Soviet Soft Power in Poland

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368 pp., 6.125 x 9.125, 19 halftones, 9 graphs, 3 tables, appends., notes, bibl., index

Hardcover ISBN: 978-1-4696-2089-3
Published: June 2015
Paperback ISBN: 978-1-4696-5478-2
Published: August 2019
E-book EPUB ISBN: 978-1-4696-2090-9
Published: May 2015
E-book PDF ISBN: 979-8-8908-4339-5
Published: May 2015

New Cold War History

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Awards & distinctions

Special Mention, Best Foreign Language Publication, Polish Minister of Foreign Affairs' Historical Competition

Concentrating on the formative years of the Cold War from 1943 to 1957, Patryk Babiracki reveals little-known Soviet efforts to build a postwar East European empire through culture. Babiracki argues that the Soviets involved in foreign cultural outreach tried to use “soft power” in order to galvanize broad support for the postwar order in the emerging Soviet bloc. Populated with compelling characters ranging from artists, writers, journalists, and scientists to party and government functionaries, this work illuminates the behind-the-scenes schemes of the Stalinist international propaganda machine. Based on exhaustive research in Russian and Polish archives, Babiracki's study is the first in any language to examine the two-way interactions between Soviet and Polish propagandists and to evaluate their attempts at cultural cooperation. Babiracki shows that the Stalinist system ultimately undermined Soviet efforts to secure popular legitimacy abroad through persuasive propaganda. He also highlights the limitations and contradictions of Soviet international cultural outreach, which help explain why the Soviet empire in Eastern Europe crumbled so easily after less than a half-century of existence.

About the Author

Patryk Babiracki is associate professor in Russian and East European history at the University of Texas-Arlington.
For more information about Patryk Babiracki, visit the Author Page.