Abstract
The purpose of this paper is to elucidate the basic ideas, processes, and results of the mass production of balalaika, a three-stringed Russian folk musical instrument with a triangular body, as a case study of Soviet cultural policies in 1920s-30s.
The “Five-year plan” was applied to cultural policies as well as to heavy industries. During the first five-year plan in 1928-32, many balalaika factories were constructed in order to enable the mass production of a standardized instrument. Consequently, in the second plan, 1933-38, the popularization of cheap, high-quality, factory-made instruments was encouraged, and, at the same time, genres of balalaika music were reorganized.
The Lunacharskij's factory in Leningrad, one of the most famous factories of string instruments in the USSR, had already started mass production of modernized balalaika in 1925, which had been improved and fretted chromatically by V. V. Andreev before the Russian Revolution. However, the results of the five-year plans were outstanding. Output of balalaika grew by more than 150 thousand instruments in the 1930s, reaching 210 thousand in 1932. Export of the instrument started in 1934. The growth in productivity was enabled by the systematization of the production process and the training of a qualified labor force. The Soviet government established some institutions for training in musical instrument manufacture during the five-year plans.
From the time of their establishment, Soviet cultural policies aimed at the modernization and urbanization of balalaika music and purged out the “folk” and “peasant” elements that were defined as primitive and harmful to the construction of socialist culture. However, such policies were not completely successful. Ironically, the mass production of the instrument led to the development of folk and peasant balalaika music as well as more urbanized variations. People living in the provinces began to use factory-made balalaika with the traditional tuning, repertoires, and opportunities of performance.
Nowadays, in some Russian villages people who can play the traditional peasant balalaika music can be found. From their performances and stories we can detect another version of history that has not been included in the official history of the USSR.
