Late Stalinism and Thaw era: Styliagi

Fig.1: Krokodil’s representation of Styliagi

Translation:

“He’s name was Grisha

but now he is Harry

Every day at a certain hour

Harry is walking through the boulevards

There he is, enjoying himself,

Stalking ladies

He hasn’t read any books

He hasn’t been to museums.”

Tomfeev, B.”Harry”

(“Krokodil”, 1953)

The post Second World War socio-political context created all preconditions necessary for an the emergence of Styliagi, who were first described by the Krokodil magazine in 1945. A typical representation of a Styliaga can be seen in Fig.1. Shelepin, the secretary of the Komsomol, described them as “spongers, who live an idle, parasitic life”, dressed up like parrots and were born out of “survivals of the damned capitalist past” (Edele, 2002, p 31). Edele, however, suggests other reasons for the emergence of the Styliagi subculture, as the generation of youth mentioned above had no exposure to the pre-revolutionary bourgeois culture. He is a historian specializing in the Soviet Post War History. The fact that he learned Russian gives his research extra credibility as he is referring to numerous primary sources and is writing after the Perestroyka. He argues that for such a movement to happen there must be three of the following: a group of youth with sufficient resources for leisure-based lifestyle, a public sphere not completely loyal to soviet ideology and the availability of non- soviet elements of style and information (2002,p 30).

The first precondition[16] was possible due to the embourgeoisment of the late - Stalinism elite. The sons and daughters of the powerful party members, the Golden Youth, wanted to differentiate themselves from the lower classes and had sufficient resources for the hedonistic lifestyle, while also being out of Komsomol’s reach (Edele, 2002). Moreover, this youth was likely to underestimate possible consequences of their actions, as they didn’t through the time of the Great Terror and Stalin’s purges. The movement than spread onto the working class youth because the overall living conditions improved by the 1950s and a bigger proportion of youth had the necessary resources to imitate the elites (Sherman, 1962).

The second[17] necessary precondition, the existence of non-Soviet forms of expression was possible in the immediate post-war period for a number of reasons. The frontoviks brought western clothes with them as well as jazz recordings and trophy movies. On the 2 year long wave of Soviet-American friendship Jazz came to USSR and “brought warmth and happiness” after the hardships of the war (Kozlov, 2011). By the late 40s Soviet government attempted to stamp out jazz but the surveillance but the repression of jazz proved incomplete. For example According to Central Committee report of November 1949 the banned recordings were distributed from city to city war invalids under the packaging of accepted music (Edele, 2002). Furthermore, just like in the 1920s, cinema was a major source of non-Soviet ideology for the young Styliagi. The destruction of the war, budget cuts and increasing censorship of Stalin’s regime led to a so-called period of “movie famine”, where the production of movies halved. This resulted in decreasing numbers of viewers and made the government release around 50 trophy films (Edele, 2002, p 58). Among them were also American classics imported into Germany, which depicted the life during the roaring 20s. They were met with enormous popularity and Styliagi “talked in quotations” from those movies. For example, the American movie Tarzan inspired the name of a typical Styliagi haircut (Tsipursky, 2008).

The failure of Komsomol, just like in the 1920s could be blamed for the creation of the third precondition[18], a public sphere not completely submerged by soviet ideology. Despite of high membership percentages suggest that Komsomol was rather successful, looking more closely at specific membership percentages of capital’s student’s shows that it was “wishful thinking” on the part of the officials. (The reliability of the data is of course to be questioned as authorities could have been intentionally painting a better picture of Komsomols control). For example in 1947 only 47 % of polytechnic institutes students were members (Edele, 2002, p 55). It is also noticeable; that Khrushchev recognized the 50s youth was far from the ideal socialist picture and thus launched a massive Leisure Campaign aimed to change the everyday behaviour patterns of the delinquent youth though the use of press (Tsipursky,2008). However, just like during NEP the definition of a prefect communist citizen was rather uncertain. This “undermined the cohesion of public discourse on the leisure campaign” as “considerable scope existed for individual interpretation, and the process of searching for the ideologically appropriate way to behave, appear, think, and live, strengthened the impulse toward the formation of an autonomous identity and youth agency in the Thaw generation”(Tsipursky, 2008, p 649)

The initial motivation behind the subculture and the desire for anti-Soviet expression is rather complex. In the post-war society of USSR masculinity was synonymous to participation in the war. The Golden Youth was the generation too young to fight in the war, the young men felt intimidated an unmanly as they confronted the self-assertive veterans “, for whom a man was primarily a war Frontovik” (Edele, 2002, p 41).The young men could not imitate the wartime exploits of the veterans, but they could imitate the stylish Western dress veterans brought and with it the masculinity and the manliness. “Sovietness and participation in the war were so tightly interconnected in the post-war Soviet union, that the lack of latter was best counteracted by refusing the former. And in the context of Cold War this meant embracing Westerness” (Edele, 2002, p 42).

There is another motivating factor highlighted by Fainsod. He highlights Khruschev’s revelation of Stalinist era abuses as a critical factor, which influenced the alternative thinking youth of the 50s:”the 20^th Party Congress may be viewed as “the water-shed, which released the flood of youth’s discontent” (1964,). This discontent took many forms as The 50s soviet Youth was not a homogenized undifferentiated mass and among them are the “Westerners”, who looked for stimulation and excitement to bourgeois manners and morals (Fainsod, 1964). This motivation however cannot apply to the original Styliagi of the late 1940s. As Fainsod is writing in 1964 he doesn’t have the benefit of hindsight and the Cold War is still at its peak so many sources are still unavailable.

There is a clear contradiction regarding the image of a typical Styliagi presented in the Soviet the press of the 1950s and the primary sources written by the actual members of the subculture. The soviet government attempted to present Styliagi as uncultured, uneducated, self-centred, useless members of society. For example the magazine “Krokodil” (Fig.1) was famous for its caricatures and shaming of the movement. This source is valuable as an example of state’s attitude to the subculture but is limited when it comes to identifying its nature. The primary source written by a famous Styliaga and Jazz musician, Kozlov provides an insight into his motivations and is very valuable in establishing the nature of the movement. His initial motivation was the love of Jazz music, which he heard in the immediate post-war period. Than as Jazz got banned he and his friends were frustrated and decided to show their protest through all ways of expression, jargon language, stylish flashy clothes, Tarzan haircuts and forbidden dances. At the same time Kozlov highlights that his circle of Styliagi was highly cultured and intellectual, interested in foreign literature and impressionism as well as Jazz (2011). However, this source is limited as it only reflects a certain proportion of the subculture’s members. The nature of the subculture developed throughout the decade. The original Styliagi, who were the Golden youth, were imitated by the masses. The original Styliagi than decided that they need a different form of differentiation and transformed themselves into “Shtatniki”[19], whose clothes were often imported from the USA and were elegant rather than exaggeratedly colourful (Edele, 2002)

Comparative analysis:

The socio-political contexts of NEP and Late-Stalinism both satisfied Edele’s criteria of the three preconditions’. Both periods allowed a relatively wealthy “bourgeois” class to emerge, whose children were able to live a hedonistic life. During NEP it was the children of the NEPman, while during Late Stalinism- the children of the party elite. Both movements than spread beyond the wealthy classes on to the working-class youth due to the improvement in the living standards. Moreover, NEP and Late-Stalinism were both post-war periods, which allowed the Western information to infiltrate into the soviet society. For example poor quality and lack of investment into the Soviet movie industry during 1920s and the “Movie Famine “in the late 1940s led to the increasing number of foreign films. The relaxation of Soviet-American relations after World War II and ARA in 1921 accounts for the availability of American music, dance and clothing. The third precondition was existent due to a lack of surveillance. This is evident from the unpopularity and inefficiency of the Komsomol, which failed to fully indoctrinate or interest youth during those time periods. It is also evident that Krsuchev’s and Lenin’s governments failed to develop a rigid and uncompromising view on what was a perfect youngster, allowing room for debate and undermining cohesion. Both subcultures challenged the cultural hegemony of Soviet Union, so vital for a healthy society in the eyes of its leaders.

Class relations played a role in the motivation of both subcultures. For instance, the desire to transcend class through Flapper fashion during NEP was similar to how the middle class youth imitated the original Styliagi of the 1940s.Also the escapist qualities of the western clothes and movies after the hardships of the war was a motivating factor in both time periods, according to contemporaries Kozlov (2011) and Golicin (1997). However, only for Styliagi clothing was initially a statement of self-assurance and masculinity. Furthermore, the 1920s youth simply wanted to enjoy the relaxation of NEP and didn’t have the motivation of protest, while Styliagi were much more explicitly a protest movement.

The nature of the two subcultures is incredibly similar as US culture played a key role in the formation of their style. Both subcultures expressed the hedonistic and individualistic values through exaggerated dress, a ridiculed version of what they saw in the movies or received from war veterans. The clothing was ridiculously bright and flashy as when the movement spread onto the masses, they often had no access to proper materials and all of the clothing was self-made. The dance-mania of jitterbug or boogie-woogie of the Styliagi era was an energized dance, which grew out of foxtrot, danced by the 1920s subcultures. Nevertheless, no primary sources describe Flappers and Fixtrotters as a unified subculture. This suggests that their nature was not cohesive and one was not fully aware that he was a member of the subculture but instead considered himself as delinquent youth. Although Styliagi’s style was incoherent and showed many changes within the 15 years of their existence, their nature was still much more coherent than the Foxtrotters. Styliagi had much clearer traits of identity such as specific jargon and haircuts, often depicted by the Krokodil magazine (1945), while what unified Foxtrotters was only dancing (Sherman, 1962).Also, there is no evidence of specific jargon employed by the 1920s subcultures.

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