Cultivating the Masses

L. Hoffmann David

Description

Under Stalin's leadership, the Soviet government carried out a massive number of deportations, incarcerations, and executions. Paradoxically, at the very moment that Soviet authorities were killing thousands of individuals, they were also engaged in an enormous pronatalist campaign to boost the population. Even as the number of repressions grew exponentially, Communist Party leaders enacted sweeping social welfare and public health measures to safeguard people's well-being. Extensive state surveillance of the population went hand in hand with literacy campaigns, political education, and efforts to instill in people an appreciation of high culture. In Cultivating the Masses, David L. Hoffmann examines the Party leadership's pursuit of these seemingly contradictory policies in order to grasp fully the character of the Stalinist regime, a regime intent on transforming the socioeconomic order and the very nature of its citizens. To analyze Soviet social policies, Hoffmann places them in an international comparative context. He explains Soviet technologies of social intervention as one particular constellation of modern state practices. These practices developed in conjunction with the ambitions of nineteenth-century European reformers to refashion society, and they subsequently prompted welfare programs, public health initiatives, and reproductive regulations in countries around the world. The mobilizational demands of World War I impelled political leaders to expand even further their efforts at population management, via economic controls, surveillance, propaganda, and state violence. Born at this moment of total war, the Soviet system institutionalized these wartime methods as permanent features of governance. Party leaders, whose dictatorship included no checks on state power, in turn attached interventionist practices to their ideological goal of building socialism.

Sujets

• Former Soviet Union
• Histoire
• Sociology
• Post-Soviet states
• Russia
• History of Europe
• Central
• Russie

Informations

• Publié par: Cornell University Press
• Date de parution: 18 octobre 2011
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780801462832
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 6 Mo

Extrait

CULTIVATING THE MASSES

CULTIVATING THE MASSES Modern State Practices and Soviet Socialism, 1914–1939

DAVID L. HOFFMANN

CORNELL UNIVERSITY PRESS Ithaca and London

Copyright © 2011 by Cornell University

All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in a review, this book, or

parts thereof, must not be reproduced in any form without permission in

writing from the publisher. For information, address Cornell University

Press, Sage House, 512 East State Street, Ithaca, New York 14850.

First published 2011 by Cornell University Press

Printed in the United States of America

Library of Congress CataloginginPublication Data

Hoffmann, David L. (David Lloyd), 1961–  Cultivating the masses : modern state practices and Soviet socialism, 1914–1939 / David L. Hoffmann.  p. cm.  Includes bibliographical references and index.  ISBN 9780801446290 (cloth : alk. paper)  1. Public welfare—Soviet Union. 2. Soviet Union—Social policy. 3. Welfare state—Soviet Union. 4. Socialism—Soviet Union. 5. Soviet Union—Social conditions—1917–1945. I. Title.  HV313.H64 2011  361.94709'041—dc22 2011017389

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Cloth printing

 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

To my son Jonah

Contents

List of Illustrations Acknowledgments Abbreviations

Introduction

1. Social Welfare Cameralism, Social Science, and the Origins of Welfare 19 The Social Realm in Russia 29 Warfare and Welfare 34 The Soviet Welfare State 48

2. Public Health Social Medicine and the State 72 Social Hygiene 86 Foreign Influences on Soviet Health Care 101 Physical Culture and Its Militarization 110

3. Reproductive Policies Birthrates and National Power 126 Contraception, Abortion, and Reproductive Health 135 Promoting Motherhood and Family 143 Eugenics 156 Infant Care and Childraising 168

4. Surveillance and Propaganda Monitoring Popular Moods 182 Wartime Propaganda 187

ix xi xv 1 17

70

125

181

viii

CONTENTS

Soviet Surveillance 195 Political Enlightenment 211 The New Soviet Person 224

5. State Violence Origins of Modern State Violence 242 Internments, Deportations, and Genocide during the First World War 253 The Russian Civil War and the 1920s 258 Collectivization and Passportization 269 The Mass Operations 278 The National Operations 295

Conclusion Archives Consulted Index

238

306

315 319

Illustrations

Fig. 1 British welfare poster, 1930 41 Fig. 2 Soviet antityphus poster, 1921 83 Fig. 3 Soviet hygiene poster, 1920s 92 Fig. 4 Soviet antituberculosis poster, 1920s 95 Fig. 5 French Ministry of War poster, 1918 118 Fig. 6 Soviet physical culture poster, 1930s 121 Fig. 7 Soviet poster of a physical culture parade, 1939 122 Fig. 8 British poster for National Baby Week, 1918 129 Fig. 9 Nazi pronatalist poster, 1938 149 Fig. 10 Soviet poster comparing infant mortality rates, 1923 174 Fig. 11 Soviet poster promoting infant checkups, 1930s 178 Fig. 12 Soviet literacy poster, 1923 214 Fig. 13 Soviet education and literacy poster, 1920 223 Fig. 14 Soviet election poster, 1920s 271 Fig. 15 Soviet poster showing kulak sabotage of collective farms, 1933 282