52 Chapter 1
areas of the Soviet economy, the provision of spa vacations remained woe-
fully underfunded, and the demand for this experience always exceeded the
state’s ability to provide it. This scarcity further enhanced the desirability of
a vacation in one of the country’s health establishments.
This kind of vacation had been packaged and promoted as a uniquely so-
cialist welfare entitlement for every Soviet citizen. In practice, because of
scarcity, agencies disagreed about the appropriate client population. The
trade unions sought to give priority to industrial workers, but as we have
seen, trade union offi cials lost the battle to privilege workers. Health commis-
sariat offi cials sought to give priority to those citizens who were most medi-
cally needy, regardless of social position. They too lost their battle to improve
the nation’s health through the spa vacation. The winners in the vacation
sweepstakes were offi cials, artists, professors, and the military elite, who had
become the new Soviet beau monde of the health resort in the course of the
1930s, relaxing at the best spas and at the most coveted times of the year. But
the legacy of rational, rationed leisure was deeply embedded in the Soviet
system, and as we will see, the purposeful medical side of the Soviet vacation
would regain its authority in the aftermath of the devastating world war that
produced so many victims and so much medical need. The struggle to bal-
ance purpose and pleasure would resume after the war. In addition, postwar
offi cials would reconsider the proper relationship of the health resort system
to the tourist movement. Tourism as a phenomenon had arisen in the 1920s
as a vacation alternative to the kurorts and rest homes. We turn now to this
second element of health-making Soviet leisure travel.