All Soviet Zoological officials were regulated according to the Standard Commission for the Debourgeoisification of the Near-Human Creatures Profession (SKOMRZA) from 1921-1928, then by the General Commissariat for Dekulakization Concerning Counter Revolutionary Elements in Livestocking and Agriculture (MOO) after Trotsky’s exile. Following Destalinzation, MOO remained in place but was merged with the General Corn Promotion Directorate for Proletarian Economic Prosperity in Anticipation for the Attainment of Full Communism (SHAM), to create SHAMOO, often referred to in Western sources as “the joint commission”. For most of its history, the joint commission was chaired by botanist Trofym Lysenko. Lysenko was opposed by Anastas Mikoyan on the grounds of insufficient credentials, but due to the contemporaneous conflict between Molotov (backed by Mikoyan) and Khrushchev (backed by Lysenko), Mikoyans complaints were brushed away. According to Khrushchev, Lysenko’s revolutionary conviction was more than enough to make him a successful SHAMOO director regardless of zoological expertise, and Mikoyan didn’t even found Mikoyan Gurevich anyway but just stole the name, a decidedly bourgeois and counter revolutionary action.

After Khrushchev’s ouster by Leonid Brezhnev, the Plenum of the CC of the CPSU decided to simplify SHAMOO’s name to the “corn and livestocking commission”, but retained the previous acronym.

In 1921, Leon Trotsky founded SKOMRZA following complaints regarding the treatment of alleged counter revolutionaries in detention camps established by the RKKA. To counter the complaints of international observers, Trotsky enlisted Lev Kamenev to create a classification of humans according to Scientific Marxism. At the top was the “new Soviet man”, the first certified individual in this subspecies being Mikhail Tukhachevsky (at the time, Tukhachevsky’s lone charge to liberate Ball Bearings Factory #3341 was considered an almost superhuman feat. It should be noted that such heroic actions became far more common during Stalin’s time, with over 4,321 instances of single handed ball bearing factory liberation’s being reported in Pravda during WW2, suggesting that Tukhachevsky’s feat was nothing special at all. Mainstream CPSU historians universally believed that Stalin was the first truly evolved New Soviet Man (FROD), but unanimously changed their minds after 1956). Under the FROD was the proletarian, after him the “NEPman”, a class containing anyone with a net worth of over 3 mules or a plot over 12 acres (excluding party secretaries), and at the bottom were counter revolutionaries, who were to be studied scientifically.

As the renowned 2017 documentary, “Trotsky” pointed out, Trotsky spent much of his early life studying under Sigmund Freud, and wished to dissect the mindset of the counter revolutionary to best understand his enemy. Once Trotsky was exiled, the focus of SKOMRZA (renamed MOO) shifted to providing another legal machine with which to confiscate farm animals and detain accused grain hoarders and those who resisted collectivization. Voluntary mandatory donations of livestock towards the Soviet zoological project, promising zoos for every collective farm by 1938, were contributed to MOO.

After Khrushchev took power, the focus again shifted to emphasize the growing of corn, Khrushchev’s preferred crop. During this period, “corn zoos” were established to present model collective farms to foreigners. MOO, now merged with SHAM to create SHAMOO, reached new heights of funding. It is also during this period that the Zoo Archipelago in Siberia was decommissioned. In 1955, the Soviet Union received its first gift of a Panda from China, which was transferred to SHAMOO custody. In 1967, the Cosmonaut program, desperate to overtake the US in the space race, launched the Panda on Test Rocket R-223. The launch results are still classified, but this put an end to SHAMOO’s first live-animal exhibit, though by some reports corn exhibits continued until they all froze in the Tundra in 1969.

It is often assumed in the West that Soviet zoos were underdeveloped. However, from the above we can see that Soviet zoos had a rich and vibrant history.

Sources:

VI Golovokin. What is to be done?

J. V. Redomirov. SHAM or SHAMOO: The Great Divergence

Lysenko, T. Class Struggle Among Species of Animals: My Scientific Observations.

Edit: part of the bourgeois tradition called April fools.