Soviet Mobilization Practices in the Sphere of Maintaining Public Health and Providing Medical Care (Second Half of the 1940s – 1950s)

The author draws on the concept of social mobilization to analyze post-war practices in the fi eld of sanitary provision and public health protection. The article highlights the problems of the activities of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Society of the USSR, the formation of sanitary activists at various levels, the popularization of the donor movement and the involvement of the population in mass campaigns for the improvement and cleaning of urban areas. In the interaction between state and public bodies in the sphere of Soviet healthcare, features characteristic of a “mobilization model” with a predominance of consolidation-type campaigns were identifi ed. The author emphasizes some features of the Soviet system related to its desire to use mobilization mechanisms of various structures in solving sanitary problems: the Red Cross Society, party and state institutions, the administration of enterprises, schools, trade unions, and the Komsomol. The study allowed the author to conclude that in the postwar period there was a tendency towards depletion of mobilization resources, which led to a transition from a focus on mass enthusiasm to a broader use of administrative levers of pressure. Traditional forms of mobilization practices were preserved, but the ideological component of the discourse associated with sanitary provision and health preservation was reduced, and the emphasis was increased on solving practical situational problems. Activism and voluntary participation of the Soviet leadership, doctors and population in mass campaigns were combined with elements of resistance, coercion, and imitation of activity. There was also a desire to move from extraordinary methods and mass campaigns to systemic work and routinization of sanitary provision and health preservation practices, but these attempts were not successful during the period under review.