Showcasing the Great Experiment: Cultural Diplomacy and Western Visitors to the Soviet Union, 1921-1941

410 Pages·2011·9.133 MB·English

by  Michael David-Fox

Showcasing the Great Experiment
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Showcasing the
Great Experiment
Cultural Diplomacy and Western Visitors
to the Soviet Union, 1921–1941
MICHAEL DAVID-FOX
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
David-Fox, Michael, 1965–
Showcasing the great experiment : cultural diplomacy and western
visitors to Soviet Russia, 1921–1941 / Michael David-Fox.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978–0–19–979457–7 (hardcover: alk. paper)
1. Soviet Union—Relations—Western Countries. 2. Western Countries—Relations—Soviet
Union. 3. Intellectuals—Travel—Soviet Union—History. 4. Visitors, Foreign—Soviet Union—
History. 5. Propaganda—Soviet Union. 6. Soviet Union—Cultural policy.
7. Soviet Union—Foreign public opinion, American. 8. Soviet Union—Foreign public
opinion, European. 9. Soviet Union—History—1917-1936. I. Title.
DK268.5.D38 2011
303.48’2470182109041—dc22
2011006702
1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2
Printed in the United States of America
on acid-free paper
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For Katja, Jacob, and Nico
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CONTENTS
Preface
ix
Introduction: “Russia and the West” in a Soviet Key
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1. Cultural Diplomacy of a New Type 28
2. Going West: Soviet “Cultural” Operations Abroad 61
3. Th e Potemkin Village Dilemma 98
4. Gorky’s Gulag 142
5. Hard-Currency Foreigners and the Campaign Mode 175
6. Stalin and the Fellow-Travelers Revisited 207
7. Going East: Friends and Enemies 247
8. Rise of the Stalinist Superiority Complex 285
Epilogue: Toward the Cultural Cold War
312
Notes
325
Bibliography of Archival Collections
382
Index
385
vii
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PREFACE
As I made my fi rst visits to the Soviet Union starting in the late 1980s, it was
impossible not to become aware of the extraordinary stature foreigners, espe-
cially visitors from the West, were accorded by almost everyone from the most
humble to the most powerful. My own reception there, particularly as a partic-
ipant in certain foreign “delegations” that still bore the imprint of earlier eras,
gave me some personal insight, even if only on a small scale, into what foreign
travelers experienced when the Soviet experiment was still young: lavish yet
formulaic hospitality, evaluations on both sides, and, yet, also intense unof-
fi cial exchange meaningful to visitors and hosts alike. Th e most recent turn—
from the eff usive post-Soviet opening to the outside world, to a frequently
anti-Western, Putin-era reaction against humiliating treatment as inferiors—
fi ts with almost perfect logic into the long-term patt erns of the Russian histori-
cal process. So did the initial post-Soviet infl ux of Western travelers, experts,
and advisors. Th e idea for this book was born as I became increasingly aware of
the need to analyze continuities in the long history of European and American
interactions with Russia and the USSR that stretched across radical changes
of regime. Looking back, I can see how my personal experiences as a frequent
visitor and foreign resident in Russia contributed, in their own way, to the
original interpretive framework I have developed: to approach the reception
of foreign visitors through the prism of expressions of superiority and inferior-
ity on both sides.
In researching and writing this study, I received an extraordinary amount
of support, which allowed me to make eight research trips to former Soviet
archives lasting a total of about two years. Early on, a National Council for
Eurasian and East European Research (NCEEER) grant gave me two semes-
ters for research. American Councils for International Education (ACTR/
ACCELS) provided unparalleled logistical support during several research
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