The Last Soviet Mega Event: The XII World Festival of Youth and Students in 1985 in Moscow

Abstract

This article characterizes foreign policy and the cultural and diplomatic aspects of the XII World Festival of Youth and Students (Festival-85) that was held in Moscow from July 27 to August 3, 1985. Based on various sources, including archival and published documents, press materials, and eyewitness accounts, the author examines the place and role of this mega-event in Soviet cultural diplomacy in the final stage of the Cold War. The present projection of the festival program had anti-imperialist rhetoric directed against the USA and other capitalist countries, aggravated by military-political opposition of the two blocks in Afghanistan and Latin America in the mid-1980s. In designing images of the past, main attention was been paid to justifying the key role of the USSR in the victory in World War II and to raising historical parallels between fascism and American imperialism. The Soviet Union was positioned as the unique center for consolidation of anti-imperialist forces capable of solving mankind’s global problems, such as the threat of a new world war, uneven and unstable economic development, and racial, national, and political discrimination. At the same time, freedom of festival communication was limited, and the Soviet side aimed to avoid discussion of “loaded questions” connected with events in Afghanistan and the restriction of the rights and freedoms of Soviet citizens. Also, despite the aspiration to show socialism’s absolute advantages and exclusive merits of the “new Soviet person,” Soviet leaders could not solve several organizational problems that drew attention of the western press.