Acknowledgments

Many friends and colleagues have helped to make this book better. Lidiia Alekseevna Pinegina, my academic adviser in the Soviet Union, shared her ideas and research with me; her scholarly generosity was a model of glasnost ' before its time. Jutta Scherrer's continuing interest in my work inspired me to see this book to its conclusion. Kendall Bailes, Jeffrey Brooks, and Richard Stites carefully read the dissertation from which this book emerged; their encouragement and criticism led me to rethink many parts of the manuscript. Peter Kenez and Richard Sakwa gave incisive responses to several chapters. I was very fortunate to have a wonderful dissertation committee whose assistance continued long after I received my degree. Nicholas Riasanovsky offered many useful suggestions for turning the thesis into a book. Victoria Bonnell approached both the dissertation and the manuscript with a keen critical eye; her comments have greatly improved the final product. Most of all, I would like to thank Reginald Zelnik for his friendship and tireless commitment to his former students. His meticulous reading of the manuscript enriched this book in both form and substance.

I am indebted to the following institutions: the International Research Exchanges Board, which funded a research trip to Moscow; Temple University, for providing me with a summer stipend; and the American Philosophical Society, for research funding. I was fortunate to receive permission to

work in Soviet archives when that was still an unusual occurrence, and the staff of the Central State Archive of Literature and Art deserves credit for its cheerful assistance. Both Edward Kasinec, of the New York Public Library, and Hilja Kukk, of the Hoover Institution for War, Revolution, and Peace, went far out of their way to help me.

Sheila Levine of the University of California Press has been a model editor, and I wish to thank her for her constant enthusiasm for this project. The Indiana University Press has kindly allowed me to reprint parts of my article "Intellectuals in the Proletkult: Problems of Authority and Expertise," forthcoming in Party , State , and Society in the Russian Civil War , edited by Diane Koenker, William G. Rosenberg, and Ronald Grigor Suny.

At every step along the way my large extended family—siblings, cousins, aunts, and uncles—provided emotional support and comic relief. Special thanks go to my parents, Helen and Samuel Urton, who encouraged me to pursue what was for them an unusual career. In the last stages of revisions my daughter Nora was born and did much to keep my work in perspective by showing only an occasional interest in the flashing lights on the computer screen. Robert Moeller was part of this project from beginning to end and read more drafts of this book than either of us can recall. His contributions as a historian, critic, and cook were considerable; as a friend, they were even greater.