«A Mighty Weapon in the Class War»: Proletarian Values, Tourism and Mass Mobilisation in Stalin’s Time

The article contextualises the 1920s Soviet project of «proletarian» tourism in contemporary debates on mass cultural politics. Juxtaposed both to established Western and Soviet practices, the project of «proletarian» tourism tried to bridge the gap between self-organised, «grass-roots» tourism and the hierarchic character of Soviet mass organisations. Anticipating the ideology of Stalin’s cultural revolution, the idea of «proletarian» tourism and the creation of a mass volunteer organisation seemed congenial, yet the analysis of the institutional history displays the many obstacles that the realisation of the project encountered. When the regime declared the achievement of the great social transformation in the mid-1930s, the project of «proletarian» tourism was unceremoniously abandoned. However, some of the ideological notions of «proletarian» tourism displayed a remarkable resilience in Soviet debates, while behind the ideological smokescreen of political correctness a largely self-organised grass-roots tourism saw an astonishing revival in the post-war Soviet Union.