Showcasing the Great ExperimentCultural Diplomacy and Western Visitors to the Soviet Union, 1921-1941

Cultural diplomacy and western visitors to Soviet Russia, 1921-1941

Bibliographic Data

ID23134136
AuthorsMichael David‐fox (0000-0002-6816-7304, corresponding author), Michael David-Fox
Year2011
Pages396
Publication date2011-12-22
Open AccessNo
TypeBOOK
VenueShowcasing the great experiment (SOURCE_BOOK)
PublisherOxford University Press (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199794577.001.0001
OpenAlexW2608787226
Open LibraryOL24809102M
ISBN9780199794577
LanguageEN
Citations received36

This book is a history of the Soviet tours of European and American intellectuals, writers, bohemians, professionals, and political tourists who saw the “Soviet experiment” in the 1920s and 1930s. It provides a new framework for understanding the relationship between intellectuals and communism and the Soviet reception of foreign visitors, including the leading fellow-travelers who praised Stalin and Stalinism in the interwar period. The work is based on a far-reaching analysis of the declassified archives of agencies charged with crafting the international image of the first socialist society, including VOKS (the All-Union Society for Cultural Ties Abroad). The book brings this story into new focus as one of the great transnational encounters of the twentieth century. As many visitors were profoundly influenced by their Soviet tours, so too was the Soviet system itself: the experiences of building showcases and tutoring outsiders to perceive the future-in-the-making comprise a neglected international dimension to the emergence of Stalinism. Probing entanglements between far-left and far-right ideological extremes, the work pays special attention to the covert interaction between communism and fascism, including Soviet attempts to recruit German “National Bolsheviks” and fascist intellectuals. The unprecedented scope of Soviet efforts to mold foreign, particularly Western public opinion created a new chapter in the history of modern cultural diplomacy. Setting the revolutionary regime's innovations in the context of the entire history of foreign visitors in Russia, the book argues that Soviet mobilization for the international ideological contest directly paved the way for the cultural Cold War.

Communism · Context (archaeology) · Diplomacy · Economic history · German · Ideology · Media studies · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Eastern European Communism and Reforms · European history and politics · Historical Geopolitical and Social Dynamics · History · Law · 1917-1936 · American Foreign public opinion · Cultural Policy · European Foreign public opinion · foreign countries · foreign public opinion · Foreign Visitors · Intellectuals · Propaganda · Relations · Soviet Union · Travel · united states · Visitors, Foreign · Western countries

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