more detailed period discussion of the predominance of the peasant voice in Soviet literature, see A. Divil'kovskii, “Na trudnom pod“eme (O krest'ianskikh pisateliakh),” Novyi mir, 1926, no. 7: 132–58 (part 1), and Novyi mir, 1926, no. 8–9: 207–23 (part 2).

12. For example, Isaak Babel', Konarmiia (1928) (a collection of stories published separately throughout the 1920s); Fedorchenko, S., Narod na voine (Moscow, 1925)Google Scholar; Ivanoy, V[sevolod], Bronepoezd No. 14–69, Krasnaia nov', 1922, no. 1: 75–124 Google Scholar; Seifullina, L, “Peregnoi,” Sibirskieogni, 1922, no. 5: 3–49 Google Scholar, “Virineia,” Krasnaia nov', 1924, no. 4: 26–96, and “Muzhitskii skaz o Lenine,” Krasnaia nov', 1924, no. 1: 162–69; Veselyi, Artem, Strana rodnaia (Moscow, 1926)Google Scholar; Zoshchenko, Mikhail, Rasskazy Nazara Il'icha gospodina Sinebriukhova (Petersburg, 1922)Google Scholar.

13. In more neutral usage, the Russian term muzhik is the rough equivalent to the American English “good–ol'–boy.” When used more pejoratively, as in the instances quoted here, it is more akin to “redneck.” Combined with the likewise pejorative suffix –shchina, it renders the general meaning of “playing–the–redneck.” Commenting on the fellow travelers in Literature and Revolution, Trotskii wrote, “They do not grasp the Revolution as a whole and the Communist ideal is foreign to them. They are all more or less inclined to look hopefully at the peasant over the head of the worker.” Leon Trotsky, Literature and Revolution (New York, 1957), 57. See also L. D. Trotskii, “K voprosu o politike RKP(b) v khudozhestvennoi literature,” 254; A. K. Voronskii, (speech at same 1924 meeting), in “K voprosu o politike RKP(b) v khudozhestvennoi literature,” 225. Writing in 1929, the critic I. Mashbits-Verov echoes these sentiments, describing the phenomenon specifically in terms of a struggle for verbal authority: “The peasant style created during our time clearly aims to turn its discourse [recti] into the general discourse of imaginative literature.” “O tvorchestve F. Panferova i krest'ianskom stile v literature,” Na literaturnom postu, 1929, no. 15: 23.

14. Isaak Babel', “Moi pervyi gus',” in Konarmiia (1928) (London, n.d.), 44. English translation from Morison, Walter, ed. and trans., Isaac Babel: The Collected Stories (New York, 1955), 76.Google Scholar

15. As in many other spheres, Lenin was used as an ideal model for various interests in the domain of language. Some of the more prominent contemporary studies of Lenin's language include the collection of essays (under the common tide “Iazyk Lenina “) by Viktor Shklovskii, Boris Eikhenbaum, Lev Iakubinskii, Iurii Tynianov, B. Kazanskii, and Boris Tomashevskii in LEF, 1924, no. 1(5): 53–148; Kruchenykh, A., Iazyk Lenina: Odinnadtsat’ priemov Leninskoirechi (Moscow, 1925)Google Scholar; AleksandrFinker, , Oiazykei stile V.I. Lenina (Moscow, 1925)Google Scholar; Shafir, la, “Iazyk Lenina,” Voprosy gazetnoi kul'tury (Moscow, 1927), 156–68Google Scholar. Cf. also Shcheglov, Yuri K., “Some Themes and Archetypes in Babel “s Red Cavalry,” Slavic Review 53, no. 3 (Fall 1994): 658.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

16. Shafir, Iakov, Gazeta i derevnia (Moscow, 1924), 34, 43, 47 Google Scholar. The main results of Shafir's study were published in 1923; this and all further citations are from the 1924 reprint, which has some additional chapters—none of which are referred to here. For a more impressionistic, but nonetheless fascinating portrait of peasant reception of language and other aspects of the new Soviet order, see Fedorchenko's Narod na voine.

17. Shafir, Gazeta i derevnia, 50, 55.

18. Following Michel de Certeau, they can often be seen as re–readings, or “tactics,” rather than misreadings, executed in the fashion of guerrilla warfare on the part of a population engaged in a lopsided struggle against the dominant ideology of the state. Certeau, Michel de, The Practice of Everyday Life (Berkeley, 1984).Google Scholar

19. The last three examples come from Barannikov, A, “Iz nabliudenii nad razvitiem russkogo iazyka v poslednie gody,” Uchenye zapiski Samarskogo Universiteta, 2d ed. (Samara, 1919), 19 Google Scholar. That the pairs are paronomastic is clear; equally clear, however, are the accompanying lexical changes—especially where “efficacious army” becomes “maiden–like army” and “militia officer” becomes “hypocrite. “

20. Cassirer, Ernst, Myth of the State (New Haven, 1946), 45 Google Scholar. An in–depth 1928 study of the language of Red Army soldiers—a segment of the population more directly under the ideological and pedagogical influence of the central state—confirmed both Shafir's findings and Cassirer's observation when it concluded that “New words [could] be perceived not only truthfully [verno], but with a perversion [iskazhenie] of meaning as well.” Shpil'rein, I. N., Iazyk krasnoarmeitsa (Moscow, 1928), 118 Google Scholar. That Shafir's study elicited concern from cultural and political leaders is evident from keynote speeches (by Nikolai Bukharin and Lev Sosnovskii) and the ensuing debate during the first conference of “worker correspondents” (rabkory) in November 1923, at which language, style, and the importance of mass communication served as a focal point. Pravda, 17–28 November 1923.

21. For a compelling discussion of the function of a variety of forms of languagebased resistance as “undeclared ideological guerrilla war “—including euphemism, metaphors, punning, and grumbling—see Scott, James C., Domination and the Arts of Resistance: Hidden Transcripts (New Haven, 1990)Google Scholar, esp. 136–82. In his original discussion of the topic, Scott directly addresses the thorny issue of intent and offers a battery of reasons why “token, incidental, or even epiphenomenal activities” should still be treated seriously under the general rubric of resistance. Scott, , Weapons of the Weak: Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance (New Haven, 1985), 289–303Google Scholar. For an application (and slight modification) of this concept in the case of the Russian peasantry under collectivization, see Fitzpatrick, Sheila, Stalin's Peasants: Resistance and Survival in the Russian Village after Collectivization (New York, 1994)Google Scholar and, in the context of Stalinism in general, Fitzpatrick, , Everyday Stalinism: Ordinary Life in Extraordinary Times: Soviet Russia in the 1930s (Oxford, 1999), 182–87.Google Scholar

22. “Khaltura,” Poslednie novosti, 3 February 1922 (Paris).

23. Ustami Buninykh: Dnevniki Ivana Alekseevicha i Very Nikolaevny i drugie arkhivnye materialy, ed. Militsa Grin, 3 vols. (Frankfurt am Main, 1977), 1: 245; Bunin, I. A., Sobranie sochinenii v shesti tomakh (Moscow, 1988), 6: 423, 6: 410, 6: 400–401Google Scholar; Ustami Buninykh, 2: 63.

24. Sobranie sochinenii, 6: 630, 6: 642–43, 6: 422, 6: 418–19.

25. “Pamiati sil'nogo cheloveka” (1894), Sobranie sochinenii, 6: 590; emphasis in the original. Despite his ideological antipathy toward the Soviet state, Bunin himself was viewed by prominent Soviet cultural leaders—Gor'kii, in particular—as a positive model of this sort of literary mastery.

26. A. V. Volkonskii, “O zaimstvovannykh inoiazychnykh slovakh,” in A. V. and Volkonskii, S. V, V zashchitu russkogo iazyka: Sbornik statei (Berlin, 1928), 59 Google Scholar; emphasis in the original.

27. Ibid., 34, 42, 59.

28. S. V Volkonskii, “O russkom iazyke,” Vzashchitu russkogo iazyka, 11.

29. Ibid., 11–12.

30. Ibid., 21–22, 32; A. V. Volkonskii, “O zaimstvovannykh inoiazychnykh slovakh, “36, 47, 49, 63; A. V Volkonskii, “O nekotorykh grammaticheskikh oshibkakh,” Vzashchitu russkogo iazyka, 73.

31. A. V. Volkonskii, “O zaimstvovannykh inoiazychnykh slovakh,” 60.

32. Kratkaia literaturnaia entsiklopediia (Moscow, 1964), 2: 285.

33. In this respect, Gor'kii shared the attitude of Trotskii, Voronskii, and others, who openly recognized that behind most urban laborers stood a person of peasant stock. See Gor'kii, “O pisateliakh–samouchkakh” (1911), Sobranie sochinenii v tridtsati tomakh(Moscow, 1953), 24: 99–137; Gor'kii, “Predislovie k ‘Sborniku proletarskikh pisatelei'” (1914), Sobranie sochinenii, 24: 168–72. For a like statement from his later writings, see Gor'kii, “Kniga rabkora Gudka–Eremeeva” (1931), Sobranie sochinenii, 25: 400, in which Gor'kii describes the language of the rabkor as “raw material” for future great works of prose.

34. Gor'kii, “Rabkoram ‘Pravdy'” (1926), Sobranie sochinenii, 24: 262–63; Gor'kii, “[Eshche rabsel'koram]” (1928), Sobranie sochinenii, 24: 313–18; Gor'kii, “O pol'ze gramotnosti” (1928), Stat'io literaturei literaturnoi tekhnike(Leningrad, 1931), 3–9; Gor'kii, “O nachinaiushchikh pisateliakh” (1928), Stat'i o literature, 17–26.

35. Gor'kii, “Pis'ma nachinaiushchim literatoram” (1930), Stat'i o literature, 87–112; Gor'kii, “O nachinaiushchikh pisateliakh,” 19.

36. Gor'kii, “O torn, kakiauchilsiapisat'” (1928), Stat'io literature, 80; Gor'kii, “Pis'ma nachinaiushchim literatoram,” 99; Gor'kii, “O pol'ze gramotnosti,” 9.

37. Gor'kii, “O pol'ze gramotnosti,” 8–9.

38. Ibid., 7; emphasis in the original.

39. A “canonization” process that, as Jeffrey Brooks and others show, began in the final decades of the nineteenth century. See Brooks, , “Russian Nationalism and Russian Literature: The Canonization of the Classics,” in Banac, Ivo, Ackerman, John G., and Szporluk, Roman, eds., Nation and Ideology: Essays in Honor of Wayne S. Vucinich (New York, 1981), 315–34Google Scholar; see also Moeller–Sally, Stephen, “Parallel Lives: Gogol “s Biography and Mass Readership in Late Imperial Russia, Slavic Review 54, no. 1 (Spring 1995): 62–79.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

40. Gor'kii, “Rabochii klass dolzhen vospitat’ svoikh masterov kul'tury” (1929), Stat'i o literature, 31.

41. In this sense, Gor'kii's view on language standards echoed those of Antonio Gramsci, who viewed a “unified national language” that was “organically tied to tradition,” rather than the perpetuation or elevation of separate dialects or the creation of something utterly new, as the best way of securing political and cultural hegemony for the proletariat. Cf. Gramsci, , Selections From Cultural Writings, ed. Forgacs, David and Nowell–Smith, Geoffrey and trans. Boelhower, William (Cambridge, Mass., 1985), 183–88, 26–34.Google Scholar

42. Gor'kii, “Pis'ma nachinaiushchim literatoram,” 108–9.

43. Ibid., 103; Gor'kii, “O literature” (1930), Stat'i o literature, 39. The important issue of Latinizing and Russifying the alphabets of non–Russian ethnic minorities lies outside the scope of this paper but is thoroughly discussed in Smith's, Michael G. Language and Power in the Creation of the USSR, 1917–1953 (Berlin, 1998).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

44. Gor'kii, “O rabote neumeloi, nebrezhnoi, nedobrosovestnoi, i t.d.” (1931), O literature: Stat'i i rechi 1928–1935 gg. (Moscow, 1935), 84. Gor'kii also predicted gleeful derision from the “spite–mongers and enemies of worker–peasant power” as a result of such indications of illiteracy (76).

45. Gor'kii, O russkom krest'ianstve (Berlin, 1922), 43–44. Gregory Freidin goes so far as to link the intensification of the “war against the peasantry” to Gor'kii's return to Soviet Russia, first in 1928, and finally in 1931. Freidin, “Romans into Italians: Russian National Identity in Transition,” Stanford Slavic Studies! (1993): 263–68.

46. G. Vasil'kovskii, “O tret'ei knige bruskov Fedora Panferova,” Literaturnyi kritik, 1933, no. 4: 39–56. The first three volumes of the novel appeared between 1928 and 1933.

47. Two exceptions to the general trend of praise included P. Neznamov, “Derevnia krasivogo opereniia,” Novyi LEF, 1928, no. 8: 2–9; and D. Tal'nikov, “Literaturnye zametki,” Krasnaia nov', 1929, no. 1: 237–42. More “proletarian “-minded journals lavished the novel with high praise, dedicating considerable space to its analysis and reception; see, for example, Na literaturnom postu, 1930, no. 12: 29–32, 75–80; and “O ‘Bruskakh’ F. Panferova,” OktiaW, 1934, no. 2: 188–225. Panferov himself was a member of the editorial board at Krasnaia nov’ from 1921 to 1931 and was the chief editor of Oktiabr’ from 1934 to 1936.

48. Gor'kii, “Po povodu odnoi diskussii,” Literaturnaia gazeta, 28 January 1934.

49. Gor'kii, “O pisateliakh ‘oblizannykh’ i ‘neoblizannykh, '” Literaturnaia gazeta, 12 February 1934. Serafimovich was five years Gor'kii's elder and the author of the highly acclaimed Zheleznyi potok (Iron flood, 1924).

50. Gor'kii, “Otkrytoe pis'mo A. S. Serafimovichu,” Literaturnaia gazeta, 14 February 1934, quoted from Sobranie sochinenii, 27: 148.

51. Ibid., 152, 151. Serafimovich's response to this tellingly rejects Gor'kii's word choice by defending the use of “popular speech” (narodnaia rech’) as a necessary reflection of the changing language culture in Soviet Russia. “Otvet A. M. Gor'komu,” Literaturnaia gazeta, 1 March 1934. In her own thoughtful discussion of the controversy surrounding Bruski, Régine Robin describes Gor'kii's position as a (successful) attempt at establishing a more “monologic,” “authoritarian” literary language. See Robin, , Socialist Realism: An Impossible Aesthetic, trans. Porter, Catherine (Stanford, 1992), 165–90.Google Scholar

52. Seifullina, ‘ “Za zdorov'e preosviashchennogo! “’ Literaturnaia gazeta, 2 April 1934. See also Mikhail Sholokhov's own acknowledgment of past “misuse of local expressions,” in “Za chestnuiu rabotu pisatelia i kritika,” Literaturnaia gazeta, 18 March 1934. Other established writers who sided with Gor'kii include Aleksei Tolstoi ( “Nuzhna li muzhitskaia sila?” Literaturnaia gazeta, 6 March 1934), Leonid Leonov ( “Prizyv k muzhestvu,” Literaturnaia gazeta, 16 April 1934); Marietta Shaganian ( “Diskussiia o iazyke,” Literaturnaia gazeta, 18 April 1934); and Ol'ga Forsh.

53. M. Serebrianskii, “K diskussii o Bruskakh,” Literaturnaia gazeta, 28 March 1934.

54. N. Kovarskii, “Spor o iazyke,” Literaturnyi sovremennik, 1934, no. 4: 112. Gor'kii made .the same point in his article “On language,” claiming that “littering” the literary language signified a negative attitude toward the social group being reflected. See M. Gor'kii, “O iazyke,” Pravda, 1934, no. 76, quoted from Sobranie sochinenii, 27: 166. An earlier commentary argued that the practice of graphic distortion of regional speech constituted a form of “social alienation.” Derman, A, “Problema zhivoi rechi v khudozhestvennoi literature,” Novyi mir, 1931, no. 5: 161.Google Scholar

55. M. Gor'kii, “Slovo chitatelia,” Literaturnaia gazeta, 28 March 1934; cf. Toporov, A. M., Krest'iane o pisateliakh: Opyt, metodika i obraztsy krest'ianskoi kritiki sovremennoi khudozhestvennoi literatury (Moscow, 1930), 182–201 Google Scholar. Such “popular” surveys, especially when cited in isolation, must be taken with a grain of salt. It was common practice for all sides of such debates to invoke the voice of the people in support of their cause. For contrasting invocations of the vox populi in the Panferov case, cf. “Obsuzhdaem Bruski F. Panferova: Golos chitatelia,” Na literaturnom postu, 1930, no. 12: 75–80. For excellent discussions of what still remains a sound, though at times overstated, thesis—that the style of socialist realist novels was simplified largely due to reader demands—see Régine Robin, “Popular Literature of the 1920s: Russian Peasants as Readers,” in Sheila Fitzpatrick, Alexander Rabinowitch, and Richard Stites, eds., Russia in theEra of NEP: Explorations in Soviet Society and Culture (Ylloommgton, 1991), 253–67; Dobrenko, Evgeny, The Making ofthe State Reader: Social and Aesthetic Contexts of the Reception of Soviet Literature, trans. Savage, Jesse M. (Stanford, 1997), esp. 82–145.Google Scholar

56. Khavin, P, “Bol'shevistskaia publitsistika i literaturnyi iazyk,” Literaturnaia ucheba, 1934, no. 8: 77–78.Google Scholar

57. Kovarskii, “Spor o iazyke,” 113.

58. Those advocating a more popular language were more vocal in the debates over the language of fiction and the press in the earlier part of the 1920s. The On Guard critic G. Seryi, for instance, urged contemporary writers to look for stylistic inspiration, not to the “classics” or the “fellow travelers,” but to the living language of the factory: “Study the language of the factory. Become familiar not only with all the words of the factory language: study the style of that language—new turns–of–phrase, similes, comparisons, allegories, symbols. Pay attention to the development of plot in the colloquial narratives of workers. That is where the work on form is for proletarian writers.” Seryi, “Blizhaishaia zadacha,” in Proletariat i literatura: Sbornik statei (Leningrad, 1925), 127; emphasis in the original. The poet A. I. Bezymenskii similarly claimed that the first step to the successful literary depiction of the working class was the acquisition of the worker's language. Bezymenskii, “O tvorcheskikh putiakh,” Napostu, 1924, no. 1: 121–28. Cf. also Kleinbort, L. M., Ocherki narodnoi literature (1880–1923 gg.): Belletristy, fakty, nabliudeniia, kharakteristiki (Leningrad, 1924)Google Scholar; Kleinbort, , Russkii chitatel’ –rabochii: Po materialam, sobrannym avtorom (Leningrad, 1925)Google Scholar; Raskol'nikov, , “Rabkory i proletarskaia literatura,” Na postu, 1925, no. 1: 105–12Google Scholar. For like–minded arguments about the language of the newspapers, see Astrov, V, “Kak ne nuzhno pisat’ peredovuiu,” Krasnyizhurnalist, 1920, nos. 2–3: 263–64Google Scholar; Smirnov, S, “Poproshche,” Krasnyi zhurnalist, 1920, nos. 4–5–6: 247–50Google Scholar; Rakovskii, Kh, “Desiat’ zapovedei rabochei gazety,” Zhurnalist, 1923, no. 6: 23–26 Google Scholar; Shafir, la, “Iazyk gazety,” Zhurnalist, 1924, no. 9: 8–12 Google Scholar; N—skii, V, “O chem i kak pisat',” Zhurnalist, 1924, no. 14: 41 Google Scholar; Gus, M., Zagorianskii, lu., and Kaganovich, N., Iazyk gazety (Moscow, 1926)Google Scholar; Raskol'nikov, “Rabkory i proletarskaia literatura,” 105–12.

59. Gofman, Viktor, “Stir, iazyk i dialekt,” Iazyk literatury: ocherki i etiudy (Leningrad, 1936), 149–50Google Scholar. See also Khavin, “Bol'shevistskaia publitsistika i literaturnyi iazyk,” 86.

60. Khavin, “Bol'shevistskaia publitsistika i literaturnyi iazyk,” 86. It should be added that Gor'kii himself was not immune to at least the idea of presenting Stalin as a model of proper writing. In a private letter to the leader in 1930, he asked Stalin directly to contribute a piece on writing to Gor'kii's instructional journal, Literaturnaia ucheba, assuring him that “it would be very useful for beginning writers—very. Do write something!” Gorky, Maksim, Selected Letters, ed. and trans. Barratt, Andrew and Scherr, Barry P. (Oxford, 1997), 325.Google Scholar

61. Selivanovskii, A, “Nakanune bol'shikh sporov,” Literaturnaia gazeta, 1934, no. 17.Google Scholar

62. P. Chernykh, “Literaturnyi iazyk na rasput'i,” Budushchaia Sibir', 1934, no. 4: 87; emphasis in the original. Later he embraced the same notion of “revolutionary purism” as a cure for several other diseases: “oversimplification” (uproshchenchestvo), “the multifarious forms of verbal idle talk [pustozvonstvoi, concocting new and extraordinary words when one could get by with old ones, using foreign words without discretion, verbosity, syntactic tightrope–walking, hazy similes and fanciful metaphors, etc.” (91).

63. While the colloquial speech traits of the working class also became less acceptable as a model (fictional and otherwise) of language during this period, it remained largely outside the debates as framed by Gor'kii and others. One reason for this relative lack of attention was demographic: a distinct “voice” of an urban proletariat was harder to discern, because this group was radically outnumbered by—and even largely comprised of—citizens with current or recent ties to the village. The linguist B. A. Larin makes this very point in his article “O lingvisticheskom izuchenii goroda,” in Shcherba, L. V, ed., Russkaia rech’ (Leningrad, 1928), 3: 61–74 Google Scholar. Another reason was more ideological: the language of the working class was more easily fused—despite its differences—into the language of the proletariat.

64. I discuss this in greater detail in “Tongue–Tied Writers. “

65. Institut mirovoi literatury (IMLI), f. 40, op. 1, d. 563, 11. 2, 4; Rossiiskii gosudarstvennyi arkhiv literatury i iskusstva (RGALI), f. 1638, op. 1, d. 45, 1. 2.

66. E. Troshchenko, “Literaturnaia konsul'tatsiia RAPP'a i ee korrespondenty,” Na literaturnom postu, 1929, no. 16: 33–39. This author also notes that most of the manuscripts received came from rural areas (34).

67. IMLI, f. 40, op. 1, d. 577a, 1. 7.

68. Rybnikova, M, “Ob iskazhenii i ogrubenii,” Rodnoi iazyk v shkole, 1927, no. 1: 243–55Google Scholar; Mirtov, A, “Sem’ urokov vezhlivosti na zaniatiiakh russkim iazykom (Evfemisticheskie uprazhneniia),” Rodnoi iazyk v shkole, 1927, no. 2: 276 Google Scholar; “Literaturnaia khronika,” Rodnoi iazyk v shkole, 1927, no. 2: 93.

69. Programmy i metodicheskie zapiski edinoi trudovoi shkoly, 3d ed. (Moscow, 1927), 61–98; FZS: Programmy russkogo iazyka i literatury (Leningrad, 1932), 13.

70. Iakubinskii, L. P., “Klassovyi sostav sovremennogo russkogo iazyka: Iazyk krest'ianstva” (part 1), Literaturnaia ucheba, 1930, no. 4: 80–92Google Scholar; A. Ivanov and Iakubinskii, “Klassovyi sostav sovremennogo russkogo iazyka: Iazyk krest'ianstva” (part 2), Literaturnaia ucheba, 1930, no. 6: 51–66Google Scholar; Iakubinskii, , “Klassovyi sostav sovremennogo russkogo iazyka: Iazyk proletariata,” Literaturnaia ucheba, 1931, no. 7: 22–33 Google Scholar; Iakubinskii, “Russkii iazyk v epokhu diktatury proletariata,” Literaturnaia ucheba, 1931, no. 9: 66–76; Selishchev, A. M., “O iazyke sovremennoi derevni,” Zemlia Sovetskaia, 1932, no. 9: 120–33.Google Scholar

71. For example, Sokolov, lu. M., ed., Pop i muzhik: Russkie narodnye skazki (Moscow, 1931)Google Scholar; A. M. Astakhova, “Fol'klor grazhdanskoi voiny,” in Sovetskii fol'klor: Stat'i i materialy, AN SSSR: Trudy fol'klornoi sektsii instituta antropologii i etnografii (Leningrad, 1934), 9–40. The editor of a collection of Red Army soldiers’ reminiscences of the civil war went so far as to claim that “the new culture had so taken root in the consciousness of the working masses that thoughts going against our [Soviet] construction were unable to find eloquent expression.” See Mirer, Semon and Borovik, Vasilii, eds., Revoliutsiia: Ustnye rasskazy ural'skikh rabochikh o grazhdanskoi voine (Moscow, 1931), 37.Google Scholar

72. The internal quotes here are attributed to Pravda, 1934, no. 76. Tolkovyi slovar' russkogo iazyka, 4 vols. Moscow, 1935, 1: 3, 5.

73. Herman Ermolaev has described such purifying processes in the works of these and other prominent writers throughout Stalin's rule—most recently and thoroughly in Censorship in Soviet Literature, 1917–1991 (New York, 1997).

74. I. Mashbits–Verov, “Vtoraia kniga Bruskov,” Oktiabr', 1930, no. 8: 208; B. Levin, “Panferov sozdaet tipy,” Oktiabr', 1934, no. 2: 218–19. A. Serafimovich, “O pisateliakh ‘oblizannykh’ i ‘neoblizannykh.'” By 1934, Panferov had revised the first volume for four separate editions. The fourth volume appeared in 1937.

75. Eikhenbaum, Boris, “Literaturnyi byt,” Moi vremennik (Moscow, 1929), 51.Google Scholar

76. Bourdieu, “The Production and Reproduction of Legitimate Language,” 48.