'Weapons of mass-instruction'

De rol van geschiedenis in de neergang van de Sovjet-Unie

Samenvatting

History was paramount in Soviet society. Their preoccupation with Soviet history during the late 1980s was grounded in a determination to openly discuss and restructure both the dwindling and dysfunctional Soviet state, as well as its society. The population was heavily invested in the past through personal memories and relations with repression victims. This was further stimulated by the leadership’s focus on history in order to legitimise reform. Similarly, the past offered the population a way to critically discuss the existing arrangements and call for reform. Attempts by the leadership to co-opt history in order to reform eventually contributed to the desintergration of the Soviet-Union. By focusing on the preoccupation with the past, the important role of history during the fall of the Union can be linked to the struggle between elites and masses, between population and leadership, that had characterised the Soviet system from its conception.