FIGHT FOR PUBLIC CATERING: THE ROLE OF THE PROPAGANDA SYSTEM IN CREATING A NEW WAY OF LIFE DURING THE FIRST FIVE-YEAR PLAN

Abstract

The paper analyses propaganda materials which were published in the periodical press during the first five-year plan period and promoted public catering as an alternative to oldfashioned household routines. The author underlines that the Soviet government treated household routine transformation as a prerequisite to women’s industrial involvement. The Soviet government promoted communal living, popularized communal laundry facilities and public catering system. The promotion and popularization of public catering was intertwined with an anti-alcohol campaign and the promotion of cultured leisure. The author analyzes articles published by the Culture and Routine magazine and provincial newspapers. The author investigates the mechanisms of public consciousness transformation via public festivals and “ours vs. theirs” dichotomy. The analysis of the aforementioned articles shows that propagandists tried to equate women’s oldfashioned household routines with hard everyday labour (cooking, cleaning, laundry, child care). Newspaper articles attempted to persuade readers that having individual kitchens was a waste of living space. Newspaper articles promoted public catering, praised well-functioning public canteens and tea houses and censured mal-functioning ones. However, the author maintains that is difficult to objectively assess the effects of the Soviet propaganda, for the Soviet government soon realised that public catering was economically unprofitable and unfeasible.