ABSTRACT
Berlin and Moscow had more in common in 1914 than is commonly believed. Compared with St. Petersburg, Moscow was the city of business, of technology, of urbanism, just as Berlin was. The breaking of sexual taboos was more dramatic in Russia than in Germany, perhaps because the reins of censorship had been loosened in Russia more suddenly than in other European countries. Perhaps Russian sexual mores had always been freer than German. Moscow incidentally was the first European city after Budapest in which a psychoanalytical institute was founded— there was much less resistance than in Vienna and more interest than in Berlin. Like Berlin, Moscow is an industrial city—15 percent of Russia's industrial output is produced there. The growth of Moscow as a showcase city was promoted under Lenin, Stalin, and their successors, and the cultural position of Moscow vis-a-vis the rest of the country has been infinitely stronger than that of Berlin vis-a-vis other German cities.
