Distributing condoms on the factory floor: Communists and sexual health in the Netherlands

2021 ◽  
Vol 20 (20) ◽  
pp. 45-78
Author(s):  
Elke Weesjes
Keyword(s):  
Family Planning ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Sexual Health ◽  
Sex Education ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
The Family ◽  
Soviet Ideology ◽  
Heterosexual Sex ◽  
The Cold War

Dutch communists were remarkably progressive in their views on (heterosexual) sex, sex education, contraception and family planning. Many were active members of the Nederlandse Vereniging van Sexuele Hervorming ('Dutch League for Sexual Reform' or NVSH), and were passionate advocates of sexual health, and promoted the use of contraceptives and the legalisation of abortion. This progressive stance on sexuality and contraception was not led by the Dutch Communist Party (CPN). In fact, from the 1940s until the late 1960s, topics related to birth control, sex education and family planning had been given a wide berth in the CPN and its organisations. The CPN seemingly followed the example set by the Soviet Union, where, after a very brief moment of sexual liberation in the early post-revolution years, conservative views about sexuality, the family and household organisation had prevailed. Considering the Dutch party's refusal to address sex education and family planning, it is quite remarkable that so many of its members were such passionate advocates of sexual health. Based on a series of interviews with twenty-five cradle communists, communist archives, and a wide range of other sources, this article explores communists' stance on sexual health, and discusses their roles in the NVSH and the abortion rights movement during the Cold War. It argues that in regard to sexuality and sex education, the ideas of Dutch communists were much more in line with utopian socialist traditions that predated the Russian revolution as well as anarchist traditions carried through to communists, than with the Soviet ideology.

scholarly journals Abortions in Russia Before and After the Fall of the Soviet Union

2004 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 217-228
Author(s):  
Tomasz Wites
Keyword(s):  
Family Planning ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Medical Information ◽  
Initial Section ◽  
Spatial Characteristic ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Family ◽  
Before And After ◽  
Administrative Units

Abstract The initial section of the article elaborates on diverse attitudes towards abortion, and specifies the number of abortions performed before and after the fall of the Soviet Union. The following section presents spatial characteristic of the performed abortions against the largest Russian administrative units. Regional conditioning has been analysed based on the number of abortions per 100 labours and number of abortions among women in labour age (between 15 and 49 years of age). The article also discusses the activity of non-governmental women organisations which aim at providing medical information and participate in the family planning initiatives. Finally, the article presents the rules and conditions of allowing to perform abortion and significant changes in Russian legislation on that issue.

scholarly journals Active and Sharp Measures

2021 ◽  
Vol 23 (4) ◽  
pp. 3-33
Author(s):  
Christopher Nehring
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Great Depth ◽  
Security Services ◽  
State Security ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Intelligence Operations ◽  
The Cold War

Abstract During the Cold War, Bulgaria was a staunch ally of the Soviet Union, and the Bulgarian State Security (DS) service worked extremely closely with the Soviet State Security Committee (KGB) on a wide range of matters, including disinformation operations as well as “sharp measures”—abductions, sabotage, and, most notably, assassinations. Not until the Cold War ended and the DS archives in Bulgaria were made accessible were scholars able to explore these intelligence operations in great depth. Although the lack of access to the KGB's foreign intelligence collections in Yasenevo poses certain limits, the availability of DS collections, including many copies of KGB records, has been a gold mine for Western scholars of Cold War–era intelligence activities. Drawing mainly on Bulgarian archival sources, this article analyzes KGB-DS intelligence cooperation regarding disinformation and “sharp measures.” Among the topics covered are recently disclosed sources on the assassination of the dissident Bulgarian writer Georgi Markov in London 1978 and the assassination attempt against Pope John Paul II in May 1981. The article thus provides historical context for contemporary debates about Russian security services and their strategic use of disinformation and active measures.

At Home among Strangers: U.S. Artists, the Soviet Union, and the Myth of Rockwell Kent during the Cold War

2019 ◽  
Vol 21 (4) ◽  
pp. 175-207
Author(s):  
Kirill Chunikhin
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
World War ◽  
Soviet Culture ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
American Artist ◽  
Soviet Ideology ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Government Promotion

After World War II, Soviet institutions organized many exhibitions of the American artist Rockwell Kent that bypassed the U.S. government. Promotion of Kent's work in the USSR was an exclusively Soviet enterprise. This article sheds new light on the Soviet approach to the representation of U.S. visual art during the Cold War. Drawing on U.S. and Russian archives, the article provides a comprehensive analysis of the political and aesthetic factors that resulted in Kent's immense popularity in the Soviet Union. Contextualizing the Soviet representation of Kent within relevant Cold War contexts, the article shows that his art occupied a specific symbolic position in Soviet culture. Soviet propaganda reconceptualized his biography and established the “Myth of Rockwell Kent”—a myth that helped to legitimate Soviet ideology and anti-American propaganda.

In the Shadow of the Bomb: U.S.-Soviet Biomedical Relations in the Early Cold War, 1944–1948

2007 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
pp. 41-67 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nikolai Krementsov
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
The United States ◽  
Political Conflict ◽  
Nuclear Bomb ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Military Applications ◽  
The Veil ◽  
The Cold War

The deterioration of U.S.-Soviet scientific relations in 1946–1948 traditionally has been seen as simply a consequence of the growing political conflict between the United States and the Soviet Union. Scientific activities with direct military applications—most clearly manifested in the nuclear bomb—have been depicted as the primary motive for a variety of Cold War science policies, ranging from restrictions on international cooperation to the veil of secrecy placed over military-related scientific research. This article explores U.S.-Soviet relations in oncology in 1944–1948 and shows that science became an integral part and an instrument, rather than a mere reflection, of the Cold War confrontation. Science played a central role in the formulation of certain Cold War policies and informed Soviet decision-making on a wide range of policy issues that were essential to the growth of the Cold War. In this context, the symbolic value of science as a propaganda tool became no less important than its military applications.

ACT OF 1981 �ON THE LEGAL STATUS OF FOREIGN CITIZENS IN THE USSR�: BASIC PROVISIONS AND APPLICATION

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
pp. 57-63
Author(s):  
Hanna Siromska ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Sex Education ◽  
Legal Status ◽  
Interdisciplinary Approach ◽  
Political Regime ◽  
Soviet Society ◽  
Political Rights ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Formal Principle ◽  
Wide Range

The article considers the peculiarities of the legal status of foreign citizens in the Soviet Union as a result of legislative changes in the early 1980s. The purpose of the article is to analyze the main provisions and features of the application �On the Legal Status of Foreign Citizens in the USSR� Act of 1981. The research methodology is defined by an interdisciplinary approach (history, law) and is based on general scientific and special scientific methods, first of all, retrospection and legal analysis. The study result that the adoption of the �On the Legal Status of Foreign Citizens in the USSR� Act in 1981 was, among other things, due to the need to regulate the main aspects of the stay of foreign tourists in the Soviet Union as there was a formal principle that foreigners enjoyed the same rights and freedoms and had the same responsibilities as Soviet citizens, unless otherwise provided by current legislation. Due to this provision, foreigners were endowed with a fairly wide range of socio-economic and personal rights and freedoms, as well as certain political rights and freedoms. At the same time, the use of rights and freedoms by foreign citizens and stateless persons in the USSR should not have harmed the interests of Soviet society and the state, the rights and legitimate interests of the citizens of the USSR. The conclusions emphasize that the legal status of foreigners in the USSR was based on the following principles: 1) foreign citizens in the Soviet Union could claim the same rights and freedoms and bear the same obligations as citizens of the USSR; 2) foreigners were treated as equal before the law, regardless of the origin, social and property status, race and nationality, sex, education, language, etc.; 3) certain special restrictions were allowed in respect of citizens of those states in respect of which there were restrictions; 4) the enjoyment of rights and freedoms by foreign citizens in the USSR shouldn�t have harmed the �interests of Soviet society�. At the same time, the formally guaranteed rights of foreigners were not always realized in practice due to the peculiarities of the political regime in the country.

New Materials for Studying Preparation and Staging of the 6th World Festival of Youth and Students in 1957

2018 ◽  
pp. 550-563
Author(s):  
Daniel Sawert ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Central Asia ◽  
Trade Unions ◽  
Soviet Society ◽  
Unique Event ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Archival Documents ◽  
Cultural Standards ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Local Traditions

The article assesses archival materials on the festival movement in the Soviet Union in 1950s, including its peak, the 6th World Festival of Youth and Students held in 1957 in Moscow. Even now the Moscow festival is seen in the context of international cultural politics of the Cold War and as a unique event for the Soviet Union. The article is to put the 6th World Festival of Youth and Students in the context of other youth festivals held in the Soviet Union. The festivals of 1950s provided a field for political, social, and cultural experiments. They also have been the crucible of a new way of communication and a new language of design. Furthermore, festivals reflected the new (althogh relative) liberalism in the Soviet Union. This liberalism, first of all, was expressed in the fact that festivals were organized by the Komsomol and other Soviet public and cultural organisations. Taking the role of these organisations into consideration, the research draws on the documents of the Ministry of culture, the All-Russian Stage Society, as well as personal documents of the artists. Furthermore, the author has gained access to new archive materials, which have until now been part of no research, such as documents of the N. Krupskaya Central Culture and Art Center and of the central committees of various artistic trade unions. These documents confirm the hypothesis that the festivals provided the Komsomol and the Communist party with a means to solve various social, educational, and cultural problems. For instance, in Central Asia with its partiarchal society, the festivals focuced on female emancipation. In rural Central Asia, as well as in other non-russian parts of the Soviet Union, there co-existed different ways of celebrating. Local traditions intermingled with cultural standards prescribed by Moscow. At the first glance, the modernisation of the Soviet society was succesful. The youth acquired political and cultural level that allowed the Soviet state to compete with the West during the 6th World Festival of Youth and Students. During the festival, however, it became apparent, that the Soviet cultural scheme no longer met the dictates of times. Archival documents show that after the Festival cultural and party officials agreed to ease off dogmatism and to tolerate some of the foreign cultural phenomena.

Trust, but Verify

2016 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Arms Control ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
East West

This book uses trust—with its emotional and predictive aspects—to explore international relations in the second half of the Cold War, beginning with the late 1960s. The détente of the 1970s led to the development of some limited trust between the United States and the Soviet Union, which lessened international tensions and enabled advances in areas such as arms control. However, it also created uncertainty in other areas, especially on the part of smaller states that depended on their alliance leaders for protection. The chapters in this volume look at how the “emotional” side of the conflict affected the dynamics of various Cold War relations: between the superpowers, within the two ideological blocs, and inside individual countries on the margins of the East–West confrontation.

The Cold War in the Schools

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Victoria M. Grieve
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
School Experiences ◽  
Civil Defense ◽  
Voluntary Programs ◽  
Exchange Programs ◽  
Science And Art ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
War Experiences ◽  
The Cold War

The Cold War experiences of America’s schoolchildren are often summed up by quick references to “duck and cover,” a problematic simplification that reduces children to victims in need of government protection. By looking at a variety of school experiences—classroom instruction, federal and voluntary programs, civil defense and opposition to it, as well as world friendship outreach—it is clear that children experienced the Cold War in their schools in many ways. Although civil defense was ingrained in the daily school experiences of Cold War kids, so, too, were fitness tests, atomic science, and art exchange programs. Global competition with the Soviet Union changed the way children learned, from science and math classes to history and citizenship training. Understanding the complexity of American students’ experiences strengthens our ability to decipher the meaning of the Cold War for American youth and its impact on the politics of the 1960s.

Ballet in the Cold War

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anne Searcy
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Cultural Exchange ◽  
The United States ◽  
Performing Artists ◽  
Exchange Programs ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Cold War

During the Cold War, the governments of the United States and the Soviet Union developed cultural exchange programs, in which they sent performing artists abroad in order to generate goodwill for their countries. Ballet companies were frequently called on to serve in these programs, particularly in the direct Soviet-American exchange. This book analyzes four of the early ballet exchange tours, demonstrating how this series of encounters changed both geopolitical relations and the history of dance. The ballet tours were enormously popular. Performances functioned as an important symbolic meeting point for Soviet and American officials, creating goodwill and normalizing relations between the two countries in an era when nuclear conflict was a real threat. At the same time, Soviet and American audiences did not understand ballet in the same way. As American companies toured in the Soviet Union and vice versa, audiences saw the performances through the lens of their own local aesthetics. Ballet in the Cold War introduces the concept of transliteration to understand this process, showing how much power viewers wielded in the exchange and explaining how the dynamics of the Cold War continue to shape ballet today.

The Handbook of European Defence Policies and Armed Forces

2018 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
National Security ◽  
Armed Forces ◽  
Blind Spot ◽  
Military Operations ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Security Challenges ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
National Defence

The armed forces of Europe have undergone a dramatic transformation since the collapse of the Soviet Union. The Handbook of European Defence Policies and Armed Forces provides the first comprehensive analysis of national security and defence policies, strategies, doctrines, capabilities, and military operations, as well as the alliances and partnerships of European armed forces in response to the security challenges Europe has faced since the end of the cold war. A truly cross-European comparison of the evolution of national defence policies and armed forces remains a notable blind spot in the existing literature. This Handbook aims to fill this gap with fifty-one contributions on European defence and international security from around the world. The six parts focus on: country-based assessments of the evolution of the national defence policies of Europe’s major, medium, and lesser powers since the end of the cold war; the alliances and security partnerships developed by European states to cooperate in the provision of national security; the security challenges faced by European states and their armed forces, ranging from interstate through intra-state and transnational; the national security strategies and doctrines developed in response to these challenges; the military capabilities, and the underlying defence and technological industrial base, brought to bear to support national strategies and doctrines; and, finally, the national or multilateral military operations by European armed forces. The contributions to The Handbook collectively demonstrate the fruitfulness of giving analytical precedence back to the comparative study of national defence policies and armed forces across Europe.

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