Soviet public diplomacy
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ORIGINAL ARTICLE
Soviet public diplomacy Anna A. Velikaya1,2 Revised: 27 May 2020 / Accepted: 2 November 2020 © Springer Nature Limited 2020
Abstract The research gives an overview of Soviet public diplomacy, and the expectations Soviet people have had for it. In this article we examine how Soviet public diplomacy has contributed to promoting the country’s policy priorities worldwide since the 1920s. In particular, we first reveal how cultural diplomacy was used with the purpose of gaining international recognition and terminating starvation in the 1920s. Afterwards, we examine the practice of increasing the number of Soviet friends and proponents in the 1930s through friendship societies and cultural diplomacy tools. Additionally, the role of public diplomacy in WWII as anti-fascism resistance committees, friendship societies and international broadcasting cooperation of allied nations, including within the sphere of anti-Nazi disinformation, is discovered. Following this, the methods of Soviet public diplomacy during the Cold war confrontation are analysed through people-to-people diplomacy mechanisms, science diplomacy and development assistance to the "non-alignment" countries. Lastly, the target audience of Soviet public diplomacy is defined, along with the analysis of the main Soviet public diplomacy institutions under the lens of their activities. The article states that the Soviet Union had a strong centralized public diplomacy system aimed at the needs of foreign policy. During the Cold war, huge amounts of money were spent on the battle of two ideologies. Dogmatism, the impossibility of critical thinking within the framework of the existing system, closed borders did not contribute to the formation of a favorable image of the country. While internal problems undermined the image and attractiveness of the late USSR, for decades it was successful in winning the hearts and minds of foreign "movers and shakers". Keywords USSR · Soviet public diplomacy · Soviet cultural diplomacy · Science diplomacy · Development assistance · Cold war · VOKS · The state committee for foreign economic relations
Introduction: Public Diplomacy in the Soviet Context The Soviet experience is unique, as the country was a public diplomacy superpower for more than half a century. The Soviet Union was the first country to start targeted broadcasting in foreign languages with its launch in German in 1929, whereas the first BBC foreign-language service was not launched until 1938 with its broadcasting in Arabic. The Soviet Union was actively using all of the tools of public diplomacy: cultural diplomacy, science diplomacy, * Anna A. Velikaya [email protected] 1
Primakov National Research Institute of World Economy and International Relations (IMEMO), Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia
The Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (RANEPA), Moscow, Russia
2
development assistance and citizen diplomacy. While internal problems undermined the image and attractiveness of the lat
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