scholarly journals Private Matters Become Public: Western European Communist Exiles and Emigrants in Stalinist Russia in the 1930s

2003 ◽  
Vol 48 (2) ◽  
pp. 203-223 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brigitte Studer ◽  
Berthold Unfried
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Gender Equality ◽  
Public Domain ◽  
Private Life ◽  
Party Leadership ◽  
Gender Perspective ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Private And Public ◽  
Party Members

This article looks at the experiences of foreigners in the Soviet Union of the 1930s, focusing on the divide between the public and the private. For Party members it was assumed that nothing could remain private or personal. In sessions of “criticism and self-criticism”, even intimate questions had to be put into the public domain, since a Party member's private life had to be exemplary. From a gender perspective, it is interesting to note that the leading justification for the public handling of private affairs in Party forums was the equality postulated between women and men, or more precisely between female and male Party members. In that sense, these discussions can be interpreted as potential tools in the hands of women to stigmatize “noncommunist” male behaviour, that is behaviour that degraded women. But the official attention given to private matters also served other means. For the Party leadership, these discussions proved instrumental in disciplining Party members, and in a particularly effective way, inasmuch as the persons concerned participated in the process. Despite the assumed gender equality, however, Soviet notions of private and public were not only constantly changing but also highly gendered. During the Terror, women and men became victims in different ways, thereby also highlighting their different social positions and functions.

The Challenges to Social Control in Brezhnev’s Soviet Union, 1964-1982

2021 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 160-173
Author(s):  
Fedor L. Sinitsyn
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Social Control ◽  
Soviet System ◽  
State Archive ◽  
Central State ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Russian State ◽  
The Government ◽  
General Secretary

This article examines the development of social control in the Soviet Union under Leonid Brezhnev, who was General Secretary of the Communist Party from 1964 to 1982. Historians have largely neglected this question, especially with regard to its evolution and efficiency. Research is based on sources in the Russian State Archive of Modern History (RGANI), the Russian State Archive of Socio-Political History (RGASPI) and the Moscow Central State Archive (TSGAM). During Brezhnevs rule, Soviet propaganda reached the peak of its development. However, despite the fact that authorities tried to improve it, the system was ritualistic, unconvincing, unwieldy, and favored quantity over quality. The same was true for political education, which did little more than inspire sullen passivity in its students. Although officials recognized these failings, their response was ineffective, and over time Soviet propaganda increasingly lost its potency. At the same time, there were new trends in the system of social control. Authorities tried to have a foot in both camps - to strengthen censorship, and at the same time to get feedback from the public. However, many were afraid to express any criticism openly. In turn, the government used data on peoples sentiments only to try to control their thoughts. As a result, it did not respond to matters that concerned the public. These problems only increased during the era of stagnation and contributed to the decline and subsequent collapse of the Soviet system.

scholarly journals Characteristics of shadow economy in stagnation era in USSR

2020 ◽  
Vol 2020 (1) ◽  
pp. 65-70
Author(s):  
Ilia Valerievich Mametev
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Shadow Economy ◽  
Russian Society ◽  
State Control ◽  
Illegal Activity ◽  
The Public ◽  
Goods And Services ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Public Consciousness ◽  
The 1960S

The article focuses on the problems of shadow economy, such as the illegal activity, as well as a legal activity hidden from the state control, which became an integral part of the life of the Soviet Union in the period of stagnation. The development of the shadow sector was connected, first of all, with the inability of the command-administrative system to take into account the demands of the population for certain goods and services. There have been examined prerequisites for the emergence of the shadow economy and the stages of its development in the society that built communism in the 1960s–1980s. The shadow economy contributed to the growth of corruption and criminalization, initiated the racket in the 1990s and significantly affected the public consciousness of the Soviet citizens and, later, the mentality of modern Russian society

scholarly journals Moscow Doesn’t Believe in Tears: A Matter of Gender and Fate

2021 ◽  
Vol 34 (3) ◽  
pp. 97-110
Author(s):  
Laia Perales Galán
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Gender Equality ◽  
Political Context ◽  
The State ◽  
Power Dynamics ◽  
Female Characters ◽  
Domestic Sphere ◽  
Gender Dynamics ◽  
Role Morality ◽  
The Soviet Union

This paper offers an in-depth review of the Soviet hit film Moscow Doesn’t Believe in Tears (1979). Focusing on its female characters, it analyses the gender dynamics that prevailed in the Soviet Union at that time and the narrative impact it had on the plot. The article is divided into three subsections: a brief historical and political context, a depiction of the state of gender equality in the Soviet Union, as well as the power dynamics that existed both in the professional and domestic sphere, and a summary of the different femininities portrayed by the characters, along with the role morality and fate played in the film.

Society in Flux

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Simon Wickhamsmith
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Gender Equality ◽  
Technological Innovations ◽  
Social Policies ◽  
Literary Response ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Social ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Motorized Transport ◽  
Livestock Husbandry

Using S. Buyannemeh’s 1936 novella ‘Tovuudai the Herder’ (Malchin Tovuudai) as a basis, this chapter examines the social policies that the Party implemented so as to bring Mongolia into line with the Soviet Union. Through an analysis of the literary response to the unsuccessful policy of collectivization and to the more successful policies surrounding education and livestock husbandry, it shows how changes to the traditional nomadic herding culture – not only in the management of livestock, but in education and gender equality – affected society as a whole. In journeys such as Tovuudai’s, from the far west of Mongolia to the rapidly developing capital Ulaanbaatar, the kind of technological innovations that the Party wished to encourage – motorized transport and electrification – were seen as evidence of Mongolia’s modernization, and writers used the imagery and sensation of spee

Soviet Selves

2019 ◽  
pp. 60-81
Author(s):  
Justine Buck Quijada
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
World War ◽  
Symbolic Form ◽  
Soviet History ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Local Residents ◽  
Religious Actors

Chapter 2 presents the Soviet chronotope embodied in Victory Day celebrations. Victory Day, which is the celebration of the Soviet victory over Germany in World War II, presumes the familiar Soviet genre of history, in which the Soviet Union brought civilization to Buryatia, and Buryats achieved full citizenship in the Soviet utopian dream through their collective sacrifice during the war. The ritual does not narrate Soviet history. Instead, through Soviet and wartime imagery, and the parade form, the public holiday evokes this genre in symbolic form, enabling local residents to read their own narratives of the past into the imagery. This space for interpretation enables both validation as well as critique of the Soviet experience in Buryatia. Although not everyone in Buryatia agrees on how to evaluate this history, this genre is the taken-for-granted backdrop against which other religious actors define their narratives.

The Russian Economy: Putin's Pause

2001 ◽  
Vol 100 (648) ◽  
pp. 336-342 ◽  
Author(s):  
James R. Millar
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
The Public ◽  
Russian Economy ◽  
The Soviet Union

Putin appears to have more in common with Brezhnev than with his more decisive predecessors. Khrushchev, Gorbachev, and Yeltsin risked their positions in attempts to de-Stalinize the Soviet Union. … Putin's rule seems to be more pause than reform, which is, incidentally, what the public wants.

Sino-Soviet Relations, 1964–1965

1966 ◽  
Vol 25 ◽  
pp. 3-143 ◽  
Author(s):  
William E. Griffith
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Point Of No Return

The radical worsening of Sino-Soviet relations began in the spring of 1958 and the “ point of no return ” occurred at the latest in the summer of 1959. Indeed, since 1958 the public dispute has followed a cyclical course of escalation and partial détente. Each cycle has made Moscow-Peking relations worse than before and given other communist parties more autonomy from the Soviet Union. The apparent partial détentes have ostensibly been caused by Soviet and Chinese moves toward reconciliation, but these actually have been tactical maneuvers intended by each primarily to worsen the other's position and to gain support within other communist parties.

scholarly journals The Police System Reform in Georgia (Informal Power its Forms, Types and Spheres of Influence)

2014 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 95-112 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tamar Charkviani
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Major Change ◽  
Theoretical Concept ◽  
The State ◽  
System Reform ◽  
The Public ◽  
Spheres Of Influence ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Legitimate Power ◽  
Police System

Abstract It is a widely accepted notion that the major change brought by the 2003 November revolution in Georgia was the reform of the public services. Two major tasks were to be achieved for the state institutions: to monopolize the use of legitimate power on the state territory and to start providing services to the citizens. Police reform was at the heart of both these objectives. The major obstacle identified on the way of this reform was corruption. Indeed it was widely known that posts in police forces were to be purchased; policemen were involved in organized crime, extortion, and other illegal pursuits. But the corruption itself was the effect of the broader system in which patrimonial system of not distinguishing between the public office and private sphere was hybridized with the legal-rational rule, having its origin in the Soviet Union. The main subject of our research is to analyze the model of informal power network in Georgian police, to describe its configurations and identify its social actors. For the theoretical approach in our study we will use different theories describing informal institutes and the reasons of their existence. One of the main theoretical sources for our analysis will be the theoretical concept of Helmke and Levitsky. Helmke and Levitsky are describing four types of informal institutions which we plan to apply to Georgian police system and identify which of them is more relevant for Georgian reality. Also we will refer to such theories as: Mark Granoveter's strength of week ties and social “embeddedness” of economic action; Mars and Altman's Cultural Basis of Soviet Georgia; Ledeneva's theory of “Blat”, which is one of most popular analytical theory about informal relations in post-Soviet countries. The main methods we have used are in-depth and narrative interviews. The interviews have been conducted with policemen currently working in different police departments, policemen no more working in this structure, expert and NGO representatives.

The Communist Party of the Soviet Union. Party Leadership, Organization and Ideology

1957 ◽  
Vol 16 (4) ◽  
pp. 71
Author(s):  
John Shelton Curtiss ◽  
Boris Meissner ◽  
John S. Reshetar
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Communist Party ◽  
Party Leadership ◽  
The Soviet Union

“It Is a Day of Judgment”: The Peacemakers, Religion, and Radicalism in Cold War America

2008 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 215-248 ◽  
Author(s):  
Leilah Danielson
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
The United States ◽  
Early Years ◽  
Leadership Roles ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Politics Of Resistance ◽  
The Cold War

AbstractThis article argues that Christian beliefs and concerns shaped the political culture of anti-nuclear activism in the early years of the Cold War. It focuses in particular on the origins of the Peacemakers, a group founded in 1948 by a mostly Protestant group of radical pacifists to oppose conscription and nuclear proliferation. Like others who came of age in the interwar years, the Peacemakers questioned the Enlightenment tradition, with its emphasis on reason and optimism about human progress, and believed that liberal Protestantism had accommodated itself too easily to the values of modern, secular society. But rather than adopt the “realist” framework of their contemporaries, who gave the United States critical support in its Cold War with the Soviet Union, radicals developed a politics of resistance rooted in a Christian framework in which repentance for dropping atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki was the first step toward personal and national redemption. Although they had scant influence on American policymakers or the public in the early years of the Cold War, widespread opposition to nuclear testing and U.S. foreign policy in the late 1950s and 1960s launched them into leadership roles in campaigns for nuclear disarmament and peace.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document