Red Cross or Red Star? The Tension between Humanitarianism and Socialist Internationalism in World War Two Campaigns for British Aid to the Soviet Uni
Lead Research Organisation:
Queen Mary University of London
Department Name: School of Languages Linguistics and Film
Abstract
While aid is often seen in terms of an apolitical humanitarianism (Barnett 2011), World War Two aid to Russia and the Soviet Union was provided from a wide spectrum of the British public. Here, the driving motivation was not so much humanitarian as the explicitly political rationale of solidarity and socialist internationalism. This project seeks to analyse the ways in which these donations were given, solicited, collected and received during WWII, especially through analysis of the various publicity campaigns and filmic representations. The project will examine how the politically driven Communist, Labour and Trade Union exhortations to aid 'Russia' differed from the government-led Red Cross 'Aid to Russia' Campaign, explicitly framed in apolitical and humanitarian terms. Tension between these two approaches was the consequence of government attempts to lead and control popular sympathy for Russia, so as to 'steal the thunder of the left' (Hicks 2018).
Between these two poles, lay the Society for Cultural Relations with the USSR, a formally independent organisation, but with pro-Soviet tendencies. The SCR (now the SCRSS), which as Lygo has shown (2013), reached the peak of its influence and membership numbers during the War, prioritised cultural exchange, itself a crucial part of the publicity for the aid campaigns. A tendency among scholars to ignore the soft power diplomacy of culture and concentrate instead upon the inter-governmental level of high politics has tended to underplay these exchanges, and the aid campaign. Focusing the research on the SCRSS collection (alongside related Russian archives) facilitates a focus on the cultural sphere and the politics of aid. The aim of the project is to approach wartime British attitudes to the Soviet Union from a new angle, relating it to ideas about humanitarian aid, and at the same time supplying a case study problematizing dominant accounts of aid as apolitical and purely humanitarian. The focus on the SCRSS is also intended to broaden debate as to its role as an organisation in the coming years, in particular by making the most effective use of its forthcoming centenary in 2024.
Bibliography
Barnett, Michael N. (2011). Empire of Humanity: A History of Humanitarianism, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
Hicks, Jeremy (2018). 'Was the Left's Thunder Stolen? Soviet Short Films on British Wartime Screens,' Connexe, Les espaces postcommunistes en question(s), 3, 113-32.
Lygo, Emily (2013). 'Promoting Soviet Culture in Britain: The History of the Society for Cultural Relations Between the Peoples of the British Commonwealth and the USSR, 1924-45,' Modern Language Review 108:2,571-596
Between these two poles, lay the Society for Cultural Relations with the USSR, a formally independent organisation, but with pro-Soviet tendencies. The SCR (now the SCRSS), which as Lygo has shown (2013), reached the peak of its influence and membership numbers during the War, prioritised cultural exchange, itself a crucial part of the publicity for the aid campaigns. A tendency among scholars to ignore the soft power diplomacy of culture and concentrate instead upon the inter-governmental level of high politics has tended to underplay these exchanges, and the aid campaign. Focusing the research on the SCRSS collection (alongside related Russian archives) facilitates a focus on the cultural sphere and the politics of aid. The aim of the project is to approach wartime British attitudes to the Soviet Union from a new angle, relating it to ideas about humanitarian aid, and at the same time supplying a case study problematizing dominant accounts of aid as apolitical and purely humanitarian. The focus on the SCRSS is also intended to broaden debate as to its role as an organisation in the coming years, in particular by making the most effective use of its forthcoming centenary in 2024.
Bibliography
Barnett, Michael N. (2011). Empire of Humanity: A History of Humanitarianism, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
Hicks, Jeremy (2018). 'Was the Left's Thunder Stolen? Soviet Short Films on British Wartime Screens,' Connexe, Les espaces postcommunistes en question(s), 3, 113-32.
Lygo, Emily (2013). 'Promoting Soviet Culture in Britain: The History of the Society for Cultural Relations Between the Peoples of the British Commonwealth and the USSR, 1924-45,' Modern Language Review 108:2,571-596
