Russian revolution and the modern welfare state

Abstract

The welfare state is a deliberately designed political and legal social institution that allows a more equal distribution of material wealth, thereby contributing to the preservation of social stability in the society. Despite the fact that the very idea of a welfare state started to be implemented in Europe already in the second half of the 19th century, it was the 1917 revolution in Russia that dramatically intensified this process, ultimately leading to the emergence of a welfare state in the form in which it existed in 1960s and 70s, a period considered to be its “golden age”. If before that the idea of social guarantees for workers was one of the main slogans of the European Social Democracy, which viewed the welfare state as an intermediate stage in the emergence of a socialist society, after the revolution other political forces came to realize the need for large-scale social reforms. It was necessary to take into account, in particular, the extensive use of the example of the Soviet Union in communist propaganda. Despite the problems of the functioning of the Soviet welfare state, the very fact of its existence in the context of the global confrontation between two ideological and political systems made political elites constantly keep in mind the question of the volume and quality of social services, raising the overall level of material well-being of the citizens. Therefore, it can hardly be considered incidental that the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union practically coincided with the full-scale crisis of the Western welfare state.

Keywords:

Russian revolution, welfare state, social justice, Cold War, propaganda, crisis