REVIEWS 571 quite difficult life experiences, she sketchesthe historyof youth in the I920S and 1930s and suggeststhat youth only became a defined social group during the Great Breakthrough. In this way, she approaches the vydvizhentsy (the Stalinist generation that was promoted into the elite) through the lens of youth-politics, seeing the policy of promotion as a reaction to a crisisof youth in the I920s. The volume thusbelongsto a broadertrendin the historiography that depicts the era of the New Economic Policy in terms of popular dissatisfaction,an unhappycompromisewhose internalcontradictionsshaped the emergence of Stalinism. The majorityof articlesthusfocus on roughlythe firstten to fifteenyearsof Soviet rule,with only one on the CivilWarera (aninterestingmicro-historical study by Daniela Tschudi on the case of the Bolshevik policeman Roman Murin from Smolensk who was prosecuted in I9I9 for drunkenness and coarse behaviour against local Communists). The two major themes linking many of these articlestogether are crime, especiallyhooliganism, and suicide. Indeed, the scholarly consensus seems to be rather strong: discontent, resignation, and disappointmentcharacterizedthe NEP generation of youth, many of whom may have believed in the ideals of the revolution but feared them to have been betrayed (or at best delayed into the distantfuture).While the Komsomol was supposed to provide meaning and direction, indeed to combat hooliganismand apoliticism,some of itsmembersabusedtheirpowers whereas many others became increasingly disoriented and disillusioned. Violence was thus one expression of this process: not only was it directed againstthe self and againstothers, it also increasinglycharacterizedeveryday relationsand even speech. By late in the decade, as many authorssuggest,the Partywas becoming increasinglyconcerned about the behaviourand broader valuesof Sovietyouth, who were, afterall,seen asthefutureof theRevolution. While the many articlesin thisvolume approachthese issuesin differentways, the article by Shkarovskiishould be mentioned specificallyfor it examines a quite differenttopic: the experiences and attitudesof Orthodox youth in the 192OSand 1930s. Finally, a handful of articles take the theme of youth and violence into the I930S, but despite some excellent studies here as well, this part of the volume is much less developed. The origins of Stalinism before 1932 thus standat the centre of attention. In conclusion, thisvolume contains new researchand interestingstudies.It should be of interestto all scholarsof the early Soviet period. School ofSlavonic andEastEuropean Studies SUSAN MORRISSEY University College London Paperny, Vladimir. Architecture in theAgeof Stalin. Culture Two.Translated by John Hill and Roann Barrisin collaborationwith the author.Cambridge Studies in New Art History and Criticism.Cambridge University Press, Cambridge,2002. XXViii + 371 pp. Notes. Bibliography.Timeline. Index. I00 b/w illustrations.?65.oo. ATthe time thistext was writtenit was a verybraveventure.In the late i 970s, young Soviet academicsdid not wiselystrayoutside an officiallyagreedpredmet 572 SEER, 8i, 3, 2003 of narrowlydefinedtopic andperiod. Farlessdidtheyventureinto structuralist analyses of the Soviet power system in action in any field. But Vladimir Papernywas alreadyin his mid thirties.He had finishedhis industrialdesign trainingwhen he moved into architecturethroughthe invitation and support of two bold mentors in the circles of history and criticismclosely integrated with, and initially somewhat protected by, central groups in the Union of Architects. Their protege was frustrated,as he recounts here, by the refusal of those who had pioneered research into the avant-garde of the 1920S to seek real explanation of how and why 'Soviet architecturewent in a differentdirection' in the thirties (p. xvii). He refused to accept the euphemism 'for reasons everyone is awareof' (ibid.)and plunged into the archivesandperiodjournals to find reasons for himself. Though no one mentions it here, the resulting dissertationentitled 'Soviet architecture I932-54' was not defended in I980 'for political reasons'. But he emigrated to the USA a year later and the manuscriptwas soon being profferedforpublicationin Russian (whichArdis, Ann Arbor, MI, did in I985 as Kul'tura 'Dva')and for translation,which we finallyhave here. The translationis exemplary:readablebut accurate. Occasionally significantphrasesarelost , however.Notably absentfromthisopening account of his frustrationsis the phrase 'forsomeone of my generation' (Ardisedition, p. 9), because the generationalrelationshipsarecrucialhere. Typicallythe young would not perhapscould not recognize the equal courage needed by theirpredecessors,againstwhom he railed, in tacklingthe 1920s. Of course theywere irritatinglycautious.But Paperny'sfaultwas overreaction . He assemblesdetailso eclecticallythatthe resultis somethingwhich, I fear, few can read as more than an evocative journey through a looking glass. Names are poured out on the assumption that his...