Militants of the Association Switzerland-USSR and Diplomats at Loggerheads
At the end of the Second World War, the Association Switzerland-USSR was very popular. There was growing demand to renew diplomatic relations with the victorious power who had prevailed at Stalingrad. The advance of the Red Army at the eastern front had left a deep imprint on the collective memory and the end of the war raised hopes for international peace.
1944, a first association, the Society for Promotion and Preservation of Normal Relations between Switzerland and the USSR (“Gesellschaft zur Förderung und Pflege normaler Beziehungen zwischen der Schweiz und der Sowjetunion”) was founded. It was mainly organised around a petition encouraging the Federal Council to renew diplomatic relations with a country, which had turned into a major player on the international scene. Personalities from a wide political spectrum were gathered into this movement. The core group consisted mainly of German artists in exile, like actress Mathilde Danegger, professors of the University of Basel like Fritz Lieb and Elsa Mahler, and members of the Swiss Labour party.
1946, the government decided to reinstate diplomatic contacts, prompted less by the petition than by diplomatic calculation, which aimed to legitimise neutrality while respecting the universality of Switzerland’s international relations. Four years later the same considerations were applied in regard to relations with China.
In April 1945, the society officially became the Association Switzerland – USSR (ASU), then counting 2’500 members. Once diplomatic relations were resumed, many leading figures left this environment. Commercial and cultural perspectives had been drastically reduced by the onset of the Cold War. After these departures, the new association, close to the Swiss Labour Party and the organisation “Work and Culture”, plainly leaned left. A fact which marginalised certain authorities of the Swiss diplomacy, although ASU’s president, Fritz Lieb, remained in regular contact with Max Petitpierre.
Activities of the association, chaired by painter Paul Camenisch in the fifties, steadily decreased inspire of two periodicals published in French and German, congresses and regular events. Very often the gatherings of local sections were organised around a chosen topic and closed with a Soviet movie.
However, its collaboration with the Soviet embassy allowed for some continuation of the relations between Switzerland and the USSR. Several delegations of journalists, physicians, women, and labourers took advantage of these contacts to either travel to the USSR or vice versa come to Switzerland.
At the same time, the association was accused of supporting the “fifth column”, above all during anti-communist demonstrations in 1956, which called for a boycott of cultural relations with the East.
Paradoxically, just then the ASU gained more visibility as East-West exchanges intensified in the context of peaceful coexistence. In Moscow, VOKS, the All-Union Society of Cultural Relations Abroad, managed to introduce reforms which lead the Soviet powers to create a twin association to the ASU under the patronage of the State Commission for Cultural Relations with Foreign Countries. As early as 1961, a yearly reunion was organised in Moscow, often at the Gorky institute, to sign a “cultural agreement” between the two associations, a diplomatic document, which the Confederation refused to sign with any country.
The Political Department saw itself duplicated by an association as unofficial as politically seditious. The ASU for example organised an exhibition of books in Moscow in 1961, modelled on official cultural events. A noticeable improvement of the official cultural relations was not achieved until the architecture exposition in 1968.
Archives :
Sozialarchiv, Zurich : Gesellschaft Schweiz-Sowjetunion Ar 23.
Bibliography :
Gehrig Christine, « Die Anfänge der « Gesellschaft Schweiz-Sowjetunion » », in Brang Peter ; Goehrke Carsten ; Kemball Robin ; Riggenbach Heinrich (Hrsg.), Bild und Begegnung ; Kulturelle Wechselseitigkeit zwischen der Schweiz und Osteuropa im Wandel der Zeit, Helbing & Lichtenhahn : Basel/Frankfurt, 1996, p. 593-633.
Gillabert Matthieu, « L’Association Suisse-URSS dans la Guerre froide : quête de légitimité dans les relations culturelles », in Briegel Françoise, Farré Sébastien, Rites, hiérarchies, Georg éditeur : Chêne-Bourg, 2010, p. 133-145.