“Fetid Breath of Philistines on the Cheek of the Revolution”: Combating the “Petite Bourgeoisie” in the Era of the New Economic Policy

Abstract

   Revolutions are started by ardent supporters of radical ideas, often of an almost religious nature, and they are opposed by carriers of opposite, but equally fervent convictions. But for the majority, radical ideas and global transformations are usually of little interest. As soon as the Civil War ended, this majority of the population of Soviet Russia faced the task of adapting to the new peaceful reality of the NEP. One of the actively used terms in the rhetoric of Soviet Russia in the 1920s for such adaptation is “philistinism”. In pre-revolutionary Russia, this was the name of one of the categories of the urban population, and after the change of system, the only actual meaning of this word was the designation of a seeker of well-being and personal happiness of any gender and age, avoiding following the new communist quasireligion and morality. Oftentimes, sincere “believers” in communism and “philistine” opportunists were forced to either clash or find a compromise within the same family. On the basis of a wide range of media, narrative and sanitary-educational sources, using visual material, we trace the formation of the caricatured image of the “philistine” with its characteristic life adaptation strategies. Among them is mimicry of the carrier of the current ideology (joining the Party, following hybrid quasi-religious cultural practices) in order to build a career or organize one's personal life. The phenomenon of “philistine” adaptation to the state communist ideology will be characterized up to the “Great Break”, when the NEP was abolished, and the political, economic and cultural situation in the country changed dramatically.