The making of a ‘proletarian capital’: Patterns of Stalinist social policy in Kiev in the mid‐1930s

Abstract

IN JUNE 1934 THE CAPITAL of the second most populous Soviet republic, Ukraine, was moved from Kharkiv to Kiev.' Rationales for the transfer were many. Kiev was a historical capital of Ukraine and an important cultural hub, advantageously situated in the geographical centre of Ukrainian lands. Located in the heart of a vast agricultural region for centuries dubbed the 'breadbasket of Europe', Kiev was an ideal point for overseeing Ukraine's then main asset, agriculture. Since Western Ukraine had again been incorporated into Poland and Kiev itself was not far from the border, the transfer of the capital also constituted a political statement. Although the published party documents emphasised the geographical, socio-economic, administrative and cultural rationales for the shift, newly available archival documents reveal otherwise. They testify that the main reason for the transfer was political, deeply rooted in the mounting international tensions of the mid-1930s and the final defeat of Ukrainian 'national communism' at home.2 The shift was meant to affirm the military strength of Soviet power and its newly acquired confidence in the loyalty of Soviet Ukrainians. It also signalled the turn from the policy of Ukrainisation to increasing Russification and intensified Stalinist purging of Ukrainian society.3 The most notable consequences of this political decision for Kiev itself were social and cultural. In the course of a few years, Soviet power attempted to remake the city according to its ideal vision of a 'proletarian capital', a well-ordered and cultured socialist metropolis of the working class. This undertaking coincided with the 'great retreat' from revolutionary ideals and the re-establishment of hierarchies and middleclass values in Stalinist society in the mid-1930s.4 As a result, Kiev came to represent a good example of an attempted wholesale remaking of a city according to the Stalinist blueprints. Although similar changes were under way elsewhere in the Soviet Union, the transfer of the Ukrainian capital prompted the authorities to accelerate them in Kiev in the course of one comprehensively masterminded campaign. During 1934 and the years immediately following, the city underwent radical architectural, social and cultural surgery. Regardless of the scale and boldness of the architectural reshaping of the city,5 it was the social policy of Soviet power that changed the lives of Kievans most profoundly. This article analyses the Stalinist creation of a 'proletarian capital' in an attempt to arrive at a deeper understanding of the goals, methods and frustrations of Soviet social policy in the mid-1930s.