THE SOVIET AGITATIONAL VEHICLE - STATE POWER ON THE SOCIAL FRONTIER

In the first year of the Russian civil war Bolshevik activists invente d the 'agitational vehicle' to attract the support of peasants and wor kers in politically unstable areas. The festively decorated trains and boats brought prominent politicians and professional speakers, as wel l as political art, literature, and films to the people of the periphe ry. Vehicle personnel also were empowered to investigate the activitie s of local officials, in order to demonstrate in practice that the gov ernment defended the rights of the common people, while simultaneously attempting to transform existing social relations. This paper discuss es the agitational vehicles largely unrealized potential as a means of linking the: processes of stare-building and nation-making. Because o f ideological predispositions and conjunctural circumstances, the Comm unists failed to appreciate the importance of the agitational-vehicle experience as a seed-bed for citizenship. A comparison with post-colon ial Africa indicates that the agitational vehicle could have contribut ed to a development process that would have been much less violent, an d probably less rapid, than the approach that was actually taken by th e regime. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.