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Volunteers Across Cold War Borders

Solidarity and Socialist Internationalism

  • Open Access
Volunteers Across Cold War Borders cover

Volunteers Across Cold War Borders

Solidarity and Socialist Internationalism

  • Open Access
Quantity
Pre-order. Available 10 Dec 2026
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Description

Building on recent advances in our understanding of the history of internationalism in the socialist world, this open access book explores how far the practices of international solidarity were underpinned by voluntarism in multiple contexts. As a fundamental component of everyday life in socialist societies, from the Bolshevik revolution onward, the concept drove a myriad range of activities from shock work and Stakhanovism to local fundraising for civic projects. Through a mixture of compulsion, enticement, social pressure and full-on enforcement alongside popular enthusiasm, it was socialist citizens that drove internationalism; paying for it by donating money, joining solidarity committees or attending meetings.

Drawing upon a range of examples and with an expansive geographical focus, this edited volume will return voluntarism to the fore of studies of socialist internationalism, opening up new pathways in the study of the topic and shedding light on the everyday realities of such practices. While existing studies have drawn attention to the official, state-led iterations of internationalism, this volume will instead zoom in on the ordinary citizens who made it happen.

The ebook editions of this book are available open access under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 licence on bloomsburycollections.com. Open access was funded by University of Graz.

Table of Contents

Introduction: Toward a Social History of Internationalism and a Global History of Voluntarism, George Bodie and Ana Kladnik (Goldsmiths, University of London, UK and University of Graz, Austria)

1. Arisen from Ruins: International Solidarity, Voluntarism and Mobilisation in the early German Democratic Republic, George Bodie (Goldsmiths, University of London, UK)
2. The Red Cross Society of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam: Solidarity and Nation Building in Vietnam (1946-1976), Marie Cugnet (University of Fribourg, Switzerland)
3. Practices and Socio-Political Ecosystems of Anti-Colonial Solidarity in Yugoslavia: From Algeria to Guinea-Bissau, Jelena Ðureinovic (University of Vienna, Austria)
4. Development Voluntarism and Re-Imagined Solidarities in Early Post-Colonial Tanzania
Michael Jennings (SOAS, University of London, UK)
5. The Soviet Vision of Humanitarianism and the International Red Cross Film Festival in Socialist Bulgaria (1965–1977), Severyan Dyakonov (University of Fribourg, Switzerland)
6. Negotiating 'Suitable' Forms of Activism: Student Contributions to Yugoslav Non-Aligned Internationalism, 1964-71, Helena Stolnik Trenkic (University of Cambridge, UK)
7. Solidarity and Voluntary Cultural Exchanges during the global Cold War. 1960s African Correspondence to Romania in the IRRCS archives, Domnica Gorovei (University of Bucharest, Romania)
8. Sisters in Solidarity: The Solidarity Work of the Hungarian Women's National Council During Late Socialism, Réka Krizmanics (Bielefeld University, Germany)
9. Actors of Socialist Solidarity: Cuban Internationalists in Angola and Worker-trainees in European socialist States, Claudia Martínez Hernández (University of Vienna, Austria)
10. Vernacular Internationalism, Solidary States, Collective Feelings:
(Re)Thinking International Solidarity and Voluntarism from the Aftermath of State Socialism, Tanja Petrovic (Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts, Slovenia)
11. Cuban Medical Internationalism: The Anti-Imperialist Roots of 'Voluntarism' and Solidarity, Helen Yaffe (University of Glasgow, UK)

Product details

Bloomsbury Academic Test
Published 10 Dec 2026
Format Hardback
Edition 1st
Pages 256
ISBN 9781350541733
Imprint Bloomsbury Academic
Illustrations 10 bw illus
Dimensions 234 x 156 mm
Series Histories of Internationalism
Publisher Bloomsbury Publishing

About the contributors

Anthology Editor

George Bodie

George Bodie is Lecturer in European History at Go…

Anthology Editor

Ana Kladnik

Ana Kladnick is a MSCA Fellow at the University of…

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