Dictatorship of the Air: Aviation Culture and the Fate of Modern Russia by Scott W. Palmer (review)

Abstract

146 SEER, 87, I, JANUARY 200g analysis of the interaction between creativity and social and political engagement. London School of Economics A.J. Prazmowska Palmer, Scott W. Dictatorship of the Air: Aviation Culture and the Fate of Modern Russia. Cambridge Centennial of Flight. Cambridge University Press, New York and Cambridge, 2006. xviii + 307 pp. Notes. Illustrations. Notes. Bibliography. Index. ?25.00: $40.00. In the twentieth century, aviation was hard to beat as a symbol ofmodernity and of the brave new world unfolding. Probably nowhere was this function taken more seriously than in Russia, where the technology was grasped as a means of demonstrating thatRussia could catch up and overtake theWest. This book sets out to show how in tsaristand Soviet times public opinion was played upon, creating a fabricated impression of dynamic advance, although behind the hyperbole therewas the occasional genuine success story. The author categorizes as 'compensatory symbolism' the salient thrust of this enterprise, the expectation that a single success displaying preeminence would prove Russian superiority over thewhole field. By thismeans general backwardness could be obscured by the glow of one achievement. Such achievements did occasionally occur (or,more often,were contrived) but the reality was that throughout the firsthalf of the twentieth century Russian aviation technology followed rather than paralleled Western models. One genuine breakthrough did occur on the eve of World War One when Igor Sikorskii, having built and successfully flown the world's firstmulti engined aircraft,went on to build the IViaMuromets, which could plausibly claim to be the world's first airliner, carrying twelve or more passengers (and their dogs, apparently). Itwas also the firstto carry the passengers inwhat resembled the present-day fuselage (which incidentally enabled it to be the first aircraft to boast a toilet). In the ensuing war, the production models were entitled to be regarded as theworld's first heavy bombers, being able to unload more than 500 lbs of bombs over the German lines. Following thefirstflightof the II 'ia Muromets, therewas a genuine outburst of patriotic air-mindedness, but this did not survive the war. The author relates that itwas only in 1923, inspired by Trotskii, that the 'conquest of the heavens' was again drummed into people's minds. Whereas in tsarist times the air organizations, ofwhich the Imperial All-Russia Aero Club was by far themost significant,were privately sponsored, in 1923 itwas the regime that orchestrated the process. Although the Society of Friends of the Air Fleet (which eventually was transmuted into the Osoaviakhim of the 1930s) was ostensibly the channeling of a spontaneous public enthusiasm, itwas in fact a carefully-planned mobilization with massive press support. The expectation was that enthusiasm for aviation would help bring it success, which would reflect back on the Party that had both inspired it and was creating the society thatmade itpossible. REVIEWS 147 Boosting the impression of Party-inspired dynamism was the staging of special events. The Committee on Big Flights was established in 1925 and an international 'friendshipflight' from Moscow toPekin followed the same year; four of the six aircraft completed the trip, taking fiveweeks, and thiswas no mean achievement given the succession ofmechanical defects. But the first attempt on theMoscow-Paris flight ended when the aircraft crashed into a telephone pole, and the firsttrans-Polar flight turned back because of an oil leak. A non-stop flight fromMoscow to Oregon in 1937was perhaps the high-point of these demonstrations. The aim of spreading aviation enthusiasm outside the two capitals resulted in local initiatives thatwere soon suppressed by the obsessive imposition of centralized control. But 'agit-flights',inwhich one ormore aircraftwould fly long distances, dropping down at small towns en route, were a feature and in the 1920s theywere linkedwith the 'back to the village!' drive. Aviation was a natural partner in the struggle against religion, perhaps because the heavens were the natural habitat of both God and aircraft. Taking peasants for joy rides above the clouds was an important feature of rural air events. Frequent crashes, itmight be thought,would have somewhat dented the appeal of joy rides.With the drive forquick results, thepace of aircraft design and assembly was, quite literally,breakneck. But themost spectacular disaster, that...