“Imperialist War” in the Bolshevik Memory Policy: The Institutional Aspect (1920–1930)

Abstract

The article explores the institutional aspect of the politics of memory of World War I in Soviet Russia/ USSR in the 1920s and 1930s. The author characterizes the factors playing a special role in the politics of memory and the importance of “reformatting memory” about the war. The role of the most influential actors in the politics of memory, which played a decisive role in the adoption of the concept of “imperialist war” in mass consciousness of early Soviet society, is revealed. These major actors were the Central Committee of the RCP(b)/CPSU(b), the Red Army, and the Comintern. The specificity of activities of the Red Army and Comintern and their interaction in managing mass political campaigns on anniversaries of the war is discussed. The organizational mechanism of mass commemorations devoted to the “imperialist war” was reconstructed on the basis of archival materials of the Agitprop Central Committee of the RCP(b)/CPSU(b), the Agitpropotdel of the Political Administration of the Red Army, and the Agitprop Comintern Department. The special role of “anniversary” campaigns in promoting the concept of “imperialist war”, involving the masses in public commemorations, is explored. The author analyzes the activity of state structures in creating the Associations of World War veterans, the institutionalization and ideologization of their commemorative practices, and displacement of alternative memory narratives. The article characterizes the evolution of the politics of memory andthe adjustment of the concept and change in the use of the image of war in propaganda of the mid-late 1930s.