Volunteers Across Cold War Borders

Building on recent advances in our understanding of the history of internationalism in the socialist world, this open access book explores how far the practices of international solidarity were underpinned by voluntarism in multiple contexts. As a fundamental component of everyday life in socialist societies, from the Bolshevik revolution onward, the concept drove a myriad range of activities from shock work and Stakhanovism to local fundraising for civic projects. Through a mixture of compulsion, enticement, social pressure and full-on enforcement alongside popular enthusiasm, it was socialist citizens that drove internationalism; paying for it by donating money, joining solidarity committees or attending meetings.

Drawing upon a range of examples and with an expansive geographical focus, this edited volume will return voluntarism to the fore of studies of socialist internationalism, opening up new pathways in the study of the topic and shedding light on the everyday realities of such practices. While existing studies have drawn attention to the official, state-led iterations of internationalism, this volume will instead zoom in on the ordinary citizens who made it happen.

The ebook editions of this book are available open access under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 licence on bloomsburycollections.com. Open access was funded by University of Graz.