| Publication |
2011.
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| Summary/Abstract |
During the Russian Civil War, special vehicles visited the vast country's diverse regions as emissaries of central authority. The so-called 'agitational' vehicles carried out the functions of propaganda and agitation, 'instruction' (governance) and surveillance in the pursuit of two overarching, and sometimes contradictory, goals: state building and the radical transformation of society. The Krasnyi Vostok (Red East) expedition to Turkestan in 1920 was exceptional in the degree to which the train interfered in local governance regimes. It sought to win over a Muslim majority that had been terrorized by Soviets formed by Russian colonizers, which had not represented the masses but rather perpetuated racist domination. Ironically, having surveyed the vast gulf between the Bolsheviks' revolutionary gaze and the complex and diverse world in which they found themselves, the Krasnyi Vostok activists concluded that 'socialist colonization' was the essential task in Turkestan.
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