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Faded Red Paradise: Welfare and the Soviet City after 1953

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 October 2015

MARK B. SMITH
MARK B. SMITH*
Affiliation:
King's College, Cambridge, CB2 1ST; [email protected]
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Abstract

The provision of social welfare and the shape of the Soviet city profoundly influenced each other, especially in the post-Stalin period. This article explores the relationship between welfare and city in the USSR after 1953 by focusing on four particular urban or exurban spaces: the company town, the microdistrict, the pensions office and the city's rural hinterland. After the ideological visions of the Khrushchev era faded, welfare moved even closer to the heart of Soviet urban life. It determined some of the contours of urban form, while the resulting urban spaces contributed fundamentally to the way that people understood Soviet power and the nature of their citizenship.

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Articles
Information
Contemporary European History , Volume 24 , Special Issue 4: Urban Societies in Europe , November 2015 , pp. 597 - 615
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2015 

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