Instructions from the Commissariat of Workers' and Peasants' Inspection divided all those "purged" from the Soviet apparatus into three categories. Those in the "first category" were deprived of their rights to all benefits, pensions, and jobs and were evicted from their apartments. Those in the "second category" were allowed to find work in government organizations other than the kind presently employing them or in another district. Those in the "third category" were demoted, and the demotion was placed on their record. The grounds for purging someone under one category or another were so broad (including "corrupt elements who have perverted Soviet laws or linked up with the kulaks and Nepmen... embezzlers, bribe takers, saboteurs, wreckers, and parasites")1 and so ambiguous that the entire population was intimidated, especially considering the hundreds of thousands of watchful eyes of the "people's purifiers." Besides, the Shakhty trial was still fresh in people's memories.
One of the results of the new policy was the flight of highly placed officials from the Soviet Union and the refusal of some Soviet diplomatic, commercial, and intelligence personnel abroad, where the purge was also conducted, to return to their country. Early in 1928 Boris Bazhanov, who had worked as one of Stalin's assistants since 1923, fled to Persia. Aga- bekov, head of the Eastern sector of the OGPU's foreign department, immediately received the order to kill Bazhanov. While the assassination was being planned, "a telegram arrived from Moscow canceling the 'liquidation' order. ... It turned out that Bazhanov, in his work in Moscow, had not been privy to any important secrets."2 Several months later Agabekov himself fled. Soviet diplomats Bessedovsky, Barmin, Dmitrievsky, and many others stayed in the West.
An important part of the "softening up" process was the new offensive against the church. On April 8, 1929, a law was passed that strengthened the state's control over the parishes. On May 22 an amendment was made to article 13 of the Soviet constitution, which until then had provided for freedom of religion and of antireligious propaganda. Propagation of religion now became a crime against the state. Priests and their families were deprived of civil rights. As "disenfranchised persons" they did not have the right to ration cards, medical aid, or communal apartments. The children of priests were not allowed to attend schools or higher educational institutions. Thus they were forced to renounce their fathers in order to obtain an education or simply to live.
Hundreds of churches were destroyed, including many that were historical monuments. The churches that survived had their bells removed, ostensibly so that their ringing "would not disturb the workers." On August 27 a "continuous work week" was introduced; the seven-day week was abolished and replaced by a new system—four days of work followed by one day of rest. "Utopia has become a reality," exclaimed one enraptured writer. 'The continuous-production week has knocked our time out of its calendar saddle. With the elimination of that sleepy interval, the seventh day, Sunday, the country has entered a state of permanent waking."3 Industry was not really ready for the continuous work week, but the system did have the advantage of eliminating Sunday. The "continuous week" lasted until 1940, when the Soviet government, of its own good will, granted the workers Sunday as a day of rest.
Among the factors that helped create the particular atmosphere of the five-year-plan era and helped forge the new Soviet consciousness, a special place belongs to the "control figures."
The drafting of a detailed five-year plan to transform the economy "required much more information about interindustry links than could be available in the existing state of information and statistics."4 Nevertheless, the plan was drafted in two versions, an initial variant and an optimal variant. Even the initial version was very optimistic. "Miracles seldom occur in economic life," writes one English historian, "and in the absence of divine intervention it is hard to imagine how one would expect simultaneous increases of investment and consumption, not to speak of the output of industry, agriculture, and labor productivity, by such trememdous percentages."5 But scarcely had the optimal figures been adopted than Stalin raised them to a new, unprecedented level. In 1926 Stalin had ridiculed Trotsky's "fantastic" projects, his desire for "super-industrialization," his idea of building a giant electric power plant on the Dnepr. The Dneprostroi project, observed the general secretary at one time, would require enormous resources, several hundred million rubles. This would be, said Stalin, using his own brand of humor, like "the peasant who after saving a few kopeks, instead of repairing his plow, went out and bought a Gramophone."6 By early 1930 Trotsky's figures seemed "shabby" to Stalin. Mensheviks, right- wing Communists, and nonparty members were thrown out of the statistical, economic, and scientific research institutes as "wreckers." Those who replaced them furnished the new figures required of them—and they were astronomical.
The optimal plan provided for coal production to double, from 35 million tons in 1927—28 to 75 million tons in 1932. Stalin's figure was 105 million tons. The corresponding figures for oil were 11.7 million, 21.7 million, and 55 million tons; for iron, 3.2 million, 10 million and 16 million tons. Similar leaps were made in all the control figures for the five-year plan.7 But this was still not enough. In December 1929, a gathering of "shockworkers" (udarniki) called for the fulfillment of the five-year plan in four years. "Five in Four" became the slogan of the day. But this, too, was not enough. Stalin announced that "tempos decide everything." On February 4, 1931, he mentioned the possibility—hence the necessity—of fulfilling the plan in the decisive sectors of industry in three years.
The figures intoxicated not only the formulators of the plans but also those who carried them out, the citizens of the country. It seemed that one more effort, one more factory built, one more dam constructed—and happiness would be there, right around the corner. With one more step they would "catch up with and surpass" the capitalist countries. Mayakovsky added his urgings: "Forward, time!" Stalin warned: "If in ten years we do not cover the distance that other countries took fifty or a hundred years to traverse, we will be crushed." In a popular play of the early 1930s, Fear by Aleksandr Afinogenov, the old professor Borodin, reactionary but reeducated by the GPU, asserts that "the general motivation for the behavior of 80 percent of all those I have investigated [Soviet citizens—M. H.] is fear." The other 20 percent, explains the professor, are the workers, newly risen to a position of responsibility. 'They have nothing to fear; they are the country's masters." But, adds the learned expert, "their mind is afraid for them... the mind of the manual laborer fears excessive strain and develops a persecution complex. They strive constantly to catch up and surpass. And gasping for breath in this endless race, the mind loses its sanity and slowly becomes degraded."
The figures ceased to mean anything; they became a mere symbol of the desire to race forward. Like a balloon they carried the country away into a nonexistent world.