The Proletarian Tourist in the 1930s 91We might label these two infl ections as “proletarian” and “Soviet” tour-
ism. Proletarian tourism represented a subset of Soviet tourism, but not all
proletarians wished to tour in the proletarian manner or to tour at all. Nor did
they all earn their livelihoods as production workers in Soviet industry. This
chapter explores the experiences of tourists in both independent travel and
package tours and shows how in the 1930s, proletarian and Soviet tourists
competed for cultural hegemony and fi scal primacy. By the end of the 1930s,
the Soviet tourist eventually triumphed over the proletarian one, a victory of
comfort over purposeful leisure; but the values associated with proletarian
tourism—health, independence, self-reliance, and knowledge production—
occupied the ideological high ground, privileging the proletarian tourist as
the most authentic Soviet person.Authentically Proletarian: The Independent Tourist
From the beginning, as we have seen, activists touted proletarian tourism
as the best form of vacation, travel that served the nation through knowledge
building and good works, rational rest that provided the laboring body with
ideal conditions in which to restore lost energy, and signifi cantly, travel that
was fun. Both purpose and pleasure competed in an uneasy coalition as the
key element in attracting Soviet citizens to tourism. Proletarian tourists took
on serious tasks as part of their summer vacations. The collection of scientifi c
knowledge emerged as an important rationale for the expansion of tourism:
every tourist group was expected to include exploration for natural resources
in their trip plan, and many set forth armed with specifi c requests to col-
lect specimens for various museums and laboratories. Ten thousand tourists
searched for raw materials in 1932, declared the magazine Turist-aktivist ,
uncovering new resources for the second fi ve-year plan.^5
Tourist self-development began in winter, when travelers would antici-
pate their routes by studying the regions through which they planned to
travel and by learning the languages of the local inhabitants. Otherwise, the
journey would be wasted. “We simply decided to go, in order to spend our
vacation [ otpusk ] more interestingly, and to see new places. This was our
mistake.... Having arrived at a particular settlement, we often didn’t know
what we were supposed to notice, what was most interesting to see.” Prepar-
ing for a journey, poring through guidebooks, and seeking corroborating ad-
vice contributed to the pleasures of modern tourism, creating anticipation as
well as know-how. “Tourist dreams colonize all those other fi fty weeks, when
we are not on vacation,” writes the sociologist Orvar Löfgren.^6
- NSNM , no. 9 (1929): 12; no. 11 (1929): 13; Turist-aktivist , no. 7 (1931): 20; nos. 11–12
(1932); nos. 2–3 (1933): 6; NSNM, nos. 2–3 (1933): 6; no. 12 (1939): 2. - “We simply decided,” NSNM, no. 10 (1929): 12. Recall Urbain: “It is not enough to see,
it is necessary to see well.” L’Idiot du voyage , 65. Löfgren, On Holiday , 7.