Nordost-Institut Conference 2025

Karsten Brüggemann took part in a conference titled Democracy on the border. Failure and Success of Open Societies in Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Ukraine, Belarus and Russia, 1825–2025, organised by the Nordost-Institut in Lüneburg, Germany (15-17 January 2025).

In his presentation, Soft Sovietisation: The ‘Society for the Dissemination of Political and Scientific Knowledge’ in the Estonian SSR (1947 to ca. 1956), he discussed the activities of an organisation subordinated to the Council of Ministers that was responsible for the spread of knowledge about ideological basics, latest inventions in (Soviet) science, and Soviet everyday practices among the citizens of the ESSR. 

Since this union-wide organisation was founded in 1947 exactly at the time when the "League of the Militant Atheists" was closed, "scientific atheism" was one of the cornerstones of ideological propaganda spread throughout the USSR. The Estonian organisation was founded in 1947 and led by Hans Kruus, the famous historian who at that time was also in charge of the republican Academy of Science. The files of the Society analysed so far reveal its ideological flexibity in following the political tide coming from Moscow. Whereas in March 1953, the month Stalin, died more than half of the lectures held in Tallinn's central auditorium carried the leader's name in their titles, Stalin disappeared as soon as November from the titles of the lectures. Quantitatively required to fulfil the plan, the Society also had to check ideological purity. However, in both regards the Moscow central had reason to criticise the Estonian branch who was made responsible for any financial problem even if it was clear that in the end, Moscow had to pay anyway. 

There was thus a verbal capitalist rigorosity introduced in the correspondence between centre and periphery that only in the second half of the 1950s started to be used less. At that time, the Society had expanded its activity and organised annually around 20.000 lectures on various topics ranging from Marxism-Leninism and scientific atheism to history, literature, politics, biology, medicine, nuclear physics, astronomy, Communist moral, and hygiene. A closer examination of the feedback given by the Society to particular lectures is planned for the near future.