164. At the orgburo cinema commission, Jolly Fellows came in for severe criticism as “counterrevolutionary” and “muck, hooliganism, false throughout.” Sidorov, “‘Veselye rebiata’—komediia kontrrevoliutsionnaia,” 73–4; (RGASPI, f. 74, op. 1, d. 293, l. 18–20: July 28, 1934), 75 (l. 21: July 29). Iurii Saakov, “Secha v kommunal’noi kvartire,” Iskusstvo kino, 1995, no. 2: 134-44; Salys, Films of Grigorii Aleksandrov, 34. Stalin had the orgburo cinema commission dissolved. Anderson et al., Kremlevskii kinoteatr, 246–7, 248, 252 (f. 17, op. 163, d. 1048, l. 156: Dec. 17, 1934), 252n3 (op. 3, d. 955, l. 57). Shumyatsky showed Stalin a screed in Literarturna gazeta accusing Jolly Fellows of being “great talent wasted.” Stalin erupted and tasked Zhdanov with setting things right. Anderson et al., Kremlevskii kinoteatr, 969–70 (RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 828, l. 69: Nov. 20, 1934); Literaturnaia gazeta, Nov. 18, 1934. On Dec. 11, 1934, when Stalin asked Shumyatsky how things were going he got an earful; the dictator phoned Molotov on the vertushka and inquired about the reserve budget fund and how much extra could be given for cinema. Anderson et al., Kremlevskii kinoteatr, 976–8 (RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 828, l. 77–80).
165. Douglas, Inventing American Broadcasting.
166. In Britain, the number of radios would jump from 3 million in 1930 to 9 million by the end of the decade—three of four British households—while the number of listeners would increase from an estimated 12 million in the 1920s to 34 million by 1939. By the second half of the 1930s, Germany would have more than 9 million radio receivers. Goebbels had noted (Aug. 1933), “What the press was to the 19th century, radio will be to the 20th.” Bowden and Offen, “Revolution that Never Was,” 244–74; Williams, Communications; Bergmeier and Lorz, Hitler’s Airwave, 6, 9.
167. The USSR would have 7 million by decade’s close, including 1.6 million in rural areas. It had planned for far more, but Soviet industry could not manufacture sufficient quantities of vacuum tubes. Inkeles, Public Opinion in Soviet Russia, 243–4, 274–5; Gurevich and Ruzhnikov, Sovetskoe radioveshchanie, chap. 5.
168. Lovell, Russia in the Microphone Age, 101. Small local stations had proliferated, but they were soon obliged to rebroadcast set amounts of Moscow material. Initially, live material predominated, although by 1933 texts for live broadcasts had to be submitted in advance, and programs were monitored for compliance. Goriaeva, Radio Rossii, 157; Goriaeva, “Veilkaia kniga dnia,” 91–2 (RGASPI, f. 17, op. 114, d. 558, l. 9–10: July 9, 1935), 93 (GARF, f. A-2306, op. 60, d. 79, 84: Dec. 27, 1935); Goriaeva, “Zhurnalistika i tsenzura.”
169. Taylor, “Ideology as Mass Entertainment,” 198.
170. Letters to the party propaganda department asked that radio lectures be read more slowly, to allow for notetaking. Lovell, Russia in the Microphone Age, 67 (citing Mikhail Angarskii and Voiacheslav Knushev, “Slovo slushatelei o peredachakh: obzor pisem radioslushatelei,” Govorit SSSR, 1933, no. 12–13: 33–4; GANO, f. 3630, op. 5, d. 54, l. 15–6; GARF, f. 6903, op. 1, d. 49, l. 2, 4, 9). Nazi-era radio featured popular music and comedy as well as anti-Semitic speeches. “Disney, Dietrich and Benny Goodman,” Anson Rabinbach observed, “shared radio time with Goebbels, Göring and the Führer.” Rabinbach, “Imperative to Participate,” 7.
171. Nikolaevich, “Poslednii seans,” at 22.
172. Ivanov, Ocherki istorii rossiisko (sovetsko)-pol’skikh otnoshenii, 195; Dolinskii, Sovetskaia kinokomediia tridtsatykh godov, I: 11.
173. Zil’ver, Za bol’shoe, 22–49, 58–80 (quote at 72).
174. Sovetskoe Kino, 1935, no. 1: 9; Taylor and Christie, Film Factory, 348–55 (Leonid Trauberg). See also Shumiatskii, Kinematografiia millionov, 7.
175. Maksimenkov, Kremlevskii kinoteater, 257–61 (RGASPI, f. 17, op. 3, d. 958, l. 15, 45–7; op. 163, d. 1051, l. 90–4); Pravda, Jan. 12, 1935; Sovetskoe kino, 1935, no. 1: 11–2; Fomin and Deriabin, Letopis’ Rossiiskogo kino, II: 315–6. See also Miller, Soviet Cinema, 22–3.
