duty, and noble ideals of communism.”17
The first group of cosmonauts—twenty young fighter pilots—all had
similar social and professional backgrounds. Born (with few exceptions)
in 1933 through 1935, they witnessed the horrors of World War II but
were too young to participate in the war. A few, like Gagarin, lived under
Nazi occupation. Many, like Gagarin, came from peasant families and
had modest schooling. Most went to a military aviation school right after
graduating from high school. By the end of 1959, when they were selected
into the cosmonaut corps, most of these young men had served in the
Air Force as fighter pilots for only two to three years and had the rank
of senior lieutenant. Only two had graduated from Air Force academies;
just one had training as a test engineer. Most cosmonaut trainees had
82 Slava Gerovitch
little flying experience. Gagarin, for example, accrued only 230 hours of
flight time. Sixteen of twenty were ethnic Russians. After the Ukrainian
Vladimir Bondarenko died in an accident and the Tatar Mars Rafikov was
expelled from the corps for misconduct, only two non-Russians remained
in the group.18 Major General Leonid Goregliad, who participated in the
cosmonaut selection, remarked that for all cosmonauts, the life story was
the same.19
Turning a group of young pilots, inexperienced in public relations,
into professional spokespersons for Communism required a serious ef-
fort. As the Cosmonaut No. 2, German Titov, confessed, he was “very
afraid of journalists. After all, we were trained to fly into space, not to
speak at various official or improvised press conferences.”20 Lieutenant
General Nikolai Kamanin, an Air Force official in charge of cosmonaut
selection and training, carefully scripted cosmonauts’ public appear-
ances, wrote their speeches, rehearsed them, and corrected their “errors.”
In particular, Kamanin staged Gagarin’s first public appearance before
the Soviet leadership at Vnukovo airport and wrote the sixty-six-word-
long report that Gagarin was to give to Khrushchev. Kamanin and Gaga-
rin spent thirty minutes rehearsing it. Kamanin posed as Khrushchev,
as Gagarin was getting his intonation just right. Kamanin was satisfied
with the training, noting self-contentedly that he had seen an oratory po-
tential in Gagarin even before the flight.21
Kamanin used his experience of being a cultural icon of the Stalin
era as a model for his efforts to shape the cosmonauts’ public persona.22
Kamanin was a legendary Soviet aviator, a household name in the Soviet
Union in the 1930s. In 1934 he was among the first recipients of the new-
ly established title of Hero of the Soviet Union for the daring air rescue
of the crew of the Cheliuskin exploration ship, crushed by the Arctic ice.23
Among other famous aviators, Kamanin represented the New Soviet Man
of the Stalin era.24 A decorated air corps commander during World War
II, Kamanin served after the war as first deputy to the Air Force chief of
staff and air army commander. In 1960 he was appointed deputy head of
Air Force combat training for space. Kamanin oversaw the Cosmonaut
Training Center and represented the Air Force in all negotiations over
crew selection and responsibilities in flight. An unabashed Stalinist, he
ruled the cosmonaut corps with an iron fist, demanding strict discipline
and implicit obedience and severely punishing any transgressors, up to
The Human inside a Propaganda Machine 83
expulsion from the corps. The cosmonauts, whose chances for future
flights depended heavily on Kamanin’s favor, were terrified of him.25
Kamanin’s goals did not always perfectly align with the objectives of
Khrushchev’s propaganda apparatus. Outraged by Khrushchev’s attacks
on Stalin and by the vociferous campaigns glorifying Khrushchev’s per-
sonal accomplishments, Kamanin had little sympathy for official political
rhetoric. He knew how to pay lip service to the party line but was adamant
in pursuing his own priority—boosting government support for human
spaceflight. Rather than following orders from above, Kamanin often put
forward new propaganda initiatives. When his military superiors vetoed
his proposal to declare April 12 (Gagarin’s flight anniversary) an official
Cosmonautics Day, he petitioned the Party Central Committee over their
heads. Kamanin arranged for Titov to sign the petition, thus adding the
cosmonaut’s political weight to the proposal, which was accepted.26 While
the Soviet leadership exploited space spectaculars for their political ends,
Kamanin and other leaders of the space program skillfully manipulated
the symbolic capital at their disposal to elicit much-needed support for
the space program from party bosses.
Space propaganda thus had a dual face. It conveyed political and
ideological messages to the masses and at the same time boosted the
legitimacy of spaceflight as an indispensable component of Communism
construction. The new party program proclaimed that “the first trium-
phal orbitings of the globe, accomplished by Soviet citizens . . . have be-
come symbols of the creative energy of ascendant communism.”27 This
not only adorned the image of Communism with space symbolism, but
also asserted the highest ideological value of space exploration and thus
ensured sustained government support for human spaceflight. The can-
onization of April 12 as Cosmonautics Day effectively mobilized various
government agencies in the service of space propaganda. Party directives
instructed that lectures about Soviet space achievements be given at fac-
tories, collective farms, and military units; the radio and television broad-
cast numerous meetings and concerts on space themes; news agencies
distribute reports and visual materials; political and literary magazines
publish special issues; movie studios create films about cosmonauts; and
sculptors erect monuments to Soviet space triumphs.28
Kamanin carefully controlled access to cosmonauts and their public
image. He signed off on publications about cosmonauts, managed their
84 Slava Gerovitch
schedules, and gave permissions for interviews.29 He even critiqued the
work of the sculptor Grigorii Postnikov, who created cosmonauts’ busts
for public display. Kamanin approved Postnikov’s portrayal of the cosmo-
nauts Gagarin, Andrian Nikolaev, Pavel Popovich, and Valentina Teresh-
kova but found fault with the depictions of Titov and Valerii Bykovskii.30
Soviet media gradually shaped a canon of visual representation of
cosmonauts. Illustrated magazines, such as Ogonek, featured the same
types of photographs for every new cosmonaut hero: the hero looking
at his or her photograph on the first page of Pravda; the hero speaking on the phone to the Soviet leadership, informing them of the successful flight and thanking them for party’s loving care; a ritual welcome at
the airport; the hero in childhood; the hero in training, preparing for
the flight; the hero among the friends, fishing or playing chess; the hero
among the family, embracing children. By showing th
e cosmonauts in
everyday situations, the photographs emphasized that heroic deeds were
accomplished by ordinary Soviet people. The cosmonauts were not super-
men; they symbolized the progress of all Soviet people toward the “new
Soviet man,” the dedicated builder of Communism.31
As living symbols, the cosmonauts had to comply with their pre-
scribed image around the clock. A formal set of rules regulated cosmo-
nauts’ daily life. Cosmonauts had to inform their superiors about their
whereabouts every time they left the Cosmonaut Training Center.32 They
had to refrain from alcohol and go to bed at 11 p.m., even if they were on
vacation.33 The authorities often forbade cosmonauts to go on private trips
(for example, to a friend’s wedding).34 They also tried to dictate whether
cosmonauts could take their children with them on vacation.35 Cosmo-
nauts’ appearance also became the subject of strict regulation. The ques-
tion whether Tereshkova, the first woman in space, would be dressed in
uniform or in civilian clothes on her official photo was discussed by the
Party Central Committee. It was decided that the official Soviet news re-
port should not mention her military rank, and Tereshkova had to change
in a hurry.36 On another occasion, when Titov appeared unshaven during
an interview, Kamanin suggested that the interview be cut from a docu-
mentary about the Voskhod mission.37
Kamanin took upon himself not only the formal supervision of the
cosmonauts’ selection and training, but also their moral upbringing. He
did not spare any effort to make the flown cosmonauts conform to their
The Human inside a Propaganda Machine 85
public image as exemplary Soviet citizens, scolding them for marital
troubles and withholding their promotion in rank for drunken-driving
incidents. Kamanin treated the cosmonaut trainees even harsher, expel-
ling several of them from the corps for drinking and insubordination.
Rules for cosmonauts’ behavior during their trips abroad were much
stricter than inside the country, because any incident would be immedi-
ately publicized and it would be more difficult to do damage control. On
all foreign trips the cosmonauts were accompanied by KGB minders.38
Although KGB personnel were routinely attached to Soviet delegations
going abroad, in this case their functions were broader. They not only
watched the behavior of the cosmonauts; they were also on the lookout
to prevent any “ideological provocations,” such as an attempt to photo-
graph a cosmonaut with a bottle of Coca-Cola in the background.39 Once
Tereshkova’s minder had left her to the care of a Soviet ambassador’s wife
for a few hours, and Kamanin was outraged; apparently the KGB watch
was to be maintained around the clock.40
For every trip the Party Central Committee issued specific behav-
ior guidelines and talking points for the cosmonauts. Kamanin himself
drafted those guidelines and, after they were approved by the party au-
thorities, was obligated to enforce his own instructions.41 For example,
when the cosmonauts Pavel Beliaev and Aleksei Leonov were sent to an
International Astronautics Congress, Kamanin told them to act toward
American astronauts “in a friendly manner, but without praise” and to
keep their relationships with the German-American rocket designer
Wernher von Braun “polite but strictly official.”42 Kamanin eliminated
shopping from cosmonauts’ trip schedules, on the ground that this would
“belittle” them.43 When foreign media reported that Gagarin had received
a sports car as a gift from the French, the party secretary for ideology,
Mikhail Suslov, became concerned and advised cosmonauts to be “care-
ful” about accepting gifts out of capitalists’ hands.44
Kamanin skillfully crafted cosmonauts’ speeches abroad, trying to
reconcile contradictory expectations. While Soviet officials insisted on
political propaganda, the locals wanted to see a cosmonaut and not an
overt political agitator. Kamanin privately remarked, for example, that in
his speeches in India, Gagarin “delved into politics more than he should”
and put too much stress on Communist ideology. This probably alienated
some local politicians, who began limiting Gagarin’s public appearances.
86 Slava Gerovitch
Kamanin then advised Gagarin to stick to the basic message of world
peace and cooperation in space.45 Kamanin also pointed out to the cos-
monaut Popovich that some statements he had made on Cuba were indis-
crete. Popovich had said, “We will help Cuba not only here on Earth, but
from outer space as well,” which had sounded like a veiled military threat.
Popovich had also hinted that the Soviet Union was about to launch a
woman cosmonaut, which was still a state secret.46 On another occasion
Kamanin admonished the cosmonaut Leonov for saying that “people
in Greece welcomed us even warmer than in socialist countries.”47 The
warmth of reception was seen as a political indicator, and it had to cor-
respond to the degree of the country’s closeness to the Soviet Union. Cos-
monauts clearly had to learn the ropes of public political speech. Kama-
nin insisted that they had to visit two to three socialist countries before
they could be trusted to go on a more challenging mission to the Third
World, not to mention the capitalist inferno.48
public figures, skilled at oratory and adept at political language. Politi-
cal education was made part of the formal curriculum. The first group
of six candidate cosmonauts, including Gagarin, received forty-six hours
of instruction in Marxism-Leninism, which amounted to 8 percent of
their total training time.49 Under Kamanin’s supervision the Cosmonaut
Training Center introduced a program of enculturation to broaden the
fighter pilots’ intellectual horizons. The cosmonauts went on group trips
to museums, art galleries, and historical sights, visited the Bolshoi and
other theaters, and attended concerts by performers from Czechoslova-
kia, Cuba, and the United States. They listened to lectures about ancient
Greece and Rome, the Renaissance men, Peter the Great, and famous
Russian painters and opera singers.50 The chief of the Air Force, Marshal
Konstantin Vershinin, who often felt embarrassed at meetings with for-
eign dignitaries because of the lack of knowledge of foreign languages,
instructed Kamanin to make sure that all cosmonauts become fluent in
English.51
Cosmonauts’ “private” lives were by no means private. Kamanin in-
sisted that Gagarin and Titov treat their wives with greater respect. In a
domestic dispute between Popovich and his wife, Marina, Kamanin took
the side of the cosmonaut and suggested that Marina, an ace pilot, should
quit flying and devote more time to her husband and daughter—a pro-
posal that made Popovich quite uncomfortable.52 Kamanin took a special
The Human inside a Propaganda Machine 87
interest in the marital plans of Nikolaev, the only bachelor among the
&
nbsp; first cosmonauts, and even introduced him to the daughter of the Soviet
minister of defense, hinting that a marriage to her might prove “useful
for cosmonautics.”53 When Nikolaev’s affections turned to Tereshkova,
however, Kamanin quickly realized that their marriage would also be
“useful for politics and for science,” even though he had strong doubts
about their match.54 In October 1963 he urged Nikolaev to hurry up with
a proposal, since both Nikolaev and Tereshkova were already invited to
visit Hungary together in December, on the assumption that they would
have got married by then.55 Kamanin even suggested setting the wedding
day in late October or early November to avoid conflict with their foreign
trip schedule. Finally the date of November 3 was set by a formal decision
of the party leadership. Kamanin suggested that “the wedding cannot be
just a family affair, for the entire world is interested.”56 Two hundred peo-
ple were invited to a government-sponsored banquet; Kamanin handled
the invitations. The newlyweds spent their honeymoon on a propaganda
trip to India.57
Cosmonauts could not speak publicly in their own words: Kamanin
wrote their speeches, and journalists drafted their articles and memoirs.
Cosmonauts spoke other people’s thoughts and copied other people’s
texts in their own hand before submitting them for publication to pre-
serve the appearance of authorship.58 Tereshkova pointed out to Kamanin
that her ghost-written memoir tells a story of her long-held dreams of
space, while in fact the idea of becoming a cosmonaut had never crossed
her mind before she was invited to take part in candidate selection tests.
Kamanin acknowledged that a journalistic account followed stereotypes
and had many discrepancies, but it was too late to make any corrections if
the book was to be released by the third anniversary of Gagarin’s flight.59
Early cosmonaut biographies were all written on the same template,
likely borrowed from Kamanin’s own 1935 autobiography, written when
he was twenty-six or twenty-seven, about the same age as the cosmonauts.
The biographies featured an obligatory set of points of passage: humble
beginnings, childhood burdened by wartime hardship, encouragement
by the family and teachers, good education paid for by the Soviet state, a