Raised from ruins: Restoring popular allegiance through city planning in Sevastopol, 1943-1954

As the Soviet Union entered the post-World War II era it faced a number of challenges, chief among these a crisis of loyalty. The long-suffering Soviet population had endured revolution, civil war, the social dislocation of collectivization and industrialization, purges, and a foreign war. Through an analysis of a plethora of archival documentation in Moscow and Sevastopol and an examination of Sevastopol's buildings and blueprints, this work seeks to clarify how and why the Soviet regime sought to fulfill past promises of a better and brighter future based on a mythologized past and present.;Sevastopol, as the capital of the Black Sea Fleet, demanded extraordinary attention. Local officials flooded ill-informed Moscow with data on the long German siege and occupation that had left only the shell of a city; more than 90 percent of the housing and infrastructure was damaged from what many considered a misguided war against the Nazis. Stalin and his regime, therefore, embarked on a dual program of accommodation and agitation in an effort to quell domestic turmoil.;Accommodation encompassed a vast range of social welfare programs designed to revitalize the as-yet-unhonored social contract. Widows received pensions, the poor attained grants, and single mothers secured long-term assistance. Education, health care, transportation, recreation, entertainment, and nourishment formed the core of this postwar strategy to rebuild a popular base of support.;Agitation sought to convince the local population in Sevastopol that the glorious socialist future had arrived. The massive building projects inspired a sense of confidence in the USSR's economy; mass participation in construction created esprit de corps; neo-classical stone temples to socialism evoked feelings of stability, longevity, strength, and power. Sevastopol gained a unique identity within the larger Soviet framework from hundreds of monuments to past heroes.;Despite heroic attempts at accommodation and agitation, however, the Soviet Union could not secure allegiance in the midst of poverty and repression---generations passed, fewer residents had a direct connection with the rebuilding task, and the socialist economy failed to meet the population's consumer demands.