The House of Government: A Saga of the Russian Revolution

1123 Pages·2017·17.13 MB·English

by  Yuri Slezkine

The House of governMent

The House of
governMent
a saga of
the russian
rev olution
yuri slezkine
princeton university press
princeton and Oxford
Copyright © 2017 by Yuri Slezkine
Requests for permission to reproduce material from this work
should be sent to Permissions, Princeton University Press
Published by Princeton University Press
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In the United Kingdom: Princeton University Press
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press.princeton.edu
Jacket illustration by Francesco Bongiorni / Marlena Agency
Jacket design by Chris Ferrante
Frontispiece: The House of Government.
(Courtesy of the House on the Embankment Museum, Moscow.)
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
1O. 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
2O. The Thought of Death 623
21. The Happy Childhood 645
22. The New Men 665