Propagating Soviet Socialism West and East during World War II

Session Submission Type: Panel

Brief Description

This panel explores the many ways in which the Soviet leadership used new opportunities created by World War II to propagate Soviet socialism to foreign and domestic audiences. While much attention has been paid to the ways in which ideology and propaganda impacted the central Soviet war effort, less thought has been given to the Soviet Union’s wartime strategies for influencing the outside world or how these ideological concerns were received and understood in remote, peripheral Soviet territories. This panel’s presentations focus on the ways in which Soviet propaganda efforts capitalized on new avenues for targeting foreign audiences abroad, western foreigners within the Soviet Union, and domestic audiences on the Soviet periphery. In particular, the papers discuss the work of Soviet correspondents in the U.S. and the dissemination of Soviet news to foreign audiences, as well as the propaganda of Soviet socialism among Arctic convoy sailors coming to the USSR’s Northern ports and German prisoners of war. Finally, the panel compares these efforts at propagandizing foreigners to Sovietization efforts on the periphery via the child evacuees who brought Soviet principles and culture further east on the home front.

Sub Unit

• History: 1900-1945

Chair

• Harry Merritt, Rhode Island College

Papers

• Agitating Abroad: Soviet Wartime Reporting and Allied Relationships - Erina Megowan, Northeastern U

• Propagating Soviet Socialism among Arctic Convoy Sailors at Arkhangelsk Interclub - Liudmila Novikova, U of Heidelberg (Germany)

• Soviet Antifascist Training of German Prisoners of War during and after WWII - Susan Grunewald, Southern New Hampshire U

• Children as Agents of Sovietization on the Soviet Home Front - Natalie Belsky, U of Minnesota Duluth

Discussant

• Francine R. Hirsch, U of Wisconsin-Madison