| Book Review | Labour History, 96 | The History Cooperative

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BOOK REVIEW

Sheila Fitzpatrick and Carolyn Rasmussen (eds), Political Tourists: Travellers from Australia to the Soviet Union in the 1920s-1940s, Melbourne University Press, Melbourne, 2008. pp. xiv + 312. $49.95 paper.

If post-Soviet Russia attracts tourists, it is largely for cultural or sight-seeing purposes. In the earlier decades of Soviet Russia, however, a good deal of tourism was primarily political, as curious or sometimes disaffected Westerners sought to evaluate 'the Soviet experiment' for themselves. Many did so in a desire to confirm views already held, while others returned with their illusions somewhat dented or largely dissipated. Visitors with a working knowledge of Russian might have been able to see a little behind the façade, but 'guides and interpreters' from such organisations as VOKS (the All-Union Society for Cultural Links with Abroad) and Intourist – to say nothing of more obviously coercive bodies such as the NKVD – served to act as minders who would restrict and control what was actually seen and who was met.

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