Cold War Fetishism: Objects of Ideology in the Wende Museum Collection

Session Submission Type: Roundtable

Brief Description

The collection of Cold War era artifacts from the Eastern Bloc housed at Los Angeles’ Wende Museum embodies the ideological tension between the socialist and capitalist blocs during the 20th century. Such mass produced items as household goods, furniture, and commemorative objects not only made socialist ideals tangible to the populace but also stirred bourgeois aspirations for aesthetically pleasing, luxury-like possessions. This paradoxical fetishization facilitated the integration of state emblems into spaces traditionally reserved for family heirlooms or religious keepsakes, thereby covertly endorsing the dominance of Soviet communism and advancing its ideological narrative. By using a theoretical framework developed by Slavoj Žižek, we aim to examine the dual role of these objects as articulations of ideology, which aligns with Freud's interpretation of fetishism, whereby the power attributed to objects by individuals constitutes a projection of their unconscious; this, in turn, parallels the Marxist critique of “commodity fetishism.” In this context, personal attempts to infuse objects with meaning conflicted with the enforced reality of communism, enmeshing individuals in the workings of both the collective and the state. The artifacts at the Wende thus exceed their practical functions, becoming symbols that transcend personal, gender, and generational boundaries. We will explore how the production and consumption of these goods in the Eastern Bloc materially disseminated its ideological program and why this was crucial for maintaining the allure of Soviet communism while simultaneously downplaying its oppressive aspects and symbolically confronting the capitalist bloc.

Sub Unit

• Arts I: Visual Culture, Material Culture, Applied and Fine Arts

Chair

• Roman Koropeckyj, UCLA

Roundtable Members

• Ilya Budraitskis, UC Berkeley

• Cooper Rebeck Lynn, UCLA

• Marianna Petiaskina, Harvard U