Artists in Revolution: Portraits of the Russian Avant-garde. 1905-1925 by Robert C. WilliamsReview by: Stephen C. FeinsteinThe American Historical Review, Vol. 84, No. 1 (Feb., 1979), pp. 216-217Published by: Oxford University Press on behalf of the American Historical AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1855806 .

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2I6 Reviews of Books

S. FREDERICK STARR. Melnikov: Solo Architect in a Mass Society. Princeton: Princeton University Press. 1978. Pp. xvii, 276. $25.00.

This definitive and lavishly illustrated study of Soviet Russia's leading modernist architect rejuve- nates a reputation. Until his political demise in 1937, Konstantin Melnikov was Soviet Russia's leading architect. Grandson of a serf, he had risen in a single generation to international fame and such fortune as was possible in the Russia of the I920S. Doomed to live in Moscow in inner exile until his death in 1974, Melnikov managed to create a number of successful buildings geared to the rational visions of a new, revolutionary society: the 1925 Soviet exposition pavilion in Paris, the double interlocking cylinder structure of his own Moscow house, and an Intourist parking garage for buses. Utilizing interviews with Melnikov him- self and access to his private archive, S. Frederick Starr has lovingly reconstructed the life and work of a forgotten visionary.

Melnikov's career gives a vivid picture of many elements in early Soviet culture: its utopian dreaming (only twenty of Melnikov's eighty proj- ects were actually built); the continuity between the romantic classicism of late imperial Russian architecture and 1920S constructivism; and the ex- tensive links between Soviet Russian and Euro- pean modernist architecture after the revolution. But Starr correctly identifies a more profound and subtle element in that culture-a belief in a victory over death through revolution. Raised in an ortho- dox Christian culture, Melnikov believed in a form of resurrection derived from the notion that death is simply a form of sleep. Melnikov's Lenin sarco- phagus therefore assumed that the dead leader could some day be awakened like the sleeping princess by a signal from the Russian people; his designs for Paris and Moscow parking garages also ascribed to turned-off automobiles a quality of sleep or death; his own bedroom was a kind of tomb for nightly rejuvenation; and a "Sonata of Sleep" pavilion in his utopian Green City would have provided anxious urbanites with an escape from city cares through sleep therapy. Throughout this book one is aware that rationalist construction is informed by irrational mysticism.

As a study of an important and unknown figure, this book is a major contribution to the history of architecture and of early Soviet culture. But the author's erudition and imagination continually elevate it from public and private biography to broadly conceived cultural, social, and political history. Melnikov's career thus helps us under- stand that irrational yearnings were as important to Russian revolutionary culture as its public ra- tionalist visage.

ROBERT C. WILLIAMS

Washington University

ROBERT C. WILLIAMS. Artists in Revolution: Portraits of the Russian Avant-garde, I905-I925. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. 1978. Pp. x, 242. $15.00.

In recent years, the study of the Russian avant- garde in the first quarter of the twentieth century has drawn considerable attention. This work pres- ents a series of portraits of significant leaders of Russian culture in that highly creative period pre- ceding the advent of "official culture" in the early 1930s. In constructing his collective portrait, Rob- ert C. Williams has gone beyond the realm of painting and decorative arts to develop a wide- ranging study of the Russian intelligentsia, in- cluding figures like Lunacharsky, Meyerhold, Mayakovsky, Tatlin, Malevich, Eisenstein, Dobu- zhinsky, and Moor. The dominant concept unit- ing these sometimes diverse individuals is, ac- cording to Williams, their concern with death and artistic and revolutionary immortality. Each artist was obssessed to some extent with death and, therefore, sought a means of attaining a new vision of immortality.

Perhaps the most interesting section of Wil- liams's work deals with Kazimir Malevich's inter- est in theosophy and the search for the fourth dimension. Malevich's involvement with the theo- ries of theosophy through the little known works of Charles Hinton, Claude Bragdon, and Peter Us- pensky marked a turning point in the artist's ca- reer. Uspensky's belief in a fourth dimension, which suggested the existence of a higher realm of existence, became a dominant influence for Malev- ich during 19I5 and subsequently provided the impetus for the artist to move from futurism to suprematism. For Malevich, the dynamic new forms were the square and cube, with the square representing man and the cube representing a higher dimension. These shapes, in turn, became symbols of the fourth dimension as expressed through suprematism.

In developing the threads of the immortality theme, Williams emphasizes several important points. First, although born as a loose movement influenced by Western ideas, the avant-garde may be seen as a genuine reaction against Westernism and another statement of the uniqueness of Rus- sian spirituality over inferior Western concepts. Secondly, the avant-garde's search for immortality was part of a mid-life psychological crisis of all the artists, the majority of whom were born in the i88os. Thirdly, the desire of the avant-garde for a means of attaining immortality was in essence a new form of religion that grew in Russia from artistic sources after the initial attacks on orga- nized religions by the secular doctrines of the new Soviet state. Collectively, all of these conclusions help to tie together the diverse themes of this group. Williams's most interesting assertion, how-

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Modern Europe 217

ever, is that the pursuit of the theme of immortality by these artists helped to prepare the way for Stalinism by establishing the efficacy of personal death for the revolution as a means of assuring individual immortality.

Williams's work is an exceptionally useful addi- tion to the historiography of the avant-garde. Its main fault lies in its broad conception. The theme of death and immortality unifies the study, but one is left searching for more biographical information on each figure. In addition, a monographic inter- pretation of this period is frustrating when the source materials themselves are so rich and able to convey the artists' theoretical conceptions. For ex- ample, the manifestos in The Documents of 20th Cen- tury Art series, edited by John Bowlt and Stephen Bann, provide an exceptionally lively set of read- ings for establishing a more complete statement on the avant-garde.

STEPHEN C. FEINSTEIN

University of Wisconsin- River Falls

D. F. USTINOV et al. Istoriia vtoroi mirovoi voiny, I939-

i945. Tom 8, Krushenze oboronitel'noi strategii fashists- kogo bloka [History of the Second World War, 1939-45. Volume 8, The Downfall of the Defensive Strategy of the Fascist Bloc]. Moscow: Voenizdat. 1977. Pp. 534. 2 r. 8o k.

In this volume covering the period from the end of I943 to the end of May I945, Soviet historians continue their offensive against the bourgeois falsi- fiers of the history of World War II. In particular, the lie is given to American historians who spread the falsehood that the economic and hu-man re- sources of the USSR were exhausted in this period and who "incredibly exaggerate the significance of lend-lease shipments" (p. 8). To refute these fic- tions, considerable attention is devoted to the So- viet war economy and its "victory" over the Ger- man economy in the production of military weapons and equipment. While admitting that the lend-lease shipments had a positive influence on the Soviet struggle with Germany, the authors conclude that "it is generally known that these shipments comprised an insignificant share of So- viet production and did not play an important role" (p. 387).

One can only surmise that even such critical observers of U.S.-Soviet cooperation during World War II as Major General John R. Deane, author of Strange Alliance, would be disappointed at this eval- uation of the approximately eleven billion dollars in U.S. aid given to the USSR during the war. Among the items Deane cites are 427,284 trucks. He also reports that on a visit to the Belorussian Front in July 1944 "we encountered American

trucks everywhere" (p. 93). Deane does not claim that United States' supplies won the war but he does suggest that "they must have been comforting to the Russians" (p. 95). Current Soviet historio- graphy of World War II seems to find this aid more of an embarrassment to be explained away. than a comfort.

Whatever view one holds as to the importance of American aid to the Soviet war effort, the achieve- ments of the Soviet war economy should be recog- nized and deserve study. Forced to evacuate people and industrial equipment to the east under unbelievably difficult circumstances in I94I and I942, by the middle of I944 the Soviets were pro- ducing more tanks, assault guns, self-propelled guns, and aircraft than were the Germans. What is not clear is the organizational mechanism through which these achievements were accomplished. In general, they have been ascribed to the superiority of a socialist economy. Somewhat less generally we are told of decisions of the State Defense Com- mittee (GKO), chaired by Stalin, and its plenipo- tentiaries who were sent to problem areas with authority to resolve local difficulties. In 1974 the existence of an "Operations Bureau of the GKO" was revealed. Formed in December 1942, the Op- erations Bureau apparently functioned as an eco- nomic general staff controlling all of those indus- tries connected with war production. It has not been revealed who was chief of this economic gen- eral staff-perhaps it was N. A. Vaznesenskii, who, like many of the Soviet wartime military leaders, ran afoul of Stalin in the postwar period. Perhaps this question will be clarified in sub- sequent volumes. The first eight volumes, unfortu- nately, have not been notable for efforts to break new ground in clarifying such murky areas of So- viet World War II history.

WILLIAM J. SPAHR

Alexandria, Virginia

A. M. SAMSONOV et al. Sovetskii soiuZ v gody Velikoi Otechestvennoi voiny, 194I-1945 [The Soviet Union During the Great Fatherland War, 1941-45]. Mos- cow: lzdatel'stvo "Nauka." I976. Pp. 727. 4 r. 23 k.

This one-volume history of the Great Patriotic War is intended to replace Velikaia Otechestvennaia Voina Sovetskogo Soi'za, I94I-I945: Kratkaia istoriia published in I967. The latter volume was a con- densation of the six-volume history of the Great Patriotic War published in I962. Although the con- densed volume was not as outspoken as the com- plete set, there were still some hints of criticism about the performance of Soviet military and polit- ical leadership during the war.

The volume under review carries no such dis- tinction and is a good example of Soviet historio-

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