Peace or Pacifism? The Soviet `Struggle For Peace in All the World', 1948-54
Author: Johnston, Timothy1
Source: The Slavonic and East European Review, Volume 86, Number 2, 1 April 2008 , pp. 259-282(24)
Publisher: Modern Humanities Research Association
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Abstract:
This article examines the Soviet `Struggle for Peace in All the World' between 1948 and 1954. The `Struggle for Peace' was a vital arena in the early Cold War within which a new image of the Soviet relationship with the outside world was forged. `Peace' emerged in this context as a shorthand for the USSR's muscular and moral patronage of the oppressed peoples of the world. Soviet citizens responded to the `Struggle for Peace' with great enthusiasm. This enthusiasm has been cited as evidence that the Soviet population were naively duped into accepting a harsh post-war settlement in return for peace. In reality, Soviet citizens were not so passive in their engagement with the late-Stalinist state. Drawing on Kotkin's description of the `little tactics of the habitat' this article suggests that some participants in the Peace Campaigns creatively reappropriated them as a platform for the articulation of their personal grief from the past war and their pacifist sentiments. It also offers some provisional suggestions about how the `tactics' employed by Soviet citizens in relation to the government changed after 1945. The Soviet government could mobilize its population to `Struggle for Peace', but it could not guarantee that they shared its understanding of what `peace' meant.
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