80 years ago - in January 1938, the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of the Soviets of Workers ', Peasants' and Red Army Deputies opened file No. 8/56-s, which was called “Letters on the renaming of mountains. Moscow ". The case was immediately classified as "secret" and was considered in the Secret Department of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of the SRKKD.
We are talking about a selection of letters from citizens of the USSR, not only and more often not even so many residents of Moscow, who appealed to the party with calls for the need to change the name of the Soviet capital. It should be noted that this was already the second "stream" of letters about renaming. The first took place in the 1920s - after the death of V. I. Ulyanov (Lenin). Citizens (a group of residents of Tambov), in particular, made a proposal in 1927 on the need to rename the capital of the Soviet Union to "City of Ilyich" (Ilyich) due to the fact that "Moscow is not a Russian name." The State Archives of the Russian Federation contains the original of this printed text, which contains the following words (the original text is presented unchanged):
… “Moscow” in “City of Ilyich”, rightly believing that such a name will tell the mind and heart of the proletariat more than the obsolete and meaningless, moreover, not Russian and not having logical roots - the name “Moscow”.
It is known from the course of history that Moscow was not renamed the City of Ilyich at that time. Moreover, historians are still arguing about the reasons that prompted the authorities to abandon the "people's initiatives". One of the widespread versions - the city of the leader of the world proletariat by that time was already worn by the Northern capital, and to name two capitals after one person (albeit a "leader") is too much. But this is just a version. A short verdict “Do not give a move” has been officially published without explaining the reasons, which, even after many decades, gives rise to controversies about these reasons.
The second wave of letters came in late 1937 and early 1938. The party again had to form an archive of correspondence, which this time literally demanded that officials rename Moscow a city in honor of Joseph Stalin. In the City of Vissarionovich, by analogy with the City of Ilyich, it was not proposed to rename it - instead, options were presented with a play on the word "Stalin" itself. So, one of the most frequent proposals in archival documents sounds like "Stalinadar" ("Stalin's Gift").
Employees of the State Archive of the Russian Federation, based on archival data, believe that the first such proposal appeared at the end of December 1937, and its author is a member of the Bolshevik Party P. Zaitsev. This man, about whose biography virtually nothing is known, sent a letter to the party leadership, stating that the renaming of the capital to Stalinadar would be accepted "with joy by all the working people of the Earth." The "necessity" of renaming it into "Stalin's Gift" was described by the appearance of the USSR Constitution, which is still referred to as Stalin's. The author believed that if the Constitution presupposes the emergence of a new body of state power - the Supreme Soviet, then the new body should take into account Stalin's contribution to its formation, and therefore pay tribute to the "Father of Nations" by naming the capital in his honor.
Following this letter, several more epistolary messages came, in which it was also proposed to give Moscow the name Stalinadar. Moreover, it is in this form of writing. This suggests that the "people's campaign" could well have been orchestrated by representatives of the head of state's entourage in order to gain more support from him in a very difficult historical period.
Among the arguments for renaming Moscow Stalinadar was not only the one associated with the emergence of the Stalinist Constitution. In particular, a variant of argumentation related to the "socialist renovation of the capital" was proposed. It was noted that in the Stalin era, a subway appeared in Moscow, new streets and avenues were designed and created, work was carried out to create a canal (we are talking about the Moscow canal, originally called "Moscow-Volga"), new production facilities were opened.
From a letter from Elena Chulkova dated January 2, 1938 to Nikolai Yezhov (original text preserved):
I am an ordinary Soviet woman … and I am deeply convinced that if I express my thought out loud (about renaming, - author's note), it will be immediately enthusiastically picked up by all the peoples of our Union.
Comrade Chulkova sent Yezhov not only a text in prose, but also poems that "encourage" to rename. Here's a snippet:
Thought flies faster than a bird
Stalin gave us happiness as a gift, And the beautiful capital
Not Moscow - Stalinadar!
However, "Stalinadar", as it turns out, was not the only option as proposals from workers. Despite the fact that for more than a decade the city of Stalingrad was listed on the map of the Land of the Soviets, there were citizens who offered to make Moscow also Stalingrad.
Moreover, absolutely original correspondence came, in which the new name of the capital of the USSR sounded like "Stalen City Moscow". The State Archives of the Russian Federation also stores such a letter. Its author is Polina Golubeva from Kislovodsk, who (judging by the text) did not have a high level of literacy, but possessed, as they say, an "active civic position", and therefore, as it seemed to her (herself?..), could not stay without proposals to perpetuate the Stalinist name even during his lifetime. The facts that Comrade Golubeva did not really know how to spell the surname (pseudonym) of Comrade Stalin, and that Stalingrad already exists, did not prevent her from coming up with a proposal of this nature (the author's text is given unchanged):
Dear Comrade Stalen, please accept my letter
I ask all Steel Saratniks to create Moscow Stalengrad Moscow since Leningrad and Moscow then real Moscow in old Moscow lived all the rot, damn them, we gradually vychistem vso this spawn.
It is known from the archive about the profession of the author of this letter. Polina Ivanovna (the name of the author of the text) worked as a bath attendant in a complex of mineral water narzan baths.
In the end, the capital of the state did not become neither Ilyich, nor Stalinadar, nor Stalen City.
Conspiracy theorists claim that one of the reasons for the removal from the post of the People's Commissar of Internal Affairs Nikolai Yezhov in November 1938 (first with his transfer to the People's Commissars of Water Transport), as well as his subsequent arrest and execution, must somehow be connected with the fact that supposedly it was he who did not launched a "civil initiative to glorify the name of the great Stalin." There is another version among historians. It consists in the fact that the "people's will" to rename Moscow in honor of the head of state was orchestrated in the department of Yezhov himself, and with his active support.
Historians base such a theory on the fact that letters from Soviet citizens (in the 30s) began to arrive at the time when Yezhov was heading the NKVD, and after his resignation from this post, the flame of initiatives was strangely extinguished. In any case, one can only rely on declassified documents - letters with initiatives to change the name of the capital. There may have been other letters as well. But in any case, the initiative did not receive encouragement "from above", and Moscow remained Moscow. Moreover, it would be naive to believe that Stalin himself knew nothing about the initiatives, and therefore it is likely that attempts of flattery and servility were suppressed by him personally, as an earlier attempt to rename the USSR from the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics to the Union of Soviet Stalinist Republics.
