Retailing the revolution: the State Department Store and Soviet society in the 1920s

Journal of Social History, Summer, 2004 by Marjorie L. Hilton

A 1926 newspaper article entitled "Under GUM's Glass Heaven," presented a vision of socialist retailing and consumption that depicted ordinary Soviet citizens indulging in the pleasures of shopping in the fabulous Red Square premises of the State Department Store (Gosudarstvennyi Universal'nyi Magazin or GUM). (1) The article opened with a description of GUM's giant display windows, exhibiting "everything needed to clothe and feed a person," from suspenders to forks, starched shirts, brilliant patent-leather shoes, stockings in all colors of the rainbow, and "proud, brilliant" primus stoves. In short, hundreds of wonderful things that drew the attention of passersby. Inside shoppers bustled and browsed, treating themselves to purchases made possible by the workers' credit program. (2) The author noted among the clientele a "thick-set peasant," who stood for a long time longingly stroking a sheepskin coat. Turning the purchase over and over in his mind, the peasant tried on the coat five times and even smelled it before finally deciding to buy it. Working-class women and office girls thronged the women's ready-to-wear department, trying on clothes for hours in front of mirrors. This lighthearted scenario suggests the importance of a Soviet-style consumer culture in the building of socialism. When the Bolsheviks took power in October 1917, they had among their goals the redistribution of wealth and the re-education of the population in more cultured, rational modes of living and working. These two fundamental goals were interrelated, touching all spheres of life, including the activities of buying and selling. Given that people bought and sold goods on a daily basis and that the purpose of retailing was to organize the distribution of consumer goods among the population, the retail sector of the economy was seen as a prime arena for reform. Its recreation was especially urgent, given that wholesale and retail activities had previously been in the hands of small, private vendors and large-scale capitalist merchants.

Yet, as the opening scene indicates, the revolution meant more than simply taking the means of distribution out of the hands of private merchants and re-educating the population. In terms of everyday life, the revolution meant bringing the comforts and delights of life to those previously denied them. The emergence of a consumer culture entails the mass production of standardized goods for widespread purchase, the development of mass forms of retailing, as well as the establishment of promotional techniques and attitudes that glorify the acquisition of consumer goods as a means to achieving happiness and establishing identity. A consumer culture also presupposes an affluent society in which a large sector of the population has the income and/or credit to consume goods above a minimum subsistence level and the luxury of selecting one good over another. (3) In order to achieve a socialist society in which workers and peasants enjoyed the material and cultural benefits of urban, industrial society and had access to a wonderful world of goods previously unavailable to members of their socioeconomic class, the state was obliged to create places where workers and peasants not simply purchased basic items, but even "shopped" for them and dreamed and fantasized about them. In short, a consumer culture that emphasized the status of the working classes as beneficiaries of modern society had to be constructed.

The importance of liberating state and society from the grip of capitalism and of creating a socialist consumer society was reflected in the conversion of the Upper Trading Rows, the largest and most visible retail site in Moscow, into the State Department Store (GUM). As a model retailer, GUM dedicated itself to "retailing the revolution." In using this phrase, I have in mind several interrelated activities that can be broadly grouped as either instrumental or symbolic: (1) GUM's participation in achieving the regime's socio-economic goals in the marketplace. These included revolutionary struggle against private enterprise, democratizing consumption for the working classes, and establishing efficient and dignified norms of buying, selling, and consumption compatible with a socialist lifestyle; and (2) GUM's utilization of mass marketing, merchandising, and agitational advertising and promotions to publicize those and other of the regime's goals and achievements to the population. GUM integrated these two facets of retailing into its operations, serving as both agent of the creation of a mass consumer society and vehicle for communicating with and educating the public in socialism.

This article interprets the revolution and the attempt to mobilize the population through the recreation of the marketplace and the construction of a Soviet consumer culture by exploring the role and operation of GUM and other state model retail firms during the period of the New Economic Policy (NEP, 1921-28). I argue that everyday, ordinary acts of buying and selling and the marketing of political goals through mass retail firms became central to the creation of a socialist society in the 1920s. The simple act of buying goods from a state retailer became a revolutionary act in itself, deemed fundamental to the installation of new norms and values and, ultimately, the transformation of the economy and society. State model retailers promoted patronage of state stores as a purposeful, rational act in the service of political and economic revolution. Through the creation of nation-wide networks of stores, advertisements, promotional events, and publicity campaigns that appealed to consumers across class, gender, and ethnic lines, GUM played a leading role in recasting the functions and meanings associated with buying and selling.