Trust and distrust in Soviet Russia
With the support of EU funding, the FORCEDTRUST project achieved important results. Adopting a multidisciplinary approach, extensive reviews of the theoretical literature on trust and distrust were carried out. Both published and non-published sources were collected and analysed. Examples of the first instance include letters from laymen to Soviet authorities, newspaper articles, party documents and propaganda literature on trust. Russian central and regional archives were examined for original, non-published sources such as letters from citizens to state and party leaders. The findings have been published in two leading peer-reviewed journals relative to the field of Russian/Soviet studies. The first is titled 'The regime of forced trust: Making and breaking of emotional bonds between people and state in Soviet Russia', and the second 'Symbols of power in rituals of violence: The personality cult and iconoclasm on the Soviet Empire's periphery'. Another research outcome is the monograph ''The best friend of the German people': The Stalin cult in East Germany, 1945-1961'. This is due for publication in 2014 by the Moscow-based publisher ROSSPEN in its long-standing series titled 'History of Stalinism'. FORCEDTRUST also completed two chapters for a forthcoming book on the history of trust and distrust with Soviet Russia as a case study. Project activities included the organisation of an interdisciplinary panel, 'At the boundary of trust and distrust: The shifting of normality and deviance in Soviet Russia'. This took place at the ASSEES Annual Convention in New Orleans in November 2012. A peer-reviewed international conference, 'Trust and distrust in the Eastern Bloc and the Soviet Union, 1956-1991', was also organised and hosted at University College London in July 2013. FORCEDTRUST succeeded in boosting networking opportunities and establishing a solid foundation for future research collaborations and ongoing knowledge transfer. The knowledge generated has contributed valuable insights regarding trust and distrust with deep roots in early modern European history.
Keywords
Trust, emotional bonds, citizens, state, propaganda, distrust
