Cold War binaries and the culture of consumption in the late Soviet home

Abstract

Cold War Binaries and the Culture of Consumption in the Late Soviet Home "The Kremlin has made concessions to consumers, but Russia is far from being a consumer society," reported New York Times Moscow correspondent Hedrick Smith in his 1976 book The Russians (Smith, 1976, p. 105). His doubts notwithstanding, Smith dedicated a chapter to Soviet consumption. Its title juxtaposed two seemingly incompatible concepts: "Consumers: the Art of Queuing". Thereby Smith followed a Cold War convention that still underpins retrospective accounts today: if western commentators acknowledged Eastern Bloc consumption as a legitimate object of study at all, they characterized it in terms of paradox, associating it with sacrifice, austerity, and scarcity, and with patient, passive waiting for goods. While western consumer culture was synonymous with superfluity, indulgence and redundancy of consumer choice, the USSR and its satellites were described as "societies of shortage" that were structured by "dictatorship over needs." Relations with goods were defined by necessity rather than choice, desire, image and semiosis; by nature rather than culture; and by central command rather than decentralized demand (

Marketing and the Cold War: an overview

“…It pluralises the way we reflect on any given subject, adding nuance where there was little before, and encourages us to reconsider assumptions that we have previously taken for granted. Specifically in terms of our focus, it fosters a sceptical stance towards the prevalence of Americanisation, cultural imperialism and the empirical validity of Cold War binaries, and focuses our attention on the growth of overt marketing and black-market activities within communist countries and the willingness of the Soviet state to ignore them in preference for securing its legitimacy (Amerian, 2015;Castillo, 2005;McDonald, 2010;Millar, 1985;Reid, 2002Reid, , 2016.…”

“…Stalin's demise in the mid-1950s marked a major turning point for the Soviet marketing system, its satellites, and the customer (Amerian, 2016;Pence, 2001;Reid, 2016). It was appreciated that heavy industry could not continue to receive disproportionate attention whilst the citizenry were ignored.…”

“…As Reid documents in her oral historical study, the depiction of the Soviet Union as marked by austerity, a political will to deny consumerism and its seductions, long queues, waiting lists, and lack of access to appropriate provisions is not a totally accurate picture of day-to-day consumer existence. After Stalin's demise, consumption figured more prominently in the calculations of politicians and bureaucrats: "The post-Stalin regime…undertook to raise mass living standards…Consumer goods were granted greater priority in economic planning" (Reid, 2016). While this movement would ebb and flow, later governments did pursue a consumerist oriented policy with more vigour and success than was the case previously.…”

The history of conspicuous consumption in the United Kingdom: 1945-2000

“…Also, not explicitly financial factorssuch as cultural values and particular sub-cultures (pop revolution and counterculture in the 1960s and 1970s)challenged or reinforced individuals' tendency to signal wealth for social positioning. Consequently, this paper indicates the capacity of historical marketing research in uncovering and explaining how structural economic changes and cultural factors (Mittelstaedt and Mittelstaedt, 2006;Reid, 2016) have influenced consumers, consumer culture and marketing technologies of the past. Considering conspicuous consumption as a diachronic and universal type of social and visible behaviour, further historical research of the phenomenon, in other countries, can provide a subtle and sophisticated awareness around the evolution of economic trends, public perceptions towards affluence and changing cultural lifestyles.…”

“…Also, not explicitly financial factors -such as cultural values and particular sub-cultures (pop revolution and counterculture in the 1960s and 1970s) -challenged or reinforced individuals' tendency to signal wealth for social positioning. Consequently, this paper indicates the capacity of historical marketing research in uncovering and explaining how 24 structural economic changes and cultural factors (Mittelstaedt and Mittelstaedt, 2006;Reid, 2016) have influenced consumers, consumer culture and marketing technologies of the past.…”