Die erfundene Freundschaft: Propaganda für die Sowjetunion in Polen und in der DDR [The Invented Friendship: Propaganda for the Soviet Union in Poland and the GDR], and: Das sowjetische Massenfest [The Soviet Mass Festival] (review)

Abstract

Reviewed by: Die erfundene Freundschaft: Propaganda für die Sowjetunion in Polen und in der DDR [The Invented Friendship: Propaganda for the Soviet Union in Poland and the GDR], and: Das sowjetische Massenfest [The Soviet Mass Festival] Balázs Apor Jan C. Behrends , Die erfundene Freundschaft: Propaganda für die Sowjetunion in Polen und in der DDR [The Invented Friendship: Propaganda for the Soviet Union in Poland and the GDR]. 438 pp. Cologne: Böhlau, 2006. 9783412230050. €49.90. Malte Rolf , Das sowjetische Massenfest [The Soviet Mass Festival]. 454 pp. Hamburg: Hamburger Edition, 2006. ISBN 9783936096637. €35.00. Interest in symbolic politics and political symbolism in the Soviet Union and Soviet-type regimes in Eastern and Central Eastern Europe has boomed over the last few years. A growing number of scholars have decided to study the symbolic side of such regimes and the way these polities relied on symbolic weaponry to advance their utopian goals. Apart from now-classic studies on communist propaganda, an increasing number of works focus on the symbolic building blocks of socialist regimes and the symbolic policies pursued by the leading political elites.1 More specifically, the topics of these recent publications include political rituals, the culture of heroism, strategies of myth creation, political iconography, and so on.2 Moreover, there is a pronounced tendency to associate Soviet-type regimes and communist ideology [End Page 472] with political religions.3 The two German-language books under review here also belong to the field of symbolic politics and political symbolism in the Soviet Union under Stalin's rule and on the peripheries of the Soviet sphere of influence in Eastern Europe. Jan Behrends's intriguing study, based on his 2005 Potsdam dissertation, concentrates on "friendship propaganda" in East Germany and in Poland between 1945 and 1956. The book focuses on how the political elites in East Germany and Poland tried to overcome the traditionally antagonistic cultural relationship with Soviet Russia by promoting the idea of the friendship of peoples. The popularization of friendship with the Soviet Union in these two war-stricken countries, where historical hostility toward Russia and the Soviet Union was remarkable, was meant to create a sense of fraternity and unity of the peoples under Soviet rule. Behrends provides an interesting analysis of the amount of effort invested in the promotion of the idea of friendship, the range of institutions and party functionaries who were involved in the construction of such an illusion, and the means that were used by the party apparatus in the popularization process. The author puts special emphasis on the discursive features of the friendship propaganda and the way the friendship discourse was invented and shaped by various institutions and individuals according to Soviet expectations. Behrends generally interprets the creation of symbolic ties among Moscow, Poland, and East Germany in the context of Sovietization. He argues that the cult of the Soviet Union was introduced in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe with the aim of consolidating Soviet rule in the region and advancing the utopian ideological goals of Stalin's regime. On the basis of his case studies, the author makes a distinction between different phases of Sovietization: pragmatic and utopian. According to Behrends, during the phase of pragmatic Sovietization (before the takeover of communist parties) the policies pursued by the East German and Polish regimes took into consideration popular political beliefs and expectations (i.e., an appeal to national traditions), whereas in the phase of utopian Sovietization the regime's ideological concerns enjoyed priority, and the populations under control were mobilized accordingly. Without questioning the claim that Sovietization had two distinct phases in Poland as well as in East Germany, it is important to highlight the problems that arise from a collision of the semantic fields of the concepts "pragmatic" and "Sovietization." One is tempted to claim that utopianism is an inherent element of the concept "Sovietization" and thus the phrase "pragmatic Sovietization" is difficult to interpret. It is beyond doubt that the communist parties of Eastern Europe [End Page 473] pursued pragmatic policies with the aim of strengthening their social base, and it is also true that the Red Army often acted in favor of local...