The USSR as a “Great Power”: Imperial Narratives and the State’s Status, 1920–1935

Abstract

This article analyses the adaptation and re-semantisation of the “great power” concept in Soviet public discourse between 1920 and 1935. The actualisation of the “great power” concept in the public discourse of this period was associated with the need to comprehend the USSR in the system of international relations, the one of “great powers”. After the First World War and the revolutionary events of the early twentieth century, Russia was excluded from the European system of international relations, and the USSR had to fight for the recognition of the new state formation. Simultaneously, the new authorities had to defend their positions within the country. In addition, the new state was in a complex relationship with the legacy of the Russian Empire. Denying numerous imperial attitudes at the ideological level, the USSR had to deal with old institutions, including the diplomatic and authoritative language of Imperial Russia. At the same time, new goals required revision of inconvenient intellectual constructs. The author aims to establish how the “great power” concept was rethought and appropriated by the Bolsheviks and the Soviet authorities after the 1917 Revolution and the Civil War (1917–1922). The author identifies several main stages of rethinking the concept in public discourse and, based on an analysis of the press, proves that the “great power” concept was only partially resemanticised. It acquired new semantic connotations (primarily ideological) while retaining a significant part of the previous pre-revolutionary attitudes. The author reveals that from the early 1920s, there were attempts to assign the “great power” status to Soviet Russia. During this period, the great-power narrative was re-actualised and stabilised. The main factor confirming the “great power” status is the country’s internal successes.