History 305

Devine

Fall 2006

Discussion Questions for November 27th

Walter L. Hixson, Parting the Curtain (Chapter 7)

1. How did the Communist party attempt to combat the American National Exhibition in Moscow even before it had opened? What negative, anti-American measures did it employ? What positive pro-Soviet measures did it employ?

2. How did the Soviet propaganda machine describe the planned “model home” at the exhibit?

3. What kinds of giveaway items did the Soviets ban at the fair? Why? What items did Soviet visitors walk off with in large numbers? What might this tell us?

4. Why were Soviet stores better stocked with consumer goods during the run of the American fair?

5. How did the Soviet authorities treat their own citizens at the fair?

6. In the estimation of the American officials, what was the best American exhibit at the fair? Why? How did the Soviets attempt to counteract it?

7. With what types of questions did Soviet agitators hound the American guides on a daily basis? Were they effective in discrediting the exhibition? Why or Why not?

8. Why were the remarks left in comment books a suspect measure of the fair’s popularity with Soviet citizens?

9. At the IBM computer display, what two subject areas did visitors ask about most frequently? What did these two areas reveal about the Soviet people’s interests and concerns?

10. What disappointed Soviet visitors about the fair? What exhibit in particular came under harsh criticism by Premier Nikita Khrushchev?

11. Did the U.S. press report the fair as a success or as a failure? How did the USIA judge the exhibition? Did the fair change things in Moscow?

Alan M. Ball, Imagining America: Influences and Images in Twentieth-Century Russia (Chapter 6)

1. What was different about the way in which American rock and roll was made available to the Soviets, as opposed to three decades of jazz? Why the change?

2. Although they were hungry for Western goods and ideas, why might Soviets have been a little skeptical of Voice of America broadcasts and the publication Amerika?

3. The author contends that the American military buildup of the early 1980’s was not the most crucial factor in the destruction of communism. What does he credit instead?

4. What explains the popularity of American movies in the Soviet Union in the late 80’s and early 90’s?

5. What American soap opera became a sensation in the Soviet Union? Why? How did watching American television reruns affect the behavior of Soviet viewers?

6. Why did a Soviet official describe the long wait outside McDonalds as “a holy communion?”

7. When confronted with negative portrayals of American society (crime, poverty, unemployment, racial injustice) what were Soviet viewers apt to focus on?

8. What did Khrushchev finally admit in his memoirs? In 1990, when his memoirs were published, was this feeling out of step with most Russians?

9. To what purpose did regime officials hope to apply American technology and cultural techniques during the height of Soviet power? How had this goal changed by the time of Gorbachev?

10. Why did the older generation of Russians have a less favorable view of Americans in 1992 than the younger generation? Why does the author think that a similar survey taken in the early 1920s would have skewed exactly the opposite way, meaning older people would have been more favorable?